Terpene IPA

[Sourz4life]

Alright, so here it is. I'm planning on making an IPA using the terpenes from Marijuana. Now I don't want this to turn into a discussion about mary jane as that's not what I'm posting this for and neither is this the place for it. Now as some of you probably know, Terpene is the chemical in nature that gives something its smell and also a attributes a bit taste wise as of course smell plays into that. There has been alot of comparisons of the smell of hops to the smell of marijuana. I myself am a legal caregiver and grow marijuana and make my own extracts. I have recently been getting into terpene extractions, the only downside is you don't get much and you have to use alot of product, which is why alot of people haven't started attempting this. Terepene's do not include any THC/CBD so there is none of that affect at play here, just the flavor and smell. My plan is to use the terpenes from different strains to pair with the smell and taste of hops. First off, does anyone have any suggestions on the hop to use. Now here is the kicker as well, terpenes from different stains will smell and taste like that strain so every one is different just like any plant. I'm not a "hop head" so I haven't done much digging into all the hop varieties but wanted some suggestions on something that would pair nicely with something very floral smelling/tasting. My first thought is maybe centennial hops, dry hopped for the aroma to match with. I can tell you as a taste test that I used one of my very pungent strain's terpene extract and added it to a bit of the 120 min dogfish IPA. Holy crap, it not only paired well with it, but it almost tasted like it belonged there. So now my mind is racing thinking of the possibilities. I plan to brew a 5 gallon batch of this once I get it all figured out and will post all the details. As a side note, I don't have a grain bill yet as I wanted to figure out the hops first.

 

[m00ps]

Damnit, I clicked on this thinking you were making an IPA with soooo much hops that it was basically turpentine.

misread fail

 

[Sourz4life]

Sounds brutal, but no =P.

 

[FarmerTed]

There are terpenes in hop extract. Myrcene is a terpene; I'm sure there are others in hops. I would just stick with myrcene-rich hops.

 

[Sourz4life]

In cannabis alone there are 200 known type of terpenes. So I would assume hops is the same. As far as I know there are thousands of types of terpene's that occur naturally in nature. So it seems like the possibilities could be unlimited depending on the terpene contained in the strain of cannabis and hops you're using. Also, from what I've found hops terpenes are very volatile which is why they need to be added late boil if you want the aroma and such. So that'll have to play into this as well.

 

[HIM_Tattoos]

So, this thread was much different than I expected from the title, and I learned something! Since I really don't have knowledge to supply any suggestions, I'll supply a consolation prize of this link providing profiles for hop varieties.....

http://www.homebrewstuff.com/hop-profiles

 

[Sourz4life]

Thanks. I've looked at few hop profile websites so have gotten some good info on that. I just wanted to know if there was any similarities in taste between some strains of cannabis and hops that anyone has noticed in the past.

 

[enokidaki]

Actually I think you should remove all hops completely, especially from a test batch. On one hand you could get an idea of the basic flavors you're dealing with, and I'm betting it would be very close to hop extract anyway.

 

[TravelingLight]

Alright, so here it is. I'm planning on making an IPA using the terpenes from Marijuana. Now I don't want this to turn into a discussion about mary jane as that's not what I'm posting this for and neither is this the place for it. Now as some of you probably know, Terpene is the chemical in nature that gives something its smell and also a attributes a bit taste wise as of course smell plays into that. There has been alot of comparisons of the smell of hops to the smell of marijuana. I myself am a legal caregiver and grow marijuana and make my own extracts. I have recently been getting into terpene extractions, the only downside is you don't get much and you have to use alot of product, which is why alot of people haven't started attempting this. Terepene's do not include any THC/CBD so there is none of that affect at play here, just the flavor and smell. My plan is to use the terpenes from different strains to pair with the smell and taste of hops. First off, does anyone have any suggestions on the hop to use. Now here is the kicker as well, terpenes from different stains will smell and taste like that strain so every one is different just like any plant. I'm not a "hop head" so I haven't done much digging into all the hop varieties but wanted some suggestions on something that would pair nicely with something very floral smelling/tasting. My first thought is maybe centennial hops, dry hopped for the aroma to match with. I can tell you as a taste test that I used one of my very pungent strain's terpene extract and added it to a bit of the 120 min dogfish IPA. Holy crap, it not only paired well with it, but it almost tasted like it belonged there. So now my mind is racing thinking of the possibilities. I plan to brew a 5 gallon batch of this once I get it all figured out and will post all the details. As a side note, I don't have a grain bill yet as I wanted to figure out the hops first.

I'm extremely interested in this as well. I'm curious as to your extraction method(s) for stripping only terps and no CBD/THC? On a different yet related note, I recently read a post on the reddit homebrew of a guy who did a Cannabis DIPA. Basically tossed in a half ounce or so of flowers at flame out. Then did essentially a dry hop with a tincture with another ounce or so. I absolutely want to try this. But that's a lot of bud for a beer.

I definitely see a valencene/citra combo in your future!

 

[Sourz4life]

The extraction method (which I won't elaborate on to much since I would assume the moderators don't want this forum used for this type of stuff) is a bit of a process. You basically distill water that has the product in it. Then use a special coil, and I used a special vac filter that allows terpenes through, some of the water gets through as well. Both drip out of the coil, and the terpene's will float as they are lighter then water. That idea of this is to get all of the flavor with none of the affects for people who aren't into that. I could of course make medicated ones(which I've made 3 medicated batches in the past using IPA's). The only problem I've had with throwing the cannabis along with anything similar to that is the chlorophyll will start to extract from the plant matter at higher temps, and as the alcohol starts to form while fermenting it'll also start to extract more chlorophyll. You'll get basically a nasty green taste from it, and its sticks in your mouth.

 

[TravelingLight]

The extraction method (which I won't elaborate on to much since I would assume the moderators don't want this forum used for this type of stuff) is a bit of a process. You basically distill water that has the product in it. Then use a special coil, and I used a special vac filter that allows terpenes through, some of the water gets through as well. Both drip out of the coil, and the terpene's will float as they are lighter then water. That idea of this is to get all of the flavor with none of the affects for people who aren't into that. I could of course make medicated ones(which I've made 3 medicated batches in the past using IPA's). The only problem I've had with throwing the cannabis along with anything similar to that is the chlorophyll will start to extract from the plant matter at higher temps, and as the alcohol starts to form while fermenting it'll also start to extract more chlorophyll. You'll get basically a nasty green taste from it, and its sticks in your mouth.

That's fascinating. Thanks for the explanation. I agree about higher temps stripping the chloro from the flowers. If I did it I would probably go the dry hop route with a tincture. Keep me updated on this I will be following!

 

[Sourz4life]

That was my plan. I'm going to experiment with a couple things. I'll use the terpene's at different stages to see how it affects flavors, as they can be a bit unstable depending on the environment they are in. I also plan to dry hop with some freshly dried plants as well. And then my final experiment will be hitting it with a blast of the hops and the strain I used to brew it with, in a randall on my keg.