Reason to be a Hop Head

Hop head (häp′hed′)
-noun
1. A person who is obsessed with the aroma, flavor, bitterness, or medicinal properties of hops.
2. An individual who is often found burying his or her nose into a hop bag or tulip glass containing an IPA.
3. A person who watches old Keystone Light "bitter beer face" commercials and says, "Damn. Where can I get some of what that guys drinking?"


Many people associate hops with the bitterness that lingers on the back of the tongue after drinking high IBU (international bitterness units) beers. While heavily hopped beers do tend to be more bitter than other beers, this stereotype does not always hold. Hops are more versatile than many people realize and depending on how long they are boiled, they lend different characteristics to the brew. More bitterness is extracted with longer boils; however if hops are only boiled for a few minutes, other flavors and aromas will be infused into the beer (ie. piney, citrus, fruity, grassy, spicy, flowery, etc.). Dry-hopping--adding hops to the fermenter without boiling them--will provide fresh aromas with minimal flavor additions. A good example of a commercial beer with amazing hop aroma and flavor is Russian River's Pliny the Elder.

Dry-hopped IPA in the secondary fermenter

My last Pliny until I get back to CO, sigh...

Hops are utilized in almost every style of beer--gruts being a rare example of an unhopped style. The antimicrobial properties of hops make them an attractive ingredient even when their flavor and aroma is not desired in the finished product. In fact, hops have many properties that contribute to their wide usage outside of the world of brewing. Lupulin--a yellow granular resin produced by the strobiles of hops--has been used therapeutically to treat a variety of conditions including insomnia, nervous tension, appetite loss, digestive problems, anxiety, tension headaches, ulcers, and intestinal cramps. Lupulin contains chemical substances that provide a mild sedative effect which is often compared to that of THC--the psychoactive substance produced by cannabis. It may be noteworthy that hops belong to the Cannabaceae family, which may aid in the explanation of why hops and cannabis affect our bodies in similar ways.

A close up of lupulin Photo by: Luke Madden

In the name of science and in order to verify the effects of lupulin on the body, Matt McElwee volunteered himself as a test subject.

After eating less than half an ounce of perle hops, Matt was overwhelmed by the sensation to sleep. And thus our initial hypothesis was verified--lupulin is indeed a potent substance. No wonder hop heads tend to be such chilled out people.

Matt catching some z's after munching on some hops.

The Drink of Love

When the three holy substances of water, honey, and yeast combine, a concoction is created that has been enjoyed for more than five thousand years--mead. While the temples of Egypt were in construction, and the Greeks were battling the gods, mead was being brewed. Mead was regarded as a sacred beverage by the Aztecs and Incas, and it was the drink of choice for the vikings and the knights of the round table. From this magical substance legends were born, some of which have melded their way into our modern traditions. Mead has long since been considered the drink of love. It has been used in marriage ceremonies for an unrecorded amount of time. The mead maker used to brew a month supply for newly weds. The couple would then drink mead each night from one moon to the next, hence the term "honeymoon". Depending on the quality of the mead maker, nine months later the couple would bear a son to carry on the family name.
While I do consider it an honor to continue the tradition as a mead maker, I am not sure that I want to brew mead that is good enough to spark the birth of a child with our current population problems.
On January 17th, I started three 1-gallon batches of mead. I pitched a dry mead yeast in one of the gallons and a sweet mead yeast in the other two. The dry mead yeast will continue to ferment the honey until all the sugars have been consumed, while the sweet yeast will die after a certain amount of alcohol has been produced even though residual sugars may still be present. I then decided to add blood oranges to one of the sweet meads but only after most of the yeast cells had died.

Slicing up some bloody oranges Photo by: Luke Madden

Photo by: Luke Madden

The addition of the oranges was mainly for aesthetics. I may add some more at a later date until the mead turns dark red.

Siphoning the sweet mead onto the oranges Photo by: Luke Madden

The recipe:

Brewed on my brother Luke Gottlieb's birthday.

3 gallons total.

Brought a little less than 3 gallons to 145 degrees.
Added 9lbs 7oz Swanns raw and unfiltered wildflower honey.
Held at 145 degrees for 20 minutes.
Skimmed off white foam.
Separated into 3 separate 1-gallon jugs.

1-gallon Wyeast Sweet Mead
1-gallon Wyeast Sweet Mead, 4 organic blood oranges.
1-gallon Wyeast Dry Mead

OG: 1.128

Tripel

As the rain continued to fall for a week straight, I anxiously sat inside aching to brew the first batch of the term. On Tuesday, when the sun peaked through the clouds I ignored the Weather Underground's prediction of more rain. I made a quick yeast starter, set up my propane stoves, weighed out some grain, and began the brew day. The target brew was a Tripel--a strong golden Belgian ale. The style of a Tripel is thought to have originally been brewed in response to the prohibition of the sale of spirits in bars in Belgium in 1919. Monastic breweries targeted the population of spirit drinkers and produced a beer that was high in alcohol yet almost as light as the pilsners that were popular at the time.

To give a bit of an intro if you are unfamiliar with the components of beer and the brewing process, beer consists of four main ingredients: water, barley, hops, and yeast. The basic goal of the brewer is to convert the starches (amylose and amylopectin) in the barley into sugar (maltose and other simple sugars) which can then be digested by the yeast and converted into alcohol (ethanol), carbon dioxide, and about a hundred other compounds that make up the flavor of beer.

Unmilled Barley Photo by: Luke Madden

The process begins by milling the malted barley, and then steeping the barley and other grains in hot water. The process of steeping the grains is called the mash, and its basic purpose is to breakdown proteins, convert starches into sugars, and depending on how it is conducted, add color to the beer. During the mash, the temperature is carefully adjusted in order to promote the activity of different enzymes--proteins that catalyze reactions.

The Mash

I will often begin the mash at 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and then bring up the temperature to around 130 degrees for a half an hour for a protein rest, followed by another increase in temperature to 150-160 degrees for a sacchrification rest that lasts for around an hour. During the protein rest large proteins are broken down into smaller amino acids, and the sacchrification rest is conducted to break the long chains of starches into simple sugars that will later be devoured by the yeast.

Saccharification Rest

Once the starches have been converted into sugars, the grains are separated from the sweet liquid--the wort. I use a three tiered system in which the top pot--the hot liquor tank--is filled with water around 175 degrees, the middle pot--the mash/lauter tun-- contains the mash, and the bottom pot--the boil kettle--collects the sweet wort. Water comes from the hot liquor tank and drips onto the grains. At the same rate that the water is sprinkled over the mash, the sweet wort passes through a strainer and enters the boil kettle.

The Three-tiered System

In this photo, water is passed from the hot liquor tank to the mash tun through a rotating sparge arm that evenly distributes water over the mash.


After the sweet wort has been separated from the grains, it is time for the boil. This is where the process begins for brewers who use malt extract rather than whole grains. The wort is generally boiled anywhere between an hour and two hours but for the Tripel, I utilized a 90-minute boil. This is the step of the process where the majority of the hops are added as well as other sugars.

Boiling the Wort (those are hops floating in the foam)

Hops! Photo by: Luke Madden

As soon as the boil ends, the wort is cooled down as quickly as possible. I use a wort chiller that connects to the faucet to run cold water through a copper tube and then back up into the sink. Using this system I can cool the wort down to 75 degrees in about twenty minutes. Cooling the wort in this manner prevents excessive oxidation, decreases the amount of time the beer is exposed to microbes, decreases the production of dimethyl sulfide, precipitates out unwanted proteins, and saves me a lot of time. Before I used a wort chiller I would have to wait a few hours until the wort cooled to a temperature that the yeast could survive in.

Cooling the Wort

The cooled wort is then strained into a carboy--a glass ferment0r. The yeast is then added, and then it is time to clean up and celebrate with a home brew.

Straining the Wort into the Carboy

While I enjoy a home brew, I take a hydrometer sample that displays the density of the wort relative to water. More sugars in the wort increases the density and produces a higher reading (gravity). I came up a bit short on the original gravity for the Tripel, so I added a pound of caramelized sugar (sucrose) to the fermenter once active fermentation was visible.

Hydrometer Reading Displaying an Original Gravity of 1.070
Photo by: Luke Madden

Here is the recipe for the Tripel as it would read in my brewing notes:

5.5 Gallons

13 lbs. Belgian Pilsner
.5 lb. Aromatic
1 lb. Flaked Wheat
.25 lb. Flaked Oats
.75 lb. Clear Belgian Candi Sugar

Single infusion mash at 150-153 for 70 min.
90 min Boil

.61 oz. Whole Perle Hops at 90 min 7AA
.25 oz. Whole Willamette at 15 min 4AA
.25 oz. Pellet Czech Saaz at 5 min 3.2AA
.25 oz. Whole Willamette at 5 min 4AA

1 oz. Sweet orange peel at 15 min
1tsp Irish Moss
3tsp DAP

Wyeast 1214

1lb Light amber caramelized sugar added at high krausen. Sugar made with 2lbs organic cane sugar, 1 tsp DAP and 1 cup water. Temp to 270, then add 1 more cup of water. Softball and add to preheated mason jar.

Primary fermentation temp. at 82degrees

OG: 1.070 but adjusted to 1.080 with addition of sugar

In the Beginning...

It all happened a year after I graduated from high school. I drank a pint of Flying Dog’s Snake Dog IPA, and I was hooked. Soon after I traveled to California and tried every microbrew I could: Anderson Valley’s Oatmeal Stout, Ska’s Decadent IPA, Sam Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, Stone’s Ruination etc. The next year I returned to northern California and visited my cousin, Dylan. Dylan was a home brewer, and although he had only been doing it for a short period of time, he was producing impressively smooth and delicious beer. After checking out his brewing equipment and listening to him as he passionately explained the subtleties of yeast, I knew that this was something that I wanted to do—brew great beer. That winter I purchased a basic kit, and my brewing adventures began.
Now, a little over a year since I began brewing, I’m obsessed. I took two terms of organic chemistry just to understand the chemical properties of beer. This term I am conducting an independent study on the chemistry of brewing, which is really an applied biochemistry class that gives me an excuse to be a beer nerd. This blog is here for you to follow my passion of brewing and maybe even learn a little something along the way.
Salud,
Nick