How bad are hops?

All styles of whiskey. This is for all-grain mashes.

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aofhise6
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How bad are hops?

Post by aofhise6 »

Hey friends. Long time brewer, first time whiskey maker.
I'm going to do about 100 litres of all grain whiskey wash. It's a modification of one of StillIt's safety net recipes, except all grain, because I'm fairly confident in that.
I want to use S04, which I'm conveniently using to ferment an ale - standard 20 litre batch. I want to use the yeast cake to ferment the wash on.
How worried should I be about hops? Enough to buy 5 packs of yeast instead?
The beer will have almost no hop matter, and all the liquid would be drained off. The beer recipe has only a small amount of hops in it.

Thanks for your thoughts.
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NZChris
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Re: How bad are hops?

Post by NZChris »

You are about to find out.

I deliberately put hops in some of my products. Choose your heart cut by sampling prospective blends of your collected jars to find a blend that you like.
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subbrew
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Re: How bad are hops?

Post by subbrew »

I had a whiskey last week which was made from a beer one of of the local breweries had made but didn't sell well. (not my whiskey, a local distillery). anyhow, it was good. It has been a low hopped amber beer, but certainly more hops than your yeast cake would have.
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: How bad are hops?

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Might also produce an interesting spirit to use in a krafty bitters or cocktail adjunct too?

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contrahead
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Re: How bad are hops?

Post by contrahead »

Back in 2009 or 2010 sometime, my son staged a big bonfire and beer party in the back yard. The sheriff's dept had been forewarned because one kid's father was a deputy. There might have been 50 – 70 kids there (old high school buddies) drinking down a couple kegs of Bud Light, of all things – because it was cheapest.

The next morning I woke up early and went outside, to find the dust mostly settled. Three or four cars were parked under shade trees in the back, where some kids had crashed out, rather than to drive home. There were beer cans, booze bottles and trash to be picked up everywhere. Lawn chairs and several fold-able tables with food remnants and multiple plastic pint glasses still fairly filled with Bud Light.

This was at a time after I had constructed my first still, and was attempting to distill anything and everything. So while the party goers were sleeping off their hangovers – I was happily draining all their unused leftover beer and other booze into a common container. Once I distilled it, I was most impressed with its taste. It was reminiscent of a good scotch. Any hops contributed (not detracted) from the final taste.

There is an interesting story behind the decline of flavored gruits and the ascent of hops. The history has more to do with religious reformation than it does with the merits of either flavoring. After the Protestants enacted the Reinheitsgebot (1487), the Catholic church lost considerable income (from Germanic countries esp) gained from its monopolization over preferred beer gruit recipes.

Hops is also used as herbal medicine, and acts as an antiseptic \ antibiotic preservative by inhibiting bacterial growth but not beneficial yeast growth. Bakers and cooks have been using hops for centuries - to separate bacteria and yeast colonies. At the same time – older men that brewed beer (using hops for bittering) as a profession and whom drank a lot of their products – usually developed “brewer's droop”. A condition where the male acquires larger female like breast, and develops erectile dysfunction. But that is to be expected when a guy rolls around in and gulps down excessive female hormones (exuded from the hops flowers) all day long; every day.

As far as I am concerned though, hopped beer distills into a fine tasting whisky.
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MooseMan
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Re: How bad are hops?

Post by MooseMan »

aofhise6 wrote: Wed May 24, 2023 7:21 pm
The beer will have almost no hop matter, and all the liquid would be drained off. The beer recipe has only a small amount of hops in it.

Thanks for your thoughts.
I would have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in using the yeast cake to do what you're planning.

I've used the lees from lager and ale ferments (Nottingham yeast) to start ciders many times over many seasons and never ever had a hop flavour carry over.

If you were planning to use the trub from some triple hopped monster then I'd maybe wash it first, but even without you'd be fine I'm sure. Not sure the vegetal bitterness would carry over into the final product.

I've washed and pitched yeast cake from IPAs that have been dry hopped twice in the fermenter, once at Krausen drop and again near terminal gravity. No problem at all.
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aofhise6
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Re: How bad are hops?

Post by aofhise6 »

Thanks friends!

I'll send it and see what I get.
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