Beer Forum

This may be a really great idea or really stupid, but this morning I was making my coffe and wondered if anyone has evertried making a kind of aroma/flavor hop concentrate by putting their hops in a coffe maker, and then adding the concentrate to the finised wort. Just a silly idea and I dont see any real benefit, but I'm just curious if anyone has ever tried.

This is a topic that has come many times here and on pretty much all the beer forums. While on the surface it seems to have some merit, it apparently does not work. I don't remember all the details since I haven't been inclined to try it. It has something to do with isomerisation of the compounds in the hops in the presence of the sugars and other stuff in the boil. Basically, you won't get the same flavor/bittering extracted from the hops. HopUnion does make and sell hop extract but I have no idea what their process is. I have some I got to doctor up a severly underhopped barleywine, but I haven't gotten around to using it yet.

On a related note, however, I have played around with the idea of using the coffee maker to make small amounts of wort for starters, but I haven't actually done it yet.

Congrats on doing some out of the box thinking even though that is one idea that doesn't work.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

You might get hop flavor and aroma this way, but you won't get bitterness. Bitterness needs heat, time, and the mechanical action of the boil to isomerize alpha acids. The coffee maker only provides the heat. However, it is an intriguing idea for aroma/flavor. You'd want to use a new coffee maker and I doubt you could use it for coffe afterward, either. If the cost of a coffee maker doesn't discourage you, give it a try and let us know how it goes.

I hadn't tried hops.

But... I had an old coffee maker. Cleaned the crud out of it (bleach, hot water, vinegar, hot water, hot water, hot water - kind of cleaning) and it does work REALLY well for small amounts of specialty grains.

It steaps at about the right temperature. You can do larger amounts of grains in batches. And the extraction is great! I guess it works almost like a very small, very short, very mini mash. And, no muss/no fuss (easily done in the kitchen without much griping from the wife unit).

It was a great tool when I was first moving from straight extract to extract + specialty/adjuncts.

Hop extracts are made with Supercritical CO2 extraction. Here is a link for those who want to geek out on the subject a little.
http://www.hopunion.com/baseex.shtml

HH

The only other problem I see with making a "hop tea" in the coffe maker is that the extended time requied to collect the "tea" will allow for the esthers and other volatiles to dissipate before getting into your secondary.

Cheers,
Brewbear

BTW, Take a chance, Custer did!