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Brews

Brew 75 – Hop Water

  • 1 oz Warrior
  • 1 oz Centennial

This was my first time making hop water. Most recipes I found talked about boiling water for 10 minutes first, cooling partially, and then steeping hops for a while. I thought that it would make sense to steep the hops first and then boil, which seemed more similar to beer-making and also meant that I wasn’t putting an unsanitized muslin bag into the water post-boil.

The procedure I used was:

  1. Start with 5 gallons of water from the water heater (140F).
  2. Add hops to muslin bag and place in brew pot.
  3. Turn heat on high to begin heating water.
  4. Leave hops in for 30 minutes as water heated from 140F to 188F.
  5. Remove hops and allow water to come to boil.
  6. Boil for 10 minutes.
  7. Cool in ice bath and with stirring.
  8. Pour into keg.
    • The hop water was still hot at this point since I did not use a wort chiller to chill it.
    • I had more than could fit in the keg so kept some behind.
    • Many hop particles were present going into the keg.

Two days after brew day, I poured some from the keg. It had quite a bit of hop sediment that had settled to the bottom of the keg, and wasn’t carbonated yet. The hop taste was super strong and there were many hop chunks. I could possibly filter to remove them, but I’m wondering if just a few initial pours will also remove them. First pour was too hoppy, but that was tamed by adding some water flavoring.