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Going off the pamphlet I picked up from a HBS, I collected all the ingredients to make a Boags Premium clone. The back of the pamphlet had a website, so I visited it a found a recipe for a Boags clone, had all the same ingredients I had as well as saying to add 2-4 drops of hops emulsion. This leads me to 2 questions:

1) Does adding this hops emulsion make a huge difference - will it make it more "Boagsy"?

2) If I do use it, when should I add it? I seem to remember reading I should add it when I bottle, but I can't find this info anymore.

Thanks guys

Hmmm. I think the thing to which they refer is what others know as "isohops", which is the bitter acids from the hops removed and put into liquid form.

My view is that you'd be better off just boiling up the hops and adding it to the fermenter. Maybe that's just me though.

I also remember something about adding the emulsion at bottling stage.

Anyone?

Oliver

Sounds like isohop. Blah Yuk Bitter

Fresher is better as well you know.

Dogger

Just to partly answer my own question, went to a HBS yesterday and quizzed them about hops emulsion (which turns out to be a clear looking liquid in a 5mL bottle). The guy reckoned it was practically the same as infusing a hops bag, and at $6 for a 5mL I can see why he would say this.

I also confirmed that you add at the bottling stage, which I see could have some advantages over the boiling method - as you can add between 2-4 drops (for a longneck), you could test adding different amounts of drops to different bottles from the same original batch, and see which measure turns out better. I guess if you were to do this you could see if they made a difference at all.

Mainstream beers have hops in them?

Anyways, be careful with this stuff. As far as I know it is EXTREMELY concentrated and doesnt require a lot, even in a whole batch. I'd stick to actual hops rather than risking good beer if you arent sure how much to add.

Can you get different types of emulsion (like to add Saaz, Fuggles, Cascade, etc characteristics)? I don't think so. This is where using hops would have a big advantage.

I think the emulsion mainly for adding bitterness, isn't it?

Oliver

Oliver,

You can indeed get different types of emulsions (at least Australian Winemakers in North Melbourne - no untoward interest in the place by the way) - the varieties you mentioned there I definetely remember seeing, plus they had a few more that I can't recall at the moment.

To be quite honest I wouldn't know what difference the emulsion makes - if you were to use them then you could probably have some bottles without the emulsion added and some with emulsion added and test the difference.

Having said all this, I chickened out at the last moment and just picked up a bag of Saaz pellets to add to my Boags clone instead.

You have chosen wisely, my son.

I thought I would be clever and be going to the Boags website to learn first hand which hops it is they be using. However, on the website there is a search function and entering to search the word "hops" I received this in reply:

Your search on hops returned 0 pages:

I've seen oils and emulsions of different varieties including Pride Of Ringwood, Cascade, EKGoldings & Styrian Goldings, etc.

Oils are for bittering, Emulsion for flavour/aroma.

This is what the mega-breweries use. Haven't tried it myself, except in VB, etc.

I raised the issue on another forum, and a couple people had tried it, but only used it once. Tasted different.

I'm not convinced hop oil and hop emulsion is any different. An emulsion is simply oil distributed in water (like italian salad dressing when you shake it). I'd bet that you are simply buying less concentrated hop oil when you buy the emulsion, which facilitates addition to each bottle without creating overpowering bitterness.

What is the manufacturers name? Presumably they have done a chemical analysis on the products which would allow us to tell if it contains bittering or flavor/aroma compounds.

hipone,

It is more like mayonnaise or ice cream than a shaken Italian but yes it is an oil or water drop surronded by an emulsifer so the two mediums can't get back into their seperated states.

Sorry, I live for emulsions.

Dogger