help with hops

[happyhoppytaff]

i am a kit brewer and i want to add a bit more hops flavour to my brew.

i have a rough plan of adding some bittering hops before fermentation and some aroma just before i bottle.

what sort of quantities should i be thinking of using for a 5gallon brew?

(i looked on the simply hops link. i think i will try Admiral and Fuggles)

any tips, thoughts, advice greatfully recieved.

 

[farmer brown]

I've been dry hopping using 12g of Cascade per gallon of ale in my secondary fermentation. You can push it to 18/20 if you're feeling hoppy!

You could look into Citra if you like a nice grapefruit finish? Also Chinook gives a great aroma.

If you need help with hops:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/hops

 

[Dave1970]

You're not going to get much of a bittering effect without boiling. You could try making a hop tea. Boil your bittering hops in a pan of water for an hour, add aroma hops with 5 mins to go or at the end and leave to steep as it cools. Now seive and then use this water to make your kit. The more water you use the more extraction you'll get from the hops.

 

[andylanc1975]

Cheers Dave1970 and Farmer brown, been wondering for ages how I could add more hops to my kits :thumb:

 

[farmer brown]

Hops tea also works well without all the messing around with hop bags!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfm2r1VYeUU

 

[happyhoppytaff]

thanks for the replies guys

so my plan now goes like this...

i will make up about 19.5 ltrs. then, just before bottling i will boil up 100g of hops (fuggles i think) and make a 1/2 ltr of hop tea, and then add the cooled tea to the fermenter.

i'll leave it for an hour - so the tea can defuse throughout the brew - and then bottle.

can you help me fine tune this plan? does it sound good, or bad!

 

[BeerEagle]

Are you going to batch prime before bottling? In which case add your tea and priming sugar to your bottling bucket and mix with your beer in there. Diffusing may not give you the consistency that you would like without giving it a good stir - and you don't want to do that in your FV, do you?

 

[farmer brown]

I have always added the hop tea to the secondary fermentation once its finished its primary fermentation after 3/4 days. If you add the hop tea before the primary fermentation you will lose a lot of aroma from the hops. Ill leave the tea in the secondary for 2 weeks before bottling.. Hope this helps !

 

[andyd]

I would have thought a 100g is way too much. Bearing in mind your kit is already hopped you're only looking to add flavour/aroma. 100g would be more than most 19L AG recipes. I'd suggest you try maybe 20g.

Also, don't boil for too long, it's the flavour/aroma you want so 10 mins should be enough.

 

[happyhoppytaff]

lots to think about here. thanks everyone.

i bottle direct from my primary fermentation bucket. i dont batch prime, i add a half teaspoon of sugar to each bottle. (i bottled 44X500ml bottles last night, and drank 3 i made earlier :drink: )

i just want to try and get more aroma for now. this might be tricky.

how long will aroma last? if i add a hop tea a few days before complete fermentation (so the tea will defuse through the brew) do you think i will still get a nice hoppy aroma at the end?

 

[Dave1970]

i just want to try and get more aroma for now. this might be tricky.

When I said to boil for an hour that was when you asked about bittering. For aroma you could do a 5 min boil or just steep as suggested or you can dry hop, just chuck a mesh bag of weighted down hops into your brew after the initial vigorous stage of fermentation has passed.

 

[happyhoppytaff]

When I said to boil for an hour that was when you asked about bittering.

yes, i did ask about bittering too.

thanks for your help.

:

 

[happyhoppytaff]

ok, ive done a bit of research into hops and i think i get it now.

i put a brew on last night. i am going to add aroma hops to it.

im going to steep 100g hops in boiled water for around 10 minutes and then pour it in the fermenter. (the brew is short of 5gals so 200mls of hop tea should be fine)

from what has been said here i understand that will extract the aroma from the hops .

anyone whats to alert me to any possible problems with this plan.

i'll let you know how it turns out.

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