Testing Taste of Hops

I've been reading for a bit and really enjoy this group. I've been homebrewing for about a year now and have made some really good beer and I've been interested in modifying some of the batches I've made.

I was wondering if any has a way to "taste" hops for different properties or specific tastes or aromas. I've heard of people tasting the hops themselves but mostly whole hops, I assume, not the pellets. It is possible to make an herb "tea" of the herbs or would that give you any idea of what favour it has in the beer. I know a number of books have descriptions of "spicy", "fruity" or something general but that doesn't really give me what I'm looking for. Any ideas or experience on those lines?

Also, is there a good procedure to use, other than just scaling down a standard 5 gallon recipe, to make smaller batches of say a gallon or less each?

So far I've only done extract brewing with steeped grains and have done only ales as that is the only temperature range I can maintain at this point.

Thanks for any input.

PopeCoyote

Reply to
PopeCoyote
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I've made tea with hops before just to try it (not bad) but I've only done it with one variety, so I'm not certian how much difference you'd see between them - I'm guessing it would be a pretty good way of getting an idea of each varieties character.

As for doing small batches - you may want to consider just doing a 5 gallon batch and then split them at some point into 5 1gal batches. It would give you the option to try different hops in each one. But with extract brewing, you should have no problem scaling down a recipe from

5 to 1 gallon by dividing everything by 5. They also sell 2.5 or 3 gallon carboys. I've had wort that I wasn't able to immediately use so I brought it to a boil for 15 minutes, shut off the heat, covered well, and left it on the back porch in the winter to cool. Then when I wanted to use it I just brought it back to a boil and proceeded as normal. I would guess you could leave it at refridgerator temperatures for almost a week before there was a problem due to souring (which wouldn't be a fatal problem anyway, as a little sourness would be good in a wheat beer, for instance; and boiling again would prevent further infection).

If you are interested in all grain, I would recommend doing batch sparges at first. They are easy and pretty effective, and the square coolers are cheap if not something you already own. It will add a couple hours to your process but is fun to do. I like to sometimes break it up by mashing late at night and then leaving it until I wake up in the morning (I get up early on Saturday/Sunday). After draining and a single sparge (which is quick with batch sparging) you just go on to the regualr process that you use with extract brewing.

--Jeff

Reply to
gephro

Hi I am interested in your experiences with breaking up your brew day, brewing one day, keeping the wort over night and boiling the next.

Have you had any problems at all with this method? Where do you keep your wort? and do you cool the wort rapidly before storing? Many thanks in advance.

Greg

Reply to
greg towning

Thanks for your ideas, Jeff. I may try to break the batches up as you mentioned and do some experimentation. I'll probably stick to extract with steeped grains for now but I'm interested in all grain later.

What I'm trying to do is find a hop profile I really like. One of my favourite beers was Pete's Wicked Ale early in its distribution. I like a brown or nut brown ale and what set Pete's apart was the hop profile in it. Spicy and herbal with nice bit of bitter but not enough to override the malt. What is put out as Pete's now isn't that close to what I remember. I am not so much trying to copy the old Pete's as trying to make sort of my idea brown ale with that original hop profile as a starter. The Pete's site says that Cascade and Northern Brewer hops are used, but I don't know if that was what the original was.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate any input.

PopeCoyote

Reply to
PopeCoyote

Greg

Initially it happened that a couple of times when I started brewing, it was so late that I couldn't possibly finish. So I would sparge into my kettle as usual, bring it to a boil, and then shut it off. It was winter, so I just put a clamp on the lid to keep out the animals and left it outside (one time it was at freezing, one time it was maybe mid-30s out). Neither time did it freeze. The next morning I just brought it to a boil and proceeded as usual. My guess is that if you left it too long, you might get some sourness, but I had none, and I don't think you'd get any until a minimum of 24 hours of sitting. Bringing it back to a boil afterwards kills off anything bad.

The other method I use to split it up is to leave the mash sit over night. I would not do this unless you had a well insulated tun that will hold the temp. I would also not do this for longer than 8 hours. The problems you would see from doing this too long is (again) souring, and also a stuck run off. My understanding is that if you let the mash cool below 140?F then it'll really stick. The couple of times I did an overnight mash, there were no problems with sticking, but I got back to it as soon as I woke up. Just bring the temp back up to 170F for mash out and sparge it (or batch sparge or whatever).

Now, I did take this too far 2 batches ago - I did a 24 hour mash. I didn't expect it to work, but I got derailed and couldn't get back to it in time. It soured and stuck really bad. Of course, it was 60% wheat malt, but it ran off fine before cooling for that long and sitting that long.

--Jeff

Reply to
gephro

PopeCoyote

I have no idea what Pete's would have used. It would probably be safe to assume that today's recipe is less expensive to brew than the earlier recipe.

Your tests with hop teas should work well to give you ideas about hop flavor and aroma, but won't tell you how much to put in and when; especially since the bitterness comes mostly from prolonged boiling and will vary depending on the gravity of the brew (or in the case of tea/water 1.000sg). I'm guessing it'll be a great way to better understand the difference between hops, but you are going to have a lot of extra hops laying around as a result. Maybe you could make a garbage can beer afterwards and hop the heck out of it :)

--Jeff

Reply to
gephro

Hi Jeff Many thanks for the post I guess the crucial thing is to keep the wort as cool as possible and not leave the wort too for long. Mashing and sparging in the evening, then boiling early in the morning.

Greg

Reply to
greg towning

Jeff,

Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate them! I've been doing some more research and have some ideas. I'm not sure about the tea idea but I might try it to get an idea if a hop tea might be good for an alternative to dry hopping. For the price of a movie and some popcorn I can get an ounce of a dozen different hops so it won't be that expensive an endeavour. Regardless, my version will be hoppier than Pete's. I'm using bittering units to get an idea of what might work in what proportion for bittering, aroma, etc.

I like the garbage can beer idea. Another fave style is American IPA. The hoppier the better. ;)

PopeCoyote

Reply to
PopeCoyote

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