I was reading another forum and some of you guys were talking about hopping your sparge water. The idea intrigued me and i want to know what the effects of doing this are. I also had the idea of hopping the priming sugar when you boil it. I don’t know what the effects of what either of these things are and i would appreciate if anyone who has tried these could give me some info. Would it contribute to flavor aroma or bitterness or would it depend of the boil time?
the effects would that of first wort hopping (FWH) i assume. it is not something i have ever gotten around to doing. there should be some threads on here about that though.
Based on my trials, the only effect from hopping your sparge water is that you waste hops. It has absolutely no effect on the beer. Hopping the water for your priming sugar gives you a harsh, astringent, vegetal liquid that I personally wouldn’t want in my beer. Sorry to burst your bubble, but some ideas are better as ideas than as reality.
Nope, sorry, it wouldn’t. Adding hops to water is very different than adding hops to wort.
sorry, thought he meant his initial strike water before doughing in. need to read slower i guess.
That’s OK…that doesn’t work, either!
What about the OPs question about boiling hops in the priming water.
Harsh, vegetal, astringent…IMO, hop teas made with water don’t work.
What if the priming sugar was DME wouldn’t that make it act more like beer than water?
okay. i had to research first wort hopping to find the differences. i appreciate the clarity. it is not something i have ever done. i had always thought that the hops were kind of thrown in with the mash but now i see that they are thrown in as the wort is collected, and steeped as the boil starts. i see that there would be differences in bitterness or flavor but not what that difference would be though.
not that i have any desire to do twhat the op is considering but i may fwh now that i have read a bit on it
Yes it would. I still don’t think you’d get enough hop character to make a difference, but that would at least be a better way to test it.
I’ve fund FWH is a great way to get hop flavor in a beer and adds a nice smooth bitterness.
While I agree with FWH adding more flavor, it seems to fade quicker over time. Have you experienced this?
I can’t say I’ve noticed that, but since you mentioned it I’ll check to see if I notice it in the future.