Bulk Hop Extract
Finally! I found a vendor (Yakima Valley Hops) that was willing to sell me a can of generic CO2 extracted hop extract. I already had some cheap syringes from eBay, so I purchased a 150g AA tin, and away we went.
My box showed up today with a couple pounds of hops, and the can of hop extract. It’s definitely interesting stuff, and looks fairly gross when it’s in bulk sitting in the can. It’s very thick, so I found it much easier to work with after letting the can soak in very hot water first.
I had a couple wide gauge ‘needles’ for the syringes that act like a straw to suck up the hop extract. Even though they were reasonably wide, it does take awhile to fill the syringes, as the extract is very viscous. Anyway, after about 30 minutes, I ended up with around 130ml of hop extract, or the equivalent of around 26 Hop Shots from Northern Brewer. That’s about 60% cheaper than what Northern Brewer charges, so it’s definitely a bargin.
I won’t be using extract for all my beers this year, as I bought a pound of Apollo that I’ll be using for most of my general bittering. The extract is slotted for my big IPAs and DIPAs where I feel I’ll get the most out of it.
Anyway, it’s cool stuff, get your hands on some if you can.
Awesome idea. How do you plan to store them?
I was thinking about in the freezer, but I wasn't sure how this stuff would freeze. I checked the Hop Union website, and they say it keeps for yeaarrrrs, so I think it'll be fine kept in the dark fridge. We'll see.
Awesome stuff! I've been reading a lot of your older posts and liked you penguin bottles wax dipped. Could you or have you written a post on your process for that? I want to try it for my barleywine that I just put into secondary. Thanks.
Thanks, ya I've been meaning to do a write up on the wax dipped bottles. I will here shortly, as I'm fermenting a stout that I'm planning to bottle some off.
The short story is its wax crayons and hot glue sticks. I'll follow up with the long story soon.
I was thinking that. I saw something similar on HBT. I'll wait for your write up though.
Mind sharing how much they charged for the tin? I'm interested in doing something similar.
Sure, it was in the mid 20's. Like 24-26. I forget the exact number.
Hi, how did you work out how many ml of extract you need?
HopUnion has all the formulas. Basically it boils down to: 5ml of hop extract replaces 1oz of a 10% AA hop. (10AA). Or 1ml of hop extract = 2AAU.
Scott, with all this enjoy by and pty/e talk going around I want to give these a try. I am considering buying a can myself becuase it is by far the best deal out there. but my concern is storage. In your post you said it should keep for a LONG time, but according to hopunion they say once can is open you should use with-in a few days. Thoughts? Do I do it anyway? Have you noticed any difference in the extract since you bought it a while back?
I'm storing it in the syringes pictured above (identical to the hop shots from northern brewer). I keep those in the fridge in a zip lock bag. I've had them for probably 6 months now, and they're 100% fine.
If you aren't storing them something relatively air-tight, ya, I would imagine it would degrade fairly fast.
Cool! Thanks for the reply. I'm on it for sure now.
Does the CO2 resin act like pellet hops? In other words, do the IBU's change at 60 min, 30 min etc.?
Exactly.
Personally though I wouldn't use hop extract for any aroma additions. There's no way to tell what variety of hop it is, or judge the quality of the hops that were used.
Chris, when using the extract in your boil, do you let the syringes warm up to room temp first, or do you even have to heat them higher? I may only have access to 3 mL syringes, which would force me to likely use 1&1/2 (or more) syringes at a time.
Thanks!
I let them warm up to room temp, but room temp in Arizona is 80F+. I usually don't have much of an issue getting them to flow.
Thanks!
And, I don't know why I called you Chris… sorry, Scott!
Apeks Supercritical can extract hops – http://www.apekssupercritical.com/apeks-extracts-hops-oil/
Hi. I'm thinking of buying a can of hop extract from Yakima Valley. The cans they have for sale now are 100g for $22. Can you give a bit more information about the "cheap ebay syringes" you bought? Or a link to a syringe product that would work? I'm not at all familiar with them and the price seems to vary wildly depending on a number of factors. Thanks!
Search ebay for 'luer lock syringe'. You can get a box of 100 for like $6. You'll need at least 250cc worth of syringes.
Hi,
Can i ask where you got the black caps to seal the syringes after extraction
If memory serves me right they came with my syringes. If not search for luer lock caps
Thanks for sharing your experiences with hop extract as well as all your Pliny recipes. My 100g can of extract from Yakima Valley got here today and I'm getting ready to brew my own PtE. I just wanted to check with you about the number of syringes you used. In your post, you said that the can yielded 130cc of extract. I've got 16 x 10cc syringes, and I wanted to make sure that would cover everything before I opened the can.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hi Scott,
Can I ask what gauge needle you are using? I only have the 18 and am worried it may be too small in diameter to suck up the extract.
Cheers
Richard
14ga. It was a little slow, but it got the job done.
Scott,
I would like to make sure you are comfortable with your numbers for Hop Shot that basically say a 5ml syringe is equivalent to 1 oz of 10 AA hops. In my eyes you are in conflict with the Chart at Northern Brewer and the statement by Yakima Valley. They say "one milliliter of Hop Shot correlates to approximately 10 IBUs in 5 gallons of 1.050 wort —" Your 1 ml equals 2 AA is only one-fifth of their 1 ml equals 10 AA. I will follow your recipe for Pliny Younger and use 35 ml and 5ml, but I will be wondering if I have 140 IBU or 700 IBU. If the recipe works all is fine. However I will have formulate recipes to use the other Hop Shots I made up. Any help you can give me will be appreciated. If you get this post twice I am sorry. First one appeared to get lost in cyber space. Thank you for your help, great website!
I am comfortable with the numbers. The math was all pulled from HopUnion's website. With that said, The beer doesn't need nearly that much bittering hops. From seeing the actual brew sheet from Russian river, they use WAYYY less AAU than everyone thought.
About 30AAU at 90 minutes for Younger should be plenty. The rest is just a waste of money in retrospect.
Scott,
A year has passed. Looking at this thread I wonder if I was mixing up AAU and IBU last year. Anyway here is what happened. I have been brewing an APA recipe 20 years now. The recipe uses 100% Cascade. I tried using 20 mil of Hop Shot in place of some of the Cascade, but still used 9 oz of Cascade in a 12 gallon batch. Beer Smith put me at 118 IBU using 1mil equal to 2 AAU. That was a good ballpark number so I went with it. The beer came out very good, but I prefer all Cascade. I then used the yeast over to make an IPA Using your Pliny The Younger as a model. 80 mil of Hop Shot was used. I came up short on my OG 1.080. I never ever check FG, It is whatever it ends up as. Beer Smith clocked me in at 222 IBU. The beer took second place in the State Competition. There were 550 entries. The beer I brewed was judged against 15 other IPA. I did not enter as Imperial. Bottom line is I am with you on your figures for the Hop Shot. The judges and I all think it is a harsh bitterness. That is OK for an IPA. Thanks for all the wonderful information you have put out to assist others.