# Thinking of using hops instead of gesho (inchet and kitel)?



## BernardSmith (Aug 20, 2013)

A few months ago I made a small quantity of t'ej (traditional Ethiopian wine from honey). The recipe calls for gesho and that is what I used. Gesho seems to be used as a kind of hop in that it adds some bitterness to the wine and although I am no expert in beer making, the gesho is added cold (dry hopping?) and then later boiled. The t'ej was delicious but I wonder if anyone has tried making a US version using beer hops and if so what hops have you used and in what quantities did you add them (Assume the basic unit is one gallon of mead). I am thinking of making a few single test gallons. Should I be looking for hops with high alphas or low alphas? The ABV will be around 13 percent and the time to ferment is about one month.


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## fatbloke (Aug 31, 2013)

BernardSmith said:


> A few months ago I made a small quantity of t'ej (traditional Ethiopian wine from honey). The recipe calls for gesho and that is what I used. Gesho seems to be used as a kind of hop in that it adds some bitterness to the wine and although I am no expert in beer making, the gesho is added cold (dry hopping?) and then later boiled. The t'ej was delicious but I wonder if anyone has tried making a US version using beer hops and if so what hops have you used and in what quantities did you add them (Assume the basic unit is one gallon of mead). I am thinking of making a few single test gallons. Should I be looking for hops with high alphas or low alphas? The ABV will be around 13 percent and the time to ferment is about one month.


Well if you have a dig round all the forums that have mead info, I'm pretty sure you'll find examples of where others have used hops as a bittering agent. Just that with Tej, traditionally it's the Gesho herb.

Now not being any kind of beer expert (just knowing of the styles/types that I tend to drink occasionally) I wouldn't know the difference between the hoppy taste when it's been added to a boil or when it's been "dry hopped". 

Hence I'd just say, maybe make 2 batches, maybe gallon sized ones so you can do one where the hops have been boiled to extract the flavour and another that's dry hopped.....

Just that the nature of mead, means it's not gonna be a quick experiment, unless you have a refined palate and could taste the difference just in heated hopped water and dry hopped water........


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## saramc (Aug 31, 2013)

So you will still use the wood, but use hops instead of the leaf? The kitel (leaf) is the hops equivalent.


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## BernardSmith (Aug 31, 2013)

People I have spoken to who make beer say that you need the sugars in the malt to effectively isomerize the acids in the hops. If you boil hops in water you don't in fact get the bitter quality that the hops can provide if you were to boil them in the malt, so I am am planning on boiling half the honey for about 1 hour and adding hops at different times in the boil. 

You ask, Saramc about whether I am planning on using the twigs from the gesho. Short answer is that this time I want to see what mead with beer making hops tastes like without using the gesho. I plan on making t'ej again shortly. I have two bottles left from the first batch and one is being given away to some friends next week but what I want to do is expand my mead repertoire. And the use of hops as a substitute for both the kitel and the inchet intrigues me. I also want to make this a sparkling mead.

That said, I wish I had a better handle on the chemistry of t'ej making. The recipe calls for the inclusion of the kitel and the inchet right away. I suspect that in traditional t'ej making the yeasts on the gesho is what causes the honey to ferment. Is that your thinking too? When I made my batch I wanted more control over the fermentation process and so added yeast to the must but I followed the recipe otherwise and only later boiled the kitel and inchet in a small quantity of honey. My supposition now, is that that boiling was like using the gesho as a hop. I could not figure out when I made the t'ej what the reason was for boiling the gesho so late in the fermentation process but if you need the gesho to provide the yeast then you cannot boil the must before it has fermented and if you need to isomerize the acids in the gesho then you need to apply heat. (dry hopping provides aroma not bitterness). The use of hops and wine yeast would suggest that it should be possible (practically speaking) to boil half the diluted honey with the hops and then when it has cooled to add the yeast and the remainder of the honey. So , it will be a variation on t'ej... But the next time I make traditional t'ej, I am going to boil the gesho in the diluted honey and then add yeast and see how this works. I also want to add some additional honey or sugar before I bottle my next batch of gesho t'ej to create it as a sparkling mead. (I have a case or two of champagne bottles that should withstand the pressure)


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