economise your hop use - leftovers from dry hop

[old_git]

I've been searching for an answer on this subject and haven't found great amounts on t'interweb. Where I have found info it has been broken between sites and I have had to piece it together to answer my questions.

I can't remember where I read it but hops which have a dual use can be used as bittering and aroma. The way this is done is first as a dry hop to extract the aroma then they are to be squeezed dryish and stored in the freezer. These hops can be reused as bittering hops and they will also carry a little aroma and some flavour but only in the boil. If they are to be used as aroma/flavour hops they should be put in late in the boil as normal.

What about using leftover hops from a dry hop and then using these to make a hop tea? Has anyone had experience doing this? After this, my guess is you could still save these hops for bittering as even though most of the flavour has been extracted in the hot steep, they will still contain enough alpha acids to bitter wort.

Anyone have any thoughts/experience on this subject? It's a shame to see a pile of hops in the bin/compost without getting every bit of flavour out of them - I'm sure many of you will agree!

 

[Leon103]

Never heard it mentioned on here. Personally I would bother and use fresh/new hops.

 

[nigelnorris]

I'm not sure that it's so hard to find information on the internet, I thought that it sounds like a good idea so I googled it anyway and found loads, including threads on this site.

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=reuse dry hops

Concensus seems to be that it's unpredictable in outcome and since bittering hops are cheap propbably not worth the trouble. I'm always glad to be shown wrong though.

 

[old_git]

Thanks leon and nigel,

I googled leftover dry hops and couldn't find much - reuse is the key word here to get some results back. Nice one

It's something I think of as I reuse as much as possibly, wherever I do things, be it cooking, carpentry, building, writing, you name it. Waste not, want not. Too much in our society is throw away these days and I put that largely down to our conditioning through a consumer-driven culture.
Sure, we could always use new, fresh ingredients. I just choose to economise.

If the beer is going to be entered into a competition or it is an income stream then I understand the need for quality control. Inconsistent results are unwanted in this instance. Everything else, nbd