As the craft brewing industry seeks to become more efficient in brewing practices, the number of breweries who are considering alternatives to T-90 hop pellets to help improve process loss and maintain desired flavor output is growing. Such alternatives include, but are not limited to, reduced vegetation hop pellets and supercritical CO2 hop extracts. In an effort to better substantiate this growing interest by brewers, a comparative study was conducted at the New Belgium Brewing Company pilot plant to explore how Citra T-90 pellets, Citra T-45 pellets, and two Citra supercritical CO2 extracts perform in the brewhouse whirlpool. Points of emphasis of this study include brewhouse process loss, potential brewhouse savings, multi-site sensory analysis to extrapolate product flavor similarities and differences, Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) analytical comparisons, along with monoterpene and sesquiterpene assays.

Learning Objectives:

Flavor: Understand the similarities and differences between these different hop products; Efficiency: Learn about yield savings and performance expectations of these different hop products; Whirlpool: See how the material was applied, the temperature it was applied at, the contact time in the whirlpool vessel, and other whirlpool considerations