How do you make your Hop tea?

[YouFUMS]

I'm a relatively new beer-kit brewer, that has dry hopped a couple of brews over the last few months. This has been done by adding hop pellets to my FV when fermentation is almost complete, usually around day 10 and thus allowing 4 or 5 days before racking. The results have been OK.

For my next brew I have 100g of Cascade hop(flower not pellets), that I want to add to a Wilko Hoppy Copper brew. Now I'm pretty sure that I can use a dry hop method as I do with pellets, but I was thinking about a hop tea.
So my questions are; how do you make a hop tea? The quantity of water you use per 100g of hop? Do you use boiling water? Do you then strain off the hop and just pour the tea into your brew? At what point of the brewing process can you add a hop tea?

I have put some searches into the forum, but haven't returned any results, so apologies if I'm asking questions that have been answered a 1000 times.

 

[Sandimas]

I do mine as per the middle stage of the standard AG brewing process (hop boil, hop steep and dry hop) - the hop steep aka a hop tea.

Boiled water will add extra bitterness, so boil up a pan of water (enough to take 100g of hops, so probably a small stockpot) then turn the heat off for 10min or so until the temp has dropped to 80C or less. Then put the hops in for 30mins. After that, strain the liquid and use that liquid to make up the kit, as you would normal water.

I recently pimped Hoppy Copper with some Brewers Gold hops, I divided the 100g hops bewteen boil, steep and dry hop, I did a short boil with some to add some extra bitterness but that's up to you. Came out great.
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=33063&page=10

 

[terrym]

Boil a kettle of water and allow to cool to about 80-85*C.
Weigh out hops pellets and add to a clean sanitised jug.
Add hot water to hops at the rate of about 100ml to 10g hops (much less and you will end up with thick hop porridge, more and you will start to dilute your brew)
Cover jug and allow to cool to room temperature, stirring with sanitised spoon occasionally.
Carefully pour contents of jug into brew from just above the beer level in the FV (i.e.try to avoid splashing)
Job done. :thumb:

 

[Brewdoug]

David Heath did a video about it on his Grainfather YouTube channel

 

[Godsdog]

It makes no significant difference if you boil them for 5 minutes as you won't extract the bitterness in that time,my lhbs was adamant on this and have since tried it and they was proved right

 

[LarryF]

I add a hop tea into all my kit brews and I steep them as detailed above. What I've started buying are the lower AA% hops as the higher AA% will still impart some bitterness and I feel that the kits are pre-bittered to a sufficient degree that all I want from a hop tea and dry hop is hop flavour and no bitterness but I'll see how this goes over my next half a dozen brews.

 

[Druncan]

I use extract hopped/unhopped and use my pressure cooker. Just like this for bitterness;http://www.homebrewtalk.com/bittering-hops-in-15-minutes.html or pressure steep just to the boil then leave 15mins for more aroma. Then I even dry hop with T90 pellets once the brew drops to 1.016 for three days and squeeze the muslin bag to get all the goodness out! (don't like wasting any aroma)

 

[Ciaran12s]

In a cafetiere. Seen it on here. Does a great job. From the kettle five or ten minutes after it's boiled

 

[Slid]

David Heath did a video about it on his Grainfather YouTube channel

Yes indeed, he did!

I would very much endorse it.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTTU4oNvhZI[/ame]

This is the link.

Well worth watching.

 

[YouFUMS]

Thanks for the responses, some varied and interesting ideas.

After taking in the above, my plan of action is this:-
use half of my hops (50g) added to 500ml of boiling water. Godsdog says I can boil them for up to 5 minutes without inducing any bitterness. I can then strain the liquid into my wort on brew day as part of my water additions.
What I will then do is, when I check the gravity after around 10 days of fermenting, have a little taste of the sample and if I feel it needs more hoppiness, then I'll dry hop using the remaining 50g.

thanks again :thumb:

PS. Slid, your link aint working, mate.

 

[David Woods]

This is the link

 

[GerritT]

@Dutto Your expertise is expected?

 

[Ciaran12s]

I've been hop-teain' all my happier brews as of late due to not really having time to dry-hop. All hop teas are added immediately prior to bottling. I currently have a 3 week bottled American IPA, I bottled some of this prior to adding the hop tea for comparison. I'll update with results. Either tomorrow or in 4 weeks time.(so far the comparisons have been a bit crap, probably due to the youth of the beer)

 

[RichK]

I put hops in a bag from a Festival kit, into a mug, then pour on boiling water. Sometimes, I'll also have a mug with a tea bag next to it. Leave for a while, until I remember I've done it, then throw whole lot into fermenter. Drink luke warm tea.

 

[Dutto]

@Dutto Your expertise is expected?

Sorry for the delay.

I usually weigh out the hops (normally 10-15g for a 10 litre Growler) into a 250ml Coffee Cafeteria (bought from Ikea) and then pour in boiling water and let it steep for at least 10 minutes.

After steeping for 10-15 minutes I push down on the Cafeteria filter and pour the hot liquid straight into the Growler.

If the Growler is to be carbonated with CO2 then it is hooked up immediately and left for a week. If it is to be held over for a few weeks then I have already added 1g/litre of sugar to the Growler and it is left to carbonate slightly.

I find that the "hoppiness" stays with the brew a lot longer with a Hop Tea dropped in with the finished brew. It also removes the occasional cock-up that I have encountered with Dry Hopping as per the photograph; which shows the pellicle that developed after the last time I Dry Hopped a brew!

The brew with the pellicle tasted fine for about three weeks but after that ....... !! Which is why I now use a Hop Tea!

Hope this helps.

 

[micklupulo]

I wonder if I could call on your collective wisdom and experience please to solve a bit of a dilemma I have on dry hopping/hop tea. (Those of you who study your San Miguel bottles will know that lupulo means hop!). I want to develop a method of sprucing up kits to give them a nice hoppy tang but not to add any significant bitterness. My intention was to wait until fermentation was almost complete and then dry hop into the FV with about 30g of hops in a fine mesh nylon bag sanitised bag weighted down with a sanitised glass paperweight and leave for four days before bottling. I understand that hops are generally not regarded as being likely to cause an infection and that the presence of alcohol at that stage is in any event likely to combat infection. I note though that Dutto had a bad experience after dry hopping and I think I am right that a pellicle is a sign of an infection and wonder if that is likely after all to have been down to dry hopping. If I were to do a hop tea instead I would steep in a cafetiere at about 65c for 30 mins to avoid any bitterness then compress and drain the liquid to the wort just before bottling. I would find each method equally convenient and obviously my main priority is to avoid infection If hop tea is regarded as safer I can live with a reduction in aroma after a few months and just might have to polish it off quicker! If a quick douse in boiling water would produce only a touch more bitterness but also kill off any bad stuff then maybe doing that before a hop tea would be the answer. Any tips would be most welcome.

 

[GerritT]

I wonder if I could call on your collective wisdom and experience please to solve a bit of a dilemma I have on dry hopping/hop tea. (Those of you who study your San Miguel bottles will know that lupulo means hop!).<>If I were to do a hop tea instead I would steep in a cafetiere at about 65c for 30 mins to avoid any bitterness then compress and drain the liquid to the wort just before bottling. I would find each method equally convenient and obviously my main priority is to avoid infection If hop tea is regarded as safer I can live with a reduction in aroma after a few months and just might have to polish it off quicker! If a quick douse in boiling water would produce only a touch more bitterness but also kill off any bad stuff then maybe doing that before a hop tea would be the answer. Any tips would be most welcome.

Makes sense. Or pour 200 ml boiling water first, wait a few seconds, then add 100 ml tap water. Should result in 300 ml @ 70ºC. (probably lower because the french press absorbs heat too)

 

[micklupulo]

Makes sense. Or pour 200 ml boiling water first, wait a few seconds, then add 100 ml tap water. Should result in 300 ml @ 70ºC. (probably lower because the french press absorbs heat too)

Thanks and I will probably go down this road though I see one can buy hop aroma oil which looks quick easy and safe. My LHBS does not appear to stock it and on line postage costs more than the item. Again opinions on this would be welcome.

 

[Duxuk]

I've found that if I add hops after the boil at 100 degrees the brew is not nearly as "hoppy" as when I cool to 80 degrees first. So if I made a hop tea, in a cafetiere or similar, I'd want to use water at 80, not 100 degrees. This is not a bitterness thing, it's because the lighter elements of hop flavour may be evaporated or chemically changed by boiling water.

 

[micklupulo]

I've found that if I add hops after the boil at 100 degrees the brew is not nearly as "hoppy" as when I cool to 80 degrees first. So if I made a hop tea, in a cafetiere or similar, I'd want to use water at 80, not 100 degrees. This is not a bitterness thing, it's because the lighter elements of hop flavour may be evaporated or chemically changed by boiling water.

Yes and thanks I remember now having read that one of the elements giving off aroma dies off above 65c so I was off the mark there. The problem then is that a quick scalding to deal with my infection paranoia would neutralise much of the aroma. At present I am trying to source hop aroma oil locally which might be the answer.