I was wondering if anyone knows if any hop extract producers are looking at producing any “live” extracts. Live meaning that it extracted from fresh or fresh frozen plant material. Instead of drying the plant material you either extract it immediately or freeze it until extraction.
Live cannabis extracts capture the chemical profile of the live plant before they oxidize or degrade. They have a ton of terpenes and smell and taste amazing (relax, I got a card…) compared to the dried plant material versions.
I want “live” hop extracts in my beers by next 4/20.
I’m not sure of that. Hops need to be dried quickly. I’m told that they will start to compost within one hour of picking if they’re not dried. For YCH, or anyone else, to undertake the project you describe, there would have to be a market, or the expectation of one. I assume that becasue they don’t do this already, they don’t see a market. But I’ll ask if they’ve ever thought about it.
I’m guessing you’ve been doing a good job of celebrating 4/20.
Denny is right about the impracticality of freezing hops at the commercial scale. The industry isn’t set up for that - at least not at this point in time. Hops are a crop with a very brief harvest season, and many of the farms share harvesting and processing equipment through cooperatives. It’s not like we’re talking about a few chest freezers here. Large commercial-scale flash freezers would probably be needed. There probably isn’t a reasonable return on investment for that - at least not yet.
I’m not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but morebeer carries distilled hop oil.
“Distilled hop oil is an amazing new product we are making available to homebrewers. Distilled hop oil varies from other oils in that it is produced from fresh hops, as opposed to dried and processed pellets. Distilled hop oil delivers the same wet hop character that was previously only possible to acquire with the use of freshly harvested hops.” (emphasis added)
Once again you only freeze what becomes concentrates. You could start with a couple hundred pounds capacity for a small trial basis, before you scale up if it works well.
It’s being done all day every day right now with a genetic relative of the hop plant. They make industrial flash freezers… people said the same thing about supercritical CO2 extractors before the entire industry adopted them. The economics are there, if the product is superior! A third party could even contract wet hops at a discount and do the extraction as their value added piece. Get contracts from all the regions and do it all year round. Markets evolve, guys.
If brewers can get flavor and aroma (assuming it’s the desirable) out of an extract along with bitterness and all of the benefits of the current concentrates, then they won’t be able to keep it in stock.
Glad they timestamp these posts.
Oh, and I have a medical condition, bro… it’s not a celebration, but thanks anyway.
Yeah that stuff is basically the same. I’m just hoping to see a CO2 extract (like a hop shot) as opposed to the oil. The oil isn’t as stable or easy to work with as the waxy stuff, plus there has to be some volatilization and conversion from the heat of the steam.
I’m not poo-pooing the idea - it’s kinda intriguing. I just think it’s not practical on a large scale - yet. It’ll definitely happen if the larger commercial brewers find an application for it like they did hop extracts for bittering. Is this one of the processes used for making medical marijuana products that address symptoms without the high? I saw some news about products like that in trials for kids who could benefit.
I hope you’re getting the relief you need. Legal medical application has been long overdue.
Yeah I agree that a large scale operation would take some investment, but the equipment and techniques already exist, which is 90% of product development.
If it increases the quality of hop extract even 50% of the improvement of that live wax cannabis resin has over standard wax resin, it’ll be an awesome product. I was just curious if anyone knew if extractors are trying it out. It may yield a crappy product, and that’s why it isn’t done, I don’t know. That’s why I was asking if anyone has heard anything.
I guess I’ll have to get some butane and try it out on my cascades this year at harvest.
This is interesting. It may solve the ‘how do I dry hop a beer after transfer to keg without exposing it to oxygen’ problem. Simply inject .5-1 ml per 5 gal thru the gas port.