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Author Topic: Don't try this at home  (Read 1606 times)

Offline erockrph

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Don't try this at home
« on: April 04, 2014, 08:36:48 pm »
If you were ever wondering "how much hops is too much", I can say with certainty that 1 pound of hops in 0.8 gallons of wort is most definitely too much. Not necessarily from a flavor standpoint (time will tell), but from the simple physics of it.

Here's the wort right after the pound of hops went in at flameout. It was the consistancy of hot peanut butter:


Unfortunately, it only got thicker after chilling. This was the chilled wort in the kettle. You read that right, that chunky green stuff is wort:


Here's the squeezed-out liquid wort, right before pitching:


I'm not holding out high hopes for this one...
Eric B.

Finally got around to starting a homebrewing blog: The Hop Whisperer

Offline fmader

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2014, 08:40:53 pm »
That green beer would been nice on St Patricks day
Frank

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2014, 08:47:55 pm »
Holy s#^t, Batman !  Wow. That's ~ 6 lbs / 5 gallons.  BU:GU =  calculator caches on fire !   Makes my lb/ 5 gallons of AIPA seem like BMC.
Jon H.

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2014, 02:02:08 am »
Ha!  What a crazy experiment. :)  I would love to try it, although I suspect it will not be good.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline dzlater

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2014, 06:16:31 am »
Hop pesto?  :)
Dan S. from NJ

Offline jeffy

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2014, 09:27:54 am »
Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)
Homebrewing since 1990
AHA member since 1991, now a lifetime member
BJCP judge since 1995

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2014, 09:57:25 am »
Some of the hop material might settle out and you'll get a few inches of beer. I bet it's really bitter and astringent.

Worth diluting it with more wort and seeing how it turns out. Maybe you've created an entirely new hopping method.
Heck yeah I blog about homebrewing: Brain Sparging on Brewing

Offline erockrph

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2014, 07:58:09 pm »
I've actually done this once before, but with whole hops. It was like cooking spinach, but with far less liquid. Unfortunately, even 6 months later it is still incredibly murky and pretty much undrinkable. It sort of looks like when you pour Guinness from a nitro faucet, but the head never separates. I'm not really sure what is keeping all the gunk in suspension, but it hasn't even started to drop out all this time later.

The flavor is much like raw hops - instead of the typical bitterness from dissolved iso-AA's in beer, you get a sharp herbal bitterness, and some coarse woodiness. It's as if there is a considerable amount of hop material in suspension and it gets dropped on your tongue with each sip.

I kind of had it in my head that I would be OK if I used pellets instead of cones at this hopping rate. Guess I was wrong. Aside from the sheer volume of hop solids, I suspect one of the reasons why this murk isn't dropping is that there's no way for cold break to congeal and pull additional solids out. Obviously, this isn't a free-flowing liquid as it cools. I have some Super Kleer KC laying around, so I'll probably give that a try unless by some miracle this happens to drop bright in primary.

And, just in case you were wondering why I would waste a pound of hops in such a spectacular way, I got this idea from another thread where Belma came up. I realized that I had absolutely zero plans to ever use the rest of the pound I bought last year (I actually had 17.5 oz left - HopsDirect packs a fat bag). I figured instead of letting them sit in the freezer forever I'd see if you could actually get some decent hop character if you use a whole lot of them.

By the way, the remaining 1.5 oz left after the pound that went in at flameout is going in as dry hops. You can't brew a beer like this and not dry-hop it, right?  ;D
Eric B.

Finally got around to starting a homebrewing blog: The Hop Whisperer

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Don't try this at home
« Reply #8 on: April 05, 2014, 08:50:17 pm »


By the way, the remaining 1.5 oz left after the pound that went in at flameout is going in as dry hops. You can't brew a beer like this and not dry-hop it, right?  ;D

Right on. Goes without saying !       :D
Jon H.