Designing Your Own Beer Kits, No Boiling Required

[mr hoppy]

Did anyone try the isomerised hop extract in the end? How was it?

[LordEoin]

Never got around to dedicating time, money and 5 demijohns to it... but it's back on my to-do list now 

[LordEoin]

I've bought all the bits and pieces needed to test this out on a very small batch.
I got all the aroma flavors apart from 'hoppy' as it's sold out.
I'm going to brew up a gallon of basic wort of LDM and carapils, then bitter it to 30IBU.
The 4.5liters will be split into 4X1liter (one for each aroma) and the leftover 500ml plain (to play with more bittering).
Hopefully I'll have it all by the weekend and be able to crack on next week

<< Edit: August 03, 2013, 02:56:59 am >>

Oh my god... i wish i didn't taste the isomerised hop extract raw... it's so bitter 
maybe i should taste a raw aroma to to balance it out a little...
What could go wrong?? 

edit - wow, i'm not trying that again... chewing on some chocolate grain to calm the flavors down a bit. time to get a syinge and a beer!

it's too late for this maths stuff.
I just put enough 'flower' aroma for 5liters into a half pint of 80+original IBU lager. no wonder it tasted a bit OTT.
i'll try again tomorrow. right now i gotta go pass out in a corner somewhere. no more imperial-triple-india-pale-bitter-lager...

<< Edit: August 05, 2013, 02:25am >>

The bittering is quite nice, I've been boosting beers by about 20IBU tonight (0.25ml per pint) and the extra aroma is subtle but nice (0.5ml of 1/10 diluted liquid per pint).
Getting familiar with their taste and quantities now.

One thing that's come to mind though, is that although there's the bittering bottle and the aroma bottles, there are no flavor bottles.
Any ideas on how to get the flavor profile without a boil?

[LordEoin]

I bottled these testers tonight.

Done to test 3 things:
1 - How does the LME ferment? (thank you Brian for the LME)
2 - How effective is the isomerized hop bittering extract?
3 - How much aroma do you get from the aroma bottles?
The extracts i used are here: http://www.homebrewwest.ie/extracts-hopbags-aromas-178-c.asp

I made a 10L brew with only a can of LME and a half pack of Coopers yeast. No grain or sugar. OG 1.044
I was expecting the LME to finish with a relatively high FG, and I was right. FG 1.014

Doesn't taste bad at all. Sweeter than I thought it would be, with a slight apple/citrus taste.

Bulk primed at 7grams per liter. and bottled plain one as a control.

I bittered the lot to about 30IBU using 7.5ml of the isomerized hop extract.
Tasting more like beer already, bottled another.

I had about 8.5 liters left, and 4 aroma bottles (citrus was out of stock) so for each I bottled 2 of each at double concentrate, 0.1ml per pint bottle (the rate of 1 bottle per 25L brew) and 2 of 4X concentrate, .2ml per 500ml bottle (to get a real feel for it)

There was about a half pint left, so i tried it out with a few drops of floral.
The sweetness of the LME and the bittering work well together. It's beer alright!

Because there are no hops or grains to mellow they should be ready to taste in a few weeks or a month.

[LordEoin]

It's been a month and I've started trying these (don't judge my morning beer, I'm on nightshift and I'm about to go to bed)

Two thumbs up for the isomerized hop extract. It does exactly what it says on the tin bottle.
It's a nice clean bittering with no boil required.
If you wanted to boost the bitterness of a kit a little bit or eliminate the 60 minute extract boil, this is the job.
In my hand is a pint of just LME, yeast and this extract (no grain or hops or anything), and it's nicer than some kits and all grain beers I've tried. Almost like a malty version of RollingRock, a beer version of sparkling RiverRock. I like it. I dub it EoinRock!
Although the head was very thin after a few minutes (but that's not the bittering's fault)
So, €4.50 for enough of this stuff to keep you going for months is a bargain.
I would recommend this isomerized extract.

I'm a little less excited about the 5ml aroma bottles though...
Ive moved on to the same brew with a double concentrate of 'woody' aroma extract and there's no doubt that it does indeed add that extra little bit to the beer, and each one has a hint of the description (woody, floral, hoppy, herbal, [citrus was sold out]).
For me though, the categories are too vague and and there's not enough 'bang for your buck' like you'll get for a little more by getting 100g hop pellets to play with (enough for 3-4 batches) and get a distinct aroma with a simple steep or dryhop.

But it's still missing the factors of a flavour boil and speciality grains.

The original challenge thrown down by HBW was: how the heck do we come up with good recipes [with no oil required]?
And it seems that the answer is by using these extracts as they were intended, as additions to and enhancers of what we've already got.

Don't get me wrong, the beers made with just LME, bittering extract, aroma extract and yeast are good, but if you're on a cost cutting excercise with no boil I think that hacking the hell out of a cheap kit like the Finlandia 1kg Ale is more likely to result in a great beer for less cost.

Oh, and for the EBC and clarity nerds, image attached:

[nigel_c]

I'm really interested in the isomerized hop bittering extract. I know Russian River and a few others use similar products to get the high IBU's for bit Elder/Younger Ipa's and am planning to doing something similar for a big beer in the next while. Any more experience or notes from brewers who have use the product would be greatly appreciated.

Big beers. Go big or go home 

[Eoin]

I'm really interested in the isomerized hop bittering extract. I know Russian River and a few others use similar products to get the high IBU's for bit Elder/Younger Ipa's and am planning to doing something similar for a big beer in the next while. Any more experience or notes from brewers who have use the product would be greatly appreciated.

Big beers. Go big or go home 

It's not just used for big hoppage, a lot of German breweries use it for consistency e.g. Tannen Zaepfle

Sent from my HTC One

[nigel_c]

I get that. its a constant product you can control. Efficiency.  Ze Germans love Ze numbers. I would be looking at it from a home brewers side. To obtain the high IBU that could be reached with the product a home brewer will loose a substantial amount due to the large amounts of hops needed. When your talking on the scale of 20-23 L every 500ml counts.
I love my bog beers and have this extract bookmarked for an upcoming project.

[Eoin]

I'm looking to make my own extract, I just have to work out how to isomerise the oil, which I am confident I can extract pretty cleanly.

Sent from my HTC One

[LordEoin]

christ! you're adventurous! that'll be a labour of love if i ever saw one! I'll be interested to hear how you get on.

[Will_D]

I'm looking to make my own extract, I just have to work out how to isomerise the oil, which I am confident I can extract pret

Hi eoin,

Done a bit of digging about isomerised hops:

Primarily its the Alpha acids that change shape slightly during the boil (as mentioned in previous that is one definition of isomerisation)

Hop oil extracts are produced commercialy by either:

Liquid CO2 at its tripple point (not recommended for home brewers)

or by extracting using ethanol.

So following the latter process you need to boil your hops in vodka for some time to extract the oils.
Maybe do two extractions?

Strain and press to get all the goodness out of the hops.

Then boil off the vodka (condense for re-use?), boil at 100C for a period of time (equivalent to the kettle phase)

Then you have to eaporate most of the water to concentrate the oils.
In order to preserve the oils you will need to do this under a vacuum at say less than 70C

Sure its not easier to buy the extract?

Anyways HTH

[HomeBrewWest]

Some recent progress here. We now have access to affordable isomerized hop extract sachets; the resolution is 40 IBU. In other words:
- 1 sachet gives 40 IBU,
- 2 sachets gives 80 IBU,
- 3 sachets gives 120 IBU,
- etc.
Then all you have do do is dry hop using pellets.

So we just had a bright idea . . . . build your own beer kits! Proceed as follows:
- select your LME (any combination of light, amber, dark, and wheat . . . they come in 1.5 Kg containers),
- select the initial bitterness (resolution is 40 IBU),
- then select hop pellets for dry hopping,
- and if you really want to hack it . . . add steeping grains.

In theory, any beer style is possible. Imagine the fun to be had at competitions!

The big question is: is 40 IBU sufficient resolution. We could investigate adding 20 or even 10 IBU sachets so that you could have much better IBU resolution. But is this necessary (the smaller ones would probably cost the same as the 40 IBU sachets)? Or you could just use a half or a quarter of a 40 IBU sachet?

[LordEoin]

40 sounds good. As you said, half a pack can be used for 20IBU.
I presume it's calculated at 23liters?

It still just leaves bittering and aroma though, no flavor additions

[HomeBrewWest]

Malt, hop extract and hop pellets dry hopping. How would you add additional flavors?

[LordEoin]

15-20 minute hop boil.
It's got replacements for the 60 minute (bittering) and 5-10 minute boil(aroma), but missing out on 15-20 minute (flavor)
Not sure if there's an extract to cover that.

Maybe a hop tea steep would be a good replacement.
So malt extract, bittering extract, hop steep, dryhop.