Colour of boiled hops

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chris2012
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Colour of boiled hops

Post by chris2012 » Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:06 pm

I just did an experiment which required using 100g of hops in roughly 30l of water and boiled for roughly 45 mins, but I'm really surprised at the colour
of the water after boiling, it's a darkish orangey brown.

Does that seem normal?

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Jim
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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by Jim » Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:36 pm

I think I've boiled hops in plain water a long while back, but I don't remember getting orangey brown colours.

Some hops do have brown bits on the leaves though (maybe if they're a bit old??), so it doesn't surprise me.
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chris2012
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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by chris2012 » Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:06 pm

Image

Hmm interesting Jim, these hops only arrived this week, I'll do some more investigation.

guypettigrew
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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by guypettigrew » Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:45 pm

What colour would you expect? Why does this colour concern you?

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chris2012
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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by chris2012 » Tue Mar 26, 2019 8:49 pm

I'm not sure, I thought it'd be either greeny or a lot lighter in colour. This looks like it would dramatically change the colour of say a pils style beer.

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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by chris2012 » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:26 pm

I think I'm an idiot heh, I just replicated what I did again:

Image

Image

In a pint glass it looks fine, seems I don't understand how colours change, with volume.

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Kev888
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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by Kev888 » Thu Mar 28, 2019 8:11 pm

Thats good news. No doubt there are many other factors, including things like boil time, lighting, haze and so on. There would likely be an interaction with wort too.

It is an interesting thing to raise though. I rarely brew either very light or enormously hopped beers (and TBH don't worry much about colour in any case) but for those who do I'd imagine most software overlooks the colour contribution of hops. But then I suppose most of it also overlooks the bitterness contribution of them after flame-out, so perhaps these things are all relative!
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chris2012
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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by chris2012 » Thu Mar 28, 2019 8:30 pm

Yeah that's a good point there must be multiple factors affecting the colour.

Will be glad to finally get brewing again now, once I get some more hops heh, after using some intended for my recipe.

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Re: Colour of boiled hops

Post by Robwalkeragain » Thu Mar 28, 2019 8:36 pm

I did hop infused vodka once and that was yellow. I guess lupulin has a lot of colour

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