Flameout vs post fermentation hop tea addition

[Alan_Reginato]

Hi everyone!

I'm thinking in split a batch of Pale Ale in 2. Half (18 L) goes to the fermenter, cooled by a chiller plate. The other half (18 L) will be top up with 7 L of filtered water and reheated to 95 C. Then add 95 g of CTZ, let it drop until 80 C before cooling.

Both batches will be fermented for 15 days. To the "hopless" one will be add 7L of filtered water, boiled and hoped with 95 g of CTZ at 95 C until fall to 80 C before cooling.

My objective here is compare a straight flameout addition with a post fermentation flameout hop tea addition, or something like that.

What do you think about it? Worth all the hard work? Someone has already did something like that? (And I didn't find in the internet?)

 

[chthon]

I am currently reading about IPA and hops. Seen several recipes from commercial beers, and some do it this, and others that way. I see that both approaches are used (or were used in the past). However, I suppose that making a hop tea is more feasible for home brewers. I have tried it in the past, but I really couldn't compare it. It was definitely not what I hoped for, but I think that was because I probably didn't use enough hops.

Take into account that in case of flame-out hops you will lose beer because of absorption, but that adding a hop tea will dilute the other beer.

 

[Alan_Reginato]

Hi! Yes, I changed a bit the strategy. I was afraid about ending with 50l of underbittered beer, so instead of 2 batches of 25l, I made 3. 1 of 25l and 2 of 7l. The biggest one, normal hopstand. For the other two. 5l of wort plus 2l of hopstand hop tea (?). Boiled filtered water in a pan with lid, turn flame out and added hops (100C), in a hopbag. 30 min, then cooled it. One before fermentation, and other just before bottling. A lot of work involved...

So... The hop tea beer smells and tastes just like the hop pellet. And was bitter as the software predicted. And I can't tell they apart! If there's a difference, neither me, my wife, my brother our my mother notice.

In the other hand, the normal hopstand beer, have less aroma and a different flavour. Like others I did. Maybe, just maybe, because the lid in the pan. It was closed all the time and condensate the vapour inside while in the fridge. So, because of boiling points, I suggest it retains myrcene. It matches with differences between beers and myrcene's characteristics. Anyway, I preferred the normal hopstand beer. Other people didn't like myrcene too, look for dip hoping.

Or was because I did the hopstand in water. Who knows?

Anyway, it works. If you want to increase bitterness and/or flavour in a beer, you can make a hopstand tea, and add at any point of fermentation.

Recipe, I divided in two, because of water addition.

First, the normal hopstand. Scaled from 25l to 36l, because of process. Was the base beer.

The inverted sugar stands for priming sugar.


View attachment 78784
Hopstand tea beer as both test beer. In the end, the status was the same.

View attachment 78785

What you think about it?

Ok, I did it. Was very nice and could be done to increase hop flavour and/or bitterness. I can't tell if there's a difference between adding it before or after fermentation. But certainly works.

 

[clib]

I sometimes do post fermentation hop teas to boost the hops when fermentation has taken out more than I wanted. I think it's similar to a flamout addition. Bit more potent, and more raw. The packaged beer may need a bit of time for this to settle down. Especially the harsher hops.