Anyone out there who has links to some of the hop growers know if more varieties of cryo- hops are coming on the market soon? Denny? Just wondering. Very interested in trying these for whirlpool and dry hopping but would really like if some other varieties were available. I’m willing to wait a while, but if none are coming anytime soon I’m just going to write some new recipes with what’s available.
My contacts at YCH tell me that there will be more and more varieties becoming available. How soon? Dunno. Don’t overlook the debittered leaf, either. Drew and I are just starting to play with that and it looks really interesting.
Denny, I listened to the YCH guy interview. The cyro makes sense but I must have missed what the use was for debit-leaf. Sarcasm would make me guess you’d use that to add a vegetal flavor, but I bet that’s not it at all.
I haven’t used it yet, so I’m extrapolating based on conversations…to me, it sounds like a bit like “muted” but more like continental hops on that they have flavor but aren’t in your face Just have to brew with them to see.
Seems kind of interesting, but I guess I don’t understand the difference between just using less of the standard hop (non debittered). From another perspective, it’s so hard to really know what a hop variety really tastes like. There are so many options, it’s hard to brew enough to really know how it’ll turn out.
I guess I also don’t understand how the cryo hops differ from the normal version-do all of the oils get extracted evenly, or are some oils (linalool/gerianiol/etc.) that don’t get extracted? Going to have to listen to that interview again, maybe I missed something.
Well…I guess it’s time to try it out. Any thoughts on a recipe to bring out the differences? I’ve been thinking about brewing a NEIPA:
5 gallons
72% Maris Otter
14.5% Vienna
13.5% Flaked Oats
14 g Nugget @ 30 (~25 IBU)
28 g Nugget @ 150F for 15 min
60 g Mosaic @ 150F for 15 min
28 g Nugget @ Day 2 Ferm.
90 g Mosaic @ Day 2 Ferm.
28 g Nugget @ Keg
90 g Mosaic @ Keg
I’d like to do a side by side and swap out the Mosiac for cryo-Mosiac. Any thoughts on whether or not this will bring out the difference? Too much nugget to confound results? Not a lot of yeast options around here, I was planning on using Nottingham, but that’s probably “wrong” for a NEIPA.
Just a wild guess, but could you use them in sour beers in place of aged hops? Get some of the antimicrobial characteristics but still be very low (1-2 BU) bitterness?
I’d be curious to know who is buying those debittered hops and why.
I understand why the hop suppliers put them on the market. It’s the leftovers from creating lupulin powder and other highly refined lupulin products so they are trying to maximize value on their hops. It doesn’t cost them anything to put the leftovers into the market but I don’t see a big market for them.
I’ve seen people try them out as an alternative to aged hops in sour beer but so far everybody I’ve heard from reports back that they got way too much bitterness. That could probably be adjusted with a lesser volume though.
The marketing verbiage I have seen pushes it as noble versions of American hops. I just don’t get it. While the sour beer market is huge, their hops usage is small.
Like mentioned above. They are an industrial waste product that they are trying to sell. I’ve been told decaf coffee beans were originally created by extracting caffeine for pharmaceutical and other uses. The beans were a waste product that found a market.
If that’s the case I could see that American hopped lagers could be fun. I might take me Exportbier recipe and sub some crazy American hop de-bits. Like maybe de-bit Ekuinot
I think the point of the debittered leaf is that terpenes reside in the plant matter, not the resin glands. The debittered leaf adds terps without alpha or beta acids. So for delicate non bitter styles you can load up on terpenes without making an “insert adjective” IPA.
The crappy noble hops from Europe that I have been buying lately are all in this 2-3.5% range, some (like Strisselspalt) are even lower. It would be interesting to test this terpene theory out and compared these debittered hops in a continental lager.
Funny you say that, I found this from ych where they’re basically saying the debittered hops are similar to using noble hops with American flavor characteristics.
the third brewer testimonial states that the Cryo Hops aren’t an direct replacement of the regular dry hops. I’ve read similar anecdotal advice other places. It has also been my impression. I tried one or two cryo only dryhops and it gave me a weird resiny mouthfeel thing I didn’t like. I do like to use them along with pellets in a big dryhop for intensity, as well as a better post dryhop yield.
The fact glycosides are still in the plant matter is of interest in regards to biotransformation. Opens the door to biotransformation in styles with low bitterness.
As a food scientist I can tell you that nearly half the products on the market (if not more) are based on something that used to be a waste product. Molasses used to be dumped in the ocean after sugar refining until someone started making rum with it.
I used to work on a super-critical CO2 machine that had previously been used for decaffeinating coffee (we were using it for the dying of textiles without water), I’d imagine a very similar technology is being used for these hop extracts.