Cheers!! I'm looking into preserving beer better in a more natural way, namely using hops for their preservative effect in a greater role. Currently we know from science that hops have some of their preservative quality from isohumulone--the ionophores disrupt lactobacillus' membranes or something like that---we'll call this factor "Y". I believe however, that the majority of hops' preservative power comes from something other than the bittering acids--we'll call it factor "X". I apologize for I only have anecdotal evidence for factor X, but there's a heck of a lot of it from many, many brews!! I've noticed factor X is directly related to the amount of hops used, not the amount of alpha acids. So I have already increased the shelf life and sturdiness of my beer immensely from a wide range of bacterial foes by bittering my beer with low alpha hops so I can increase the amount of hops used in the boil.
Unfortunately, you can only go so far with this method, because the vegetative flavor starts to come thru if you use too many low alpha hops. The Belgians knew this, so they would dry out hops in the sun so all of the bittering and vegetative(chlorophyll) was gone, and then they would throw in the bleached out, alpha acid free hops in the boil to preserve a beer without adding the bitterness.(but the hops still had factor X) Its also pretty obvious from experimentation, that whatever factor X is, it only comes out if you boil the hops, not if you dry hop them.
Soon, I may be doing a rather tedious experiment to see if some varieties have more of factor X than others. But before I do, I would rather not reinvent the wheel!!
Does anyone know of any research regarding what factor "X" might be? The only research I can find deals with factor "Y". Has anyone noticed a beer starting to have better or worse shelf life, or a different susceptibility to being soured when switching to a different hop for bittering that had a similar alpha acid as the one it replaced? Does anyone have any anecdotal or real evidence as to the existence of any "Super preservative" hops out there? Do you think some preservative power could be related to a hop's ability to resist certain growing diseases? Any speculation welcome!!
Unfortunately, you can only go so far with this method, because the vegetative flavor starts to come thru if you use too many low alpha hops. The Belgians knew this, so they would dry out hops in the sun so all of the bittering and vegetative(chlorophyll) was gone, and then they would throw in the bleached out, alpha acid free hops in the boil to preserve a beer without adding the bitterness.(but the hops still had factor X) Its also pretty obvious from experimentation, that whatever factor X is, it only comes out if you boil the hops, not if you dry hop them.
Soon, I may be doing a rather tedious experiment to see if some varieties have more of factor X than others. But before I do, I would rather not reinvent the wheel!!
Does anyone know of any research regarding what factor "X" might be? The only research I can find deals with factor "Y". Has anyone noticed a beer starting to have better or worse shelf life, or a different susceptibility to being soured when switching to a different hop for bittering that had a similar alpha acid as the one it replaced? Does anyone have any anecdotal or real evidence as to the existence of any "Super preservative" hops out there? Do you think some preservative power could be related to a hop's ability to resist certain growing diseases? Any speculation welcome!!
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