Hop tea

[Invalid Stout]

When making a hop tea, should I steep the hops in 80°C water, or should it be boiling?

[simple one]

I was reading this when I had a thought. What would be wrong with:

Whilst mashing take about 5 litres of the liqour and heat it on the stove to about 80C. Add all the hops from the recipie to it. Put lid on and leave.

Strain off the hops prior to the wort going in to the boil, then add these used hops as normal to bitter the wort. Boiling down the wort to 5 litres less than needed. Cool back down to 80C and add the hop tea.

The reason I say this is because it could be done without too much risk of infection, the flavour and aroma would surely be massive and the bittering compounds would also be extracted later, less hops could be used as the method and sequence of extraction would be in the right order.

The only things I could see wrong with this method are, unpredictable IBU in finished beer and the bittering being lower due to not using fresh hops (but most people say the bittering compounds are extracted at 100C and the flavour/aroma are evaporated. So if they are 2 separate things surely doing it in a reverse sequence makes sense). Unless they are the same compound which is altered by heat...

Has anyone done this before, I know a similar method is used sometimes used in kit brewing but not for these reasons.... What would be the outcome. Is there something simple I have failed to grasp?

Cheers Matt

[simple one]

I think I will, unless someone else comes up and says they tried it and it was naff, or there is an issue with doing it. Unfortunetly I am not back in the UK for another 4 months, so just at the planning stage. Already have the name, labels half done, recipie programmed in to beer engine.... Its going to be 3x20 litre batches using the above method of hopping, same grains with different single hops.... very risky for an experiment.

[flytact]

I did something similar on a prior brew day. I was making a huge IPA and didn't want to use 56g of hops for steeping alone. This was when hops were exorbitantly high in price. I took those 56g of hops and put them into my french press at 80c, then used those hops in the boil. The reason being that I wasn't getting any bitterness from them during the steep so utilize them again in the boil. Well, I added the hop tea as I was transferring to the fermentor and let the beer sit for 2 weeks (my usual), hooked it up to the CO2 for a week and then poured a perfect pint of dry grass! It took another week or two for the hops to mellow out, but a great beer nonetheless.
A bit different method than you described, but I think similar enough for a comparison.

Cheers

[simple one]

Dry grass? Is that a description for a way over the top hopped beer? Was it a benificial process in the end? Or did you abandon doing it again?

Cheers Matt

[flytact]

Next time I do this recipe, which has become a defacto house beer, I'll make the hop tea. Well worth the effort, if you can call it that.

[simple one]

Thats clinched it then. 60 litres using the tea method. Over hopped, here I come (roll on august).