Hi All,
A few weeks ago I decided to try out the hop water and since I am not set up for kegging or forced carbonation I decided to bottle condition. The initial basic recipe was 250 grams of dry malt extract (boiled in water) and 50 grams of Riwaka T90 pellet hops steeped in a few liters of hot water (not boiling) and blended in with cold tap water for 23 liters in a bucket and 10g Mangrove Jack's M66 yeast, then bottled and capped into 330ml and 500ml bottles.
A week later, carbonation and flavor was on the low side, okay if you squeeze in a lime but not great. So I decided to pour some of the bottles into 2 liter PET bottles with 50ml of Guava puree. A few days later, results were better, stronger carbonation but very little guava taste to the point that it's sort of a waste of guava (side note, a lot of guava junk/fiber deposits into the bottom of the bottle which has some utility as a capable laxative, use this information 'as needed'.)
Next experiment with juicing the bottle conditioning was to add tonic syrup instead of the guava puree. If I read the label correctly then the syrup has 10 grams of sugar per 10 ml of volume so each 2L PET bottle had 40ml of syrup added to it (20ml per liter). PSI after 3 days at room temperature (18.4C) was approaching 30 so I placed them in the fridge. Results were very very good, lemony and hoppy with great carbonation, light but doesn't feel watery, and I'll be doing this again.
I still have 24 small bottles to combine into the 2L bottles with tonic syrup, so my setup next time will be to do the same 250g DME and hop tea into the bucket, but then pour directly into 2 liter PET bottles so that I can then add the tonic syrup as I have space in the fridge. This also has the advantage of letting me test out different flavors.
A few weeks ago I decided to try out the hop water and since I am not set up for kegging or forced carbonation I decided to bottle condition. The initial basic recipe was 250 grams of dry malt extract (boiled in water) and 50 grams of Riwaka T90 pellet hops steeped in a few liters of hot water (not boiling) and blended in with cold tap water for 23 liters in a bucket and 10g Mangrove Jack's M66 yeast, then bottled and capped into 330ml and 500ml bottles.
A week later, carbonation and flavor was on the low side, okay if you squeeze in a lime but not great. So I decided to pour some of the bottles into 2 liter PET bottles with 50ml of Guava puree. A few days later, results were better, stronger carbonation but very little guava taste to the point that it's sort of a waste of guava (side note, a lot of guava junk/fiber deposits into the bottom of the bottle which has some utility as a capable laxative, use this information 'as needed'.)
Next experiment with juicing the bottle conditioning was to add tonic syrup instead of the guava puree. If I read the label correctly then the syrup has 10 grams of sugar per 10 ml of volume so each 2L PET bottle had 40ml of syrup added to it (20ml per liter). PSI after 3 days at room temperature (18.4C) was approaching 30 so I placed them in the fridge. Results were very very good, lemony and hoppy with great carbonation, light but doesn't feel watery, and I'll be doing this again.
I still have 24 small bottles to combine into the 2L bottles with tonic syrup, so my setup next time will be to do the same 250g DME and hop tea into the bucket, but then pour directly into 2 liter PET bottles so that I can then add the tonic syrup as I have space in the fridge. This also has the advantage of letting me test out different flavors.
