One Saturday I started experimenting with making my own hop water, I initially had the goal to add 1 part hop tea to 2 parts of seltzer. That ended up being too much hop tea, and the bubbles were gone. From recipes I saw online, 2 grams of hops per gallon of carbonated water worked best; however, it was unclear how to translate that to a hop tea into a seltzer combo.

My initial attempt was to make a very concentrated version. It was something like 1 g of dry hop to 20 ml (I made 500 ml). This might have been too strong, it was not clear to me how much of the hop tea to add per can of seltzer to maintain the pop. From here, I had a baseline to move forward with more care to measure what I was doing.

I saw recipes adding lemon to lower pH, but it overpowered the flavor with lemon. Next, I tried a different acid I had around my apartment, cream of tartar (Potassium bitartrate). This acid is typically used in baking because it does not affect flavoring too much. I tried different concentrations, but the best results I had were without the added acids.

In summary, below are some tasting notes from what I did.

Lemon attempt

• 1 gram of hops per 500 ml for the tea. Used distilled water at 180 F with juice from ¼ of a lemon

• Brew in a coffee filter inside a glass for 20 minutes

• Results: Not very hoppy, had a sour taste from lemons

Concentrated attempt

• Wanted to get more hop flavor, so I did 10 g per 500 mL of tap with no lemon

• Poured the hop tea through a filter to get out hop bits

• Chilled and used ½ oz per can of seltzer

• Results: this tasted too bitter. The tap water from my area likely did not help.

Cream of tartar

• Acidify with up to 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar with 5 grams of hops per 500 ml of distilled water.

• Used about 1/16, ⅛, ¼, and ½ a teaspoon

• Did not have lemon flavor and the hop flavor was good

• Results: the overall hop water tasted sour though. It was so sour that made it deviate further from store flavors than if none was used.

Overall, the best results at this time for me were those that minimized the acidity. Lemon or lime might be an interesting flavor addition, but at this time, the plain hops and water were best.

In this experiment, I will be altering the temperature used to brew the hop tea to alter the bitterness. The objective is to alter the recipe used to mimic H2OPS by using a Citra and Cascade hop blend.

Materials

• Citra and Cascade hops in a 50:50 blend

• A bunch of mugs

• cut-to-size pour-over coffee filters

• hot deionized water (temperatures will include starting temperatures of 130, 150, and 170F)

Methods

1. Measure out an equivalent of 1 gram of hops per 100 mL of deionized water for each temperature (2 grams with 200 mL per group)

2. Add water when it reaches set temp and brew for 20 minutes

3. Chill until cold (all at same temp as my refrigerator)

4. Add tea to seltzer and test

5. Rate on parameters (sliding scale of 1-5)

Results

Bitterness: 130F: 1 150F: 3 170F: 4 Trend: ↑

Hop: 130F: 2 150F: 4 170F: 3 Trend: ↑

Citrus: 130F: 3 150F: 3 170F: 3 Trend: none

Sour/acid: 130F: 2 150F: 2 170F: 3 Trend: ↑

My enjoyment: 130F: 3 150F: 4 170F: 4 Trend: none

Discussion/Conclusions

During brewing, the pellets broke up more rapidly in warmer temperatures. The hop tea smells of chocolate and bergamot. The only difference between temperatures is the intensity of the smell. The smell becomes stronger with warmer brewing temperatures. The brewing temperatures ended at 104, 105, 107F for 130, 150, and 170F brewing temperatures, respectively. My apartment was at 80F.

For the resulting hop teas, the bitterness was a fair bit less in the 130F temp group than the 150. The 170F has a bite and made my tongue feel warm and sting from the bitterness. The difference is quite drastic in the hop tea. It seems like this could be a way to control flavor profiles independent of hops used. Of course, how the flavor profiles change with brewing temperature will likely depend on the hops being used.

For the hop waters, the 130F brew group was lighter than the other temperatures in flavor and bitterness. Additionally, the bitterness did not build over time. The citrus is there, but weakly. There is very little smell. The 150F brew group had a hoppy smell that comes through. It is more bitter, but it also has more citrus and hop notes. Negatively, the bitterness grew over time. This build-up was more intense in the 170F brew group. Additionally, this hottest brew temperature did have some sweet citrus notes initially. However, the bitter aftertaste built up over time to mask the sweetness.

Overall, the lower temperature of 130 created a hop tea that is likely too lacking in flavors. Bitterness is reduced, but so were the other flavors. The 170F temperature is great for getting out the hop flavor, but the bitterness would likely need to be countered in some way.

In this experiment, I will be testing the bitterness and other flavor characteristics of the hop tea prepared via cold brew vs the longer 20-minute brewing. Like with pour-over, when this is done with coffee the outcome seems less bitter to me. I hypothesize that the cold brew could be less bitter but also bring out different flavors since the temperature might not aid in the solubility of certain oils. If not enough flavor can be pulled out with the same amount of hops, this method will require extensive follow-up to find a good ratio to develop the hop tea.

Materials

• Citra and Cascade hops om a 50:50 blend

• A mason jar to cold brew in and my standard brew set-up

• A filter to remove residue from cold brew

• hot deionized water (temperature will be 150F) for control set-up

Methods

1. Measure out an equivalent of 1 gram of hops per 100 mL of deionized water for each temperature

2. Add water when it reaches set temp and brew for 20 minutes for control

3. Add hops and room temp water to mason jar and put in fridge for 8-12 hours

4. Chill control until cold (all at same temp as my refridge by the end)

5. Add tea to seltzer and test

6. Rate on parameters (sliding scale of 1-5)

Results

Bitterness: Control: 3 Cold Brew: 1

Hop: Control: 4 Cold Brew: 4

Citrus: Control: 3 Cold Brew: 5

Sour/acid: Control: 2 Cold Brew: 3

My enjoyment: Control: 4 Cold Brew: 5

Discussion/Conclusions

During brewing, the hops took a couple of minutes to fully break up in the cold water. At the end of brewing and straining, the hop tea was a lighter yellow than the control. I did not try the hop teas at the time because I did not want to wreck my taste buds before the hop water taste test.

The cold brew hop water had a reduced bitter bite with the other flavors coming through nicely. The citrus and acid are more present in a balanced fashion that I found refreshing to drink. There was less bitter burn than the control and the smell seemed slightly stronger. However, the smell is not very present at all for both groups.

Overall, I like the cold brew more as it took care of the bitterness. However, if the goal was for more hop flavor and less citrus, this method might not be the preferred approach. I think that adding sweetener or yeast could reduce the issues with bitterness and allow for more hop flavor to come through. As far as the hypothesis, the cold brew method was less bitter; however, the flavor of citrus was not left out. I'll give it more taste rounds, but it seems the citrus notes might be more soluble at cold temperatures than the hop notes.

In this experiment, I will be testing the bitterness and other flavor characteristics of the hop tea prepared via pour-over vs the longer 20-minute brewing. When this is done with coffee, the outcome seems less bitter to me. This has the potential to be less bitter and quicker to deal get ready to drink. However, the flavor could be less concentrated in the tea, altering the balance of tea to seltzer and impact carbonation.

Materials

• Citra and Cascade hops in a 50:50 blend

• Pour over set-up and my standard brew set-up

• hot deionized water (temperature will be 150F)

Methods

1. Measure out an equivalent of 1 gram of hops per 100 mL of deionized water for each temperature

2. Add water when it reaches set temp and brew for 20 minutes or slowly pour-over hops

3. Chill until cold (all at same temp as my refridge)

4. Add tea to seltzer and test

5. Rate on parameters (sliding scale of 1-5)

Results

Bitterness: Control: 3 Pour-over: 2

Hop: Control: 4 Pour-over: 4

Citrus: Control: 3 Pour-over: 3

Sour/acid: Control: 2 Pour-over: 2

My enjoyment: Control: 4 Pour-over: 5

Discussion/Conclusions

For the hop tea, the color of the pour-over method appears similar to that of the longer brew. It is possible the colors come off the hops much more easily than some flavors. When comparing the hop teas, the pour-over method for hop tea would need to be watered down and enjoyed as a hop tea all on its own. The bitterness is there, but the second wave of hop flavor comes in. After consecutive sips, the bitterness actually becomes overwhelming. I think this speaks to the method's ability to still extract a decent amount of flavor despite taking 10% of the time. In contrast, the control method's hop tea tastes fuller with more bitterness that was quick to overwhelm and burn.

When the tea is added to the seltzer, the pour-over method had a stronger smell than the control. Strikingly, the flavor was stronger as well. Furthermore, there was not an overpowering bitterness in the pour-over group. The citrus and hop notes come through nicely as well. Of the different temperatures using the control method and the cold brew method, the pour-over method had my favorite flavor profile. The best way I can describe the flavor differences is in where the flavors strike on my tongue. For the pour-over method, the flavor hits the mid-center of my tongue. In the control, the flavor that is there hits the mid-back edges of my tongue. Interestingly, the flavor seems even stronger than the brewing at 170F, but smoother.

In conclusion, the pour-over method was less bitter and felt more balanced. The flavor was not lost from the shorted brewing period. It is possible some complexity might be lost due to the shorter time.

I stopped using lime or lemon juice after my first couple of attempts due to the citrus taste of the lemon or lime juice taking over the drink. I still believed there was some benefit to using an acid to affect the solubility of different oils or flavors in the hops during the brewing step. Adding the lemon juice to the water used to brew the hops would dilute the acid and require more of it. Therefore I thought of adding the lime juice to the hops in its concentrated form. I hypothesize that this would result in a drastic change in flavor profile due to the use of a concentrated acid on the hops. However, I was not sure what that change would be because before all I got was the acid taste of the citrus juice.

Materials

• Citra and Mosaic hops in a 50:50 blend (my favorite)

• Magnum hops (one of my more bitter-tasting hops)

• Lime juice and a shot glass

• Pour over set-up and my standard brew set-up

• hot deionized water (temperature will be 170F) - aiming for bitter to see the effect

Methods

1. Measure out an equivalent of 1 gram of hops per 100 mL of deionized water for each hop group

2. Add hops to the shot glass and add enough lime juice to get the hops wet. I also tried to break apart the hop pellets a bit with a chopstick.

3. Add hops to brew set-up and add water. Brew for 20 minutes

4. Chill until cold (all at same temp as my refridge)

5. Add tea to seltzer and test

6. Rate on parameters (scale of 1-5)

Results

Citra/Mosiac blend

Bitterness: Control: 3 Lime: 2

Hop: Control: 4 Lime: 3

Citrus: Control: 3 Lime: 3

Sour/acid: Control: 2 Lime: 3

My enjoyment: Control: 5 Lime: 4

Magnum hops

Bitterness: Control: 4 Lime: 2

Hop: Control: 3 Lime: 3

Citrus: Control: 2 Lime: 3

Sour/acid: Control: 2 Lime: 3

My enjoyment: Control: 3 Lime: 4

Discussion/Conclusions

Overall, the flavors in both blends become more muted. In a way, the harshness is taken away. For the Citra/Mosaic blend, this means a reduced bitterness, but the hop flavor was also muted. I still enjoy it, so the score is a strong 4 or better, but I needed to show that it was less enjoyable than my control. In contrast, the enjoyment of the Magnum hop water was enhanced by this method. The bitterness that would be there with these hops was turned down and the citrus from the lime helped balance things. Regardless, the strength of both groups using the lime method was lighter than the controls. Therefore, if a stronger drink is desired, more hops might be needed with this method. Adding more hop tea to the blend might reduce carbonation, so the hop tea would need to be made more concentrated.

9/18/20 - I've added 20% more hops by weight for a tea and found that the lime method works very well. A small dash of stevia and bitterness is cut with only the other hop flavors coming through.