Hops In Vodka

[puravida]

Anyone tried steeping hops in vodka then adding to beer to 'dry hop'?

 

[Mark1964]

no dont suppose it would cause any harm though except upping the abv a little. What would be the purpose of doing that anyway?

 

[Hawks]

I've heard of it being done for spices and the like for fears of infection, but hops are usually just chucked in a bag ? :hmm:

 

[puravida]

I have a few thoughts on it and here's why I fancy giving it a go:

I expect a purer and punchier hop aroma to be extracted by the vodka than dumping in the beer
I can add a shot of the 'hop juice' to boring beers to brighten them up by the glass
I can 'dry hop' in corny kegs without having to fish the bag bag out

I'm not a scientist but I reckon the hi alcohol content vodka must pull out more of the hoppiness than a lower 5% beer would?

 

[alanywiseman.]

I have been thinking of doing something similar. My plan is to make a hopped sugar solution to batch prime with. I am thinking that this will give the largest and freshest hoppy aroma when I open the bottles.

I am going to try a couple of methods to make the sugar solution. Essentially it will be steeping the hops/short boil or my other thought is to use a perculator/esspresso matchine to try and get a really hoppy tea. The hops will be blened in a food processor before using though.

May be worth blending the hops if you are going to steep them in vodka as well.

 

[RobWalker]

Have you thought about maybe tracking one of these down?

http://www.dogfish.com/store/beer-drink ... all-jr.htm

Adds fresh hops at serving time...

 

[Good Ed]

Rob at the Malt Miller sells pure hop oil for the very purpose, have a look, limited hops mind you.

 

[puravida]

Just done it! 500ml of vodka in a kilner jar with 20g of cascade and 10g of simcoe.
Hops have soaked up the vodka like a sponge!!

Will be buying more vodka tomorrow to fill up the jar!!

 

[puravida]

I completely forgot about this until just now!
I actually ended up steeping about 1L of vodka in the hops.

I'll take some photos, strain and report back shortly.....

 

[Swift Pint]

I've think I heard somewhere that this is the way to go if you want to cook with hops flavours - you get the hop aroma and flavour without the bitterness & the alcohol in the vodka boils off in the cooking.

Let us know how this turns out.

I experimented by putting some left over oak chips in a cheap bottle of vodka - it ended up tasting like cheap whiskey!

 

[puravida]

I have some boring bottles lager in the fridge - I'm going to put a few ml in the glass before I pour one shortly and see what it's like.
Purely for experimentation purposes of course...

The jar smelt amazing incidentally

 

[TheMumbler]

Anyone tried steeping hops in vodka then adding to beer to 'dry hop'?

Not in bulk but I have extracted hop oils into vodka have put a teaspoon into finished beer to hop it up a little which seemed to work OK. I think I left the hops in for about 10 days. I would guess how long will depend on the hops. Higher alpha hops which generally speaking have more hop oil would probably work well and you could probably have them in the vodka for less time. I think you want to have them in long enough to get the oils out but not so long that you extract vegetal tastes but I am extrapolating from advice on dry hopping, not totally sure that it would hold true for extracting into vodka.

1l screw top kilner jars are half price in sainsburys at the moment if you don't have an old jar to hand.