Hop Steeping - a debate

[weiht]

Oxidised beta acids are said to give old hops that cheesy smell

[Tinkerer]

After reading this really interesting discussion so far I'm still undecided as to which method sounds best, though I have up to now only done the 80 C / 30 min steep, just following convention. With yesterday's brew I did the flame out, hops in, chiller on scenario just for fun. Also using Nelson Sauvin for the first time.

The thing I was going to ask is whether the slight oil slick you get straight after adding the hops could give any indication as to how long the volatile oils hang around. It was apparently gone in about 5 minutes during the boil, but with the flameout addition, there was still a trace left after chilling. Then again, the stuff on the top might not make it through the crud and into the FV. So basically, is the oil slick significant, and if so what volatiles does it contain?

Cheers

[SamT]

Can anyone comment on GW's method of steeping the flavour hops in warm water before adding them to the boil? Does it work?

No. I tried pre-oxidation of the aroma hops on a recent brew and it just made the hops taste stale.

I think johnmac is referring to hop tea ...

Don't think oxidising hops is going to do much for the aroma.

[Befuddler]

Can anyone comment on GW's method of steeping the flavour hops in warm water before adding them to the boil? Does it work?

No. I tried pre-oxidation of the aroma hops on a recent brew and it just made the hops taste stale.

I think johnmac is referring to hop tea ...

Don't think oxidising hops is going to do much for the aroma.

Oxidising the hop oils by pre-soaking was Graham's theory. Read the whole thread.

[gregorach]

Well, here's another little datapoint to throw into the mix... Earlier in the thread I mentioned that I've been experimenting with an inline hopback before my plate chiller, and not getting the hop aroma that I'd been hoping for... So, last brew, I allowed the wort to cool to ~80 degrees C before starting to run-off through the HB and PC, to see if a lower temperature would give me better hop aroma - and it now seems that it did. Exactly why this should be I'm not sure, but I suspect it might be because of reduced isomerisation - previous brews where I've run off more-or-less straight off the boil have seemed to have a bit of extra bitterness rather than the hop aroma I've been aiming for. Still, it's only a single brew, so I'm not going to draw any firm conclusions yet.

[kane]

How long did it take to run through the hopback/plate chiller Dunc?

Could there be an advantage using a HB, with it being a sealed system slowing down the escape of aromatic oils?
Although a disadvantage might be that you cant really vary the time of contact between hops and wort.
Unless recirculating (which then stops it being a closed system), or reducing the flow rate.

[gregorach]

How long did it take to run through the hopback/plate chiller Dunc?

Didn't time it... Probably somewhere around 10-15 minutes.

Could there be an advantage using a HB, with it being a sealed system slowing down the escape of aromatic oils?

That was the plan... There's nowhere for the aromatics to evaporate to before the wort goes through the chiller. But in earlier tests I've been distinctly underwhelmed by the results... However, cooling the wort to ~80 C first seems to have helped this time around. Like I say, it's just preliminary though, could just be a one-off.

[Martin G]

That suggests that the high heat might de-nature the oils to some extent? That would add an extra dimension to consider.

[orlando]

This is the point made in the BeerSmith video. Certain hop oils (and it varies from hop to hop) are extremely volatile and are lost to atmosphere before they have a chance to become soluble in the beer and give off the aroma we are looking for. The best analogy I heard recently is with grass cutting, we smell immediately when grass has been cut because of the high volatility of grass aroma. This is happening at a very low ambient temperature, some hop oils are equally sensitive to high temperatures so it makes sense to pay attention to this part of our processs. Dry hopping as a way of infusing beer with hop aroma, it works so well because we are introducing them at such comparatively low temperatures, in my case with a sealed lid and airlock, this environment gives the volatile hop oils maximum possibilty to go into solution and give me the aroma I'm looking for.

[gregorach]

This is the point made in the BeerSmith video. Certain hop oils (and it varies from hop to hop) are extremely volatile and are lost to atmosphere before they have a chance to become soluble in the beer and give off the aroma we are looking for.

Except they can't be lost to the atmosphere when they're in an in-line hop-back, can they? It's a sealed unit.

[AnthonyUK]

Does anyone have any results of which hops are better for aroma retention?
I tried Challenger which smelled great in the FV but never carried over after bottling.

[orlando]

This is the point made in the BeerSmith video. Certain hop oils (and it varies from hop to hop) are extremely volatile and are lost to atmosphere before they have a chance to become soluble in the beer and give off the aroma we are looking for.

Except they can't be lost to the atmosphere when they're in an in-line hop-back, can they? It's a sealed unit.

The replictation of your experiment becomes more important. If it happens again then the suggestion is that something else must be going on and temperature would be the clear candidate if indeed it is a completely closed system.

[orlando]

Does anyone have any results of which hops are better for aroma retention?
I tried Challenger which smelled great in the FV but never carried over after bottling.

Dry hopping with Cascade has been my most successful.

[Dr. Dextrin]

Does anyone have any results of which hops are better for aroma retention?
I tried Challenger which smelled great in the FV but never carried over after bottling.

I've had quite good results with Challenger; 35g at flame-out steeped for 20 mins gives me a decent aroma that lasts in storage, although I'm not after the in-your-face intensity that some seem to want. I don't think Challenger will ever compete with some of the grapefruit-flavoured hops on that score, but then not smelling of grapefruit is one of its attractions.

[Martin G]

This thread has been really insightful for me and I suspect it could really lead to some serious re-evaluation. I looked up essential oils in wikipedia and found a section on solvent extraction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_oil

To my mind this lends a little more weight to the idea of heat damaging the oils, especially;
'Most flowers contain too little volatile oil to undergo expression and their chemical components are too delicate and easily denatured by the high heat used in steam distillation.'

Steam distallation sounds very hot, but in fact was developed for heat sensitive molecules because it gives better control, it invloves bubbling steam through a solution.

Then I looked up the boiling point of the main hop oils and found them all to be over 100C, yet received wisdom is that they are very volatile. Take the point that if you can smell it then it has a vapour pressure, but for it all to go in such a short space of time would at least be very surprising given the boiling points.