Hop tea ice cubes for bittering post boil?

http://www.northernbrewer.com/hopshot

 

"treat it just like leaf or pellet hops added during the boil."

I would guess that it does to isomerize.

 

The hop tea cubes sounds novel. It will even help with wort chilling! Whether it will add something you like to your beer will need to be tested empirically and whether you can fine tune it is a matter of trial and error. Try it and report!

 

A concern that I'd have with the ice cubes is that when the cubes age a bit they could get a freezer burn flavor - at least I notice an off-flavor in my ice cubes when they've been sitting in the ice hopper too long. Maybe you wouldn't use enough hoppy old cubes to impart the freezer-burn flavor if they have it, but something for you to think about, especially for light-flavored beers.

 

Kudos for tasting it for all of us. That'd burn your tongue off.

 

Whatever you are tasting in your ice cubes is not freezer burned ice. Freezer burn is a consequence of dehydration and oxidation. You can't dehydrate and oxidize water. I guess if the food in your freezer is freezer burned your ice could be absorbing those flavors.

 

There is a lot of bacteria and dust flying around in your freezer. I'd be concerned that your ice cubes would introduce unwanted microbes in the beer. Ice also tends to absorb freezer flavors, that why old ice cubes makes water taste funny/bad. Contamination aside, if the cubes were stored too long you'd suffer the same fate. Although in your idea maybe you'd dilute it out....

 

You can do the cubes like I do with stock reductions. Pour the reduction into muffin tins and let them freeze in the freezer. As soon as they are frozen, pop them out and put in a large vacuum seal bag, leaving plenty of room to cut/remove, cut/remove so you can get what you need and reuse the bag. This helps lessen freezer burn and odor absorption

 

That's an interesting idea, I'm looking forward to hearing how well it works.

 

Alot of bacteria and dust? In a freezer? That's news to anyone who preserves food by freezing. Wow.

Freezers are a great invention because at sub zero temps bacteria remains dormant.
So I can't think why a freezer is some sort of incubator for microbes. Just the opposite.

If anything goes into a freezer with a big colony of bacteria, those bugs remain dormant until warmed. If the food is typical, and especially if it is boiled and sanitized there is really nothing to worry about. A freezer is about as antiseptic an environment as can be. Think about it.

 

FWIW I don't know too many people that just toss a raw steak in the freezer. Then defrost it and use it for steak tartar later on. Most of the time food is being wrapped and later cooked, so it would be difficult to notice contamination in that example.

My interpretation of the OP was that he was going to make hop ice cubes and potentially use them in finished beer to adjust bitterness in a beer lacking bitterness. Maybe I am wrong. A simple test would be to boil up a gallon of extract, cool it, toss a tray of normal water ice cubes that have been in the freezer for a week into the wort and see what happens. I think you'd be surprised.

I had a micro class where we swapped the inside of a freezer and plated it out. Stuff doesn't grow in the freezer but once plated its plain as day... there's microbes in that freezer.

 

Yes bacteria can survive freezing temps. This much is well understood. Those bugs are dormant though. That's why freezing is a good method of preservation.

If you boil water and then freeze the water you are preserving the water until you thaw the water. Once thawed and exposed to ambient temps it is just water and should not be left out.

I can't understand why anyone thinks a freezer is an incubator for food spoilage.
Cheers.