Hot hop water. Delicious.
We dry hop both our pale ale and our IPA (dry hopping means adding hops to secondary fermentation in order to impart their aromatics and, to a lesser degree, flavors). Usually we use whole leaf hops. We find we get better aromatics out of whole leaf than pellets. Unfortunately, the whole leaf hops turn into mini beer sponges in the fermenter, and have a tendency to reduce our yield substantially.
And so, in an effort to keep our yields up and preserve that great hop aroma simultaneously, we introduce a third technique, which we are tentatively calling “hot hop water.” Take a gander.
We boiled a bit o’ water, threw hop pellets in there and dissolved them. We then poured the hot hop water into the bottom of the carboy via a funnel. Finally, we transferred the beer into the new carboy, directly on top of the hot hop water. The result was a well-mixed blend of hops and beer. We’ll let you know if the technique holds any water (zing!). And, for those who appreciate pictures of Joel acting a fool, I leave you one final gift:
Jonathan, Joel & Jeff
August 30th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
So I’m curious, did you all create a stronger beer this time before adding the hop water or did you just dilute the current recipe? Sometimes I’ll just design my recipes as a bigger batch, knowing full well that I’ll lose a lot of the batch to hops so I’ll end up with a regular batch size.
August 30th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I use a reusable grain sack to keep my yield high with my hops. I have heard that there are potential issues with this (not all of the potential alpha acids getting into the wart) but it’s worked well for me and helped maintain the proper yield. I think with dry hopping it would work pretty well though.
August 30th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
DT: We did neither. We just straight up added the hops… 2 oz for 10 gallons.
August 30th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I’d be interested in hearing how it turns out. Hmmm….
August 31st, 2007 at 11:53 am
Use you Allusion II. Well done with the “hot ham/hop water” allusion to Arrested Development.
I think any post should include at least one AD reference.