How to 'ish - Dry hopping/Hop Teas - a different approach

Hi Leith

Have now taken emotional ownership of SWMBO's ludicrously expensive piece of Kitchen-Tat and it has given good results to date. Am exploring the strange world of the Saisson at present and adding a Triskel hop tea after a few days in the ferment. Have even added a "second run" of boiled water over the same hop dust.

Great technique, mate, hope you got yourself home safely .

Hi there Slid,
Good to hear you are having success. I'm in the middle of doing an Amarillo hop tea for my AG batch which is a bit of a Theakston's OP clone, its just mashing for 30 mins just now.

We had a great time in the States, especially our time in Memphis and New Orleans.

Great sights, food and beer, the beer has improved immeasurably since my last trip when all you seemed to be able to get were the buds, schlitz and coors of this world. Most places now seem to have their own craft brew pub some of which were exceptional, the one the wife and I both liked was Southern Pecan from the Lazy Magnolia brewery in Mississippi.

I worry about sanitation with drying hopping ........ do you think this rice thingy might be a better bet?

Hi there Pjam,

Your sanitation fears are shared hence my exploring hop teas and blitzing hops. Your tea ball looks just fine, it can easily be sanitized if necessary before late hopping in a cooler brew and would sanitize naturally if pitched in early in the boil. Only concern I have from the picture is how large the holes are and would hop material drop through?

Try it and see - and good luck with it.

would hop material drop through?

Try it and see

I tried it only yesterday it was very good ...... I left the hops whole and the only thing to go through the holes were a few seeds. Great success I think. The only drawback might be capacity. 50 or 60 grams is about the limit. I might have to get another

I might have to get another

Good idea, how do they float/sink in the wart? More hops would probably give it more buoyancy.

how do they float/sink in the wart?

That's another plus I forgot to mention ...... I've always found hop bags, even with weights, ridiculously buoyant. The rice ball sinks ..... but only just.

With 60 grams of hops I think I had the max ... you could get in more but I'm not sure you'd get any circulation.

I thought I might try your approach

But I've got some last minute questions. 30 mins steep for the hops, is that right? And, how much water? and, do you think I could add the hopped water to the bottling bucket?

Hi Pjam,
Yes, 30 - 45 mins steep, I usually start it off then go off to do something else and come back to it later.

My Cafetiere is a 1L one so I use about 3/4L to allow for the hops in the pot. I have also used fermenting beer instead of water which works well.

Haven't tried putting the hop tea straight into the bottling bucket, I like to do the hopping when the brew still has a couple of days left to ferment, however, I can't see why that wouldn't work.

Let me know how it works out if you go ahead.

Thanks LeithR for your how to, I've just done that this afternoon using a cafetierre full of blitzed hops in my Black Rye Ale. First time I've tried it as it's only my second partial mash attempt. It's at 1.022 at the moment after 5 days so hoping I've got it in about the right time.

Let me know how it works out if you go ahead.

Will do
I'll do it over the W/E and with the Bottling bucket.

the Bottling bucket.

Works well in the BB !

LeithR,

With ordinary dry hopping you add the hops for say 5 to 10 days in Secondary to allow the flavour of the hops to infuse the brew. I assume that with your hop tea this is mainly done in the cafetiere.

Do you add your hop tea for the same length of time as you would dry hops or just a day or two ahead of bottling?

Cheers

brugen

LeithR,

Do you add your hop tea for the same length of time as you would dry hops or just a day or two ahead of bottling?

Cheers

brugen

Hi Brugen,
Yes, add for 5 days in secondary would be fine.

Hi LeithR, do you let the hop tea cool down before adding to your fermenting beer?