When and how...hops

[user 49754]

I have a brew going. It's on its final stages of first fermentation. Probably another 3 days going by the airlock bubbling frequency. There or thereabouts I reckon. Anyway...I like a hoppy beer and have bought 150g of citra pellets and some teabags.
Better tell you the kit first I guess. It's a Geordie Yorkshire ale kit 40 pints. I've undersubscribed to the 40 pints as I like a stronger brew than the 3.8 abv which never comes out as that anyway. Normally 0.3 under the stated abv with the kits I've done so far. So I've made 21 litres instead of the 23 litres recommended.
Still fairly new to this. I'm 3 kits complete to date and this is my 4th.
I'd like to hop this beer and I feel this is the right time to do it. But how? Tea? Dry hop in bag with marbles?
What's the best way to add flavour. I'm after about 4.5to 4.8abv and a hoppy taste and aroma. Thanks for your time on this.

 

[jof]

I think you should have added more fermentables at the start to increase the original gravity to get a higher strength beer.
DME would be best, but you can add sugar, this will give strength but add nothing to the body of the beer.

Have you done this kit before without the hops?
Dry hopping in a bag will mainly add to the aroma.
Using a hop tea is more flexible as the tea will be higher temperature to extract more from the hops.
There are other forum members who are more experienced than me to give you advice on how long to stew your hop tea & how much hops to add.
To me 150g is an awful lot to add to a bitter. It's the quantities used in the current fashionable yank styles.

But like a lot of this you may just be down to experimenting to see what you prefer. Personally I would do a hop tea with about 50g of hops stewed for 5-10 minutes.

Remember to keep a few bottles back as you might need them to taste test against the next batch when you tweak your additions further.

 

[user 49754]

I think you should have added more fermentables at the start to increase the original gravity to get a higher strength beer.
DME would be best, but you can add sugar, this will give strength but add nothing to the body of the beer.

Have you done this kit before without the hops?
Dry hopping in a bag will mainly add to the aroma.
Using a hop tea is more flexible as the tea will be higher temperature to extract more from the hops.
There are other forum members who are more experienced than me to give you advice on how long to stew your hop tea & how much hops to add.
To me 150g is an awful lot to add to a bitter. It's the quantities used in the current fashionable yank styles.

But like a lot of this you may just be down to experimenting to see what you prefer. Personally I would do a hop tea with about 50g of hops stewed for 5-10 minutes.

Remember to keep a few bottles back as you might need them to taste test against the next batch when you tweak your additions further.

Sorry for the ignorance. What's DME I keep seeing this abbreviation.

Yeah makes sense about the OG being higher to start with mine was 1.041 .
1.040 OG has given me about 3.4to3.8 in the past so I'm hoping for around 3.8 with 1.041

I've not done this kit before. I've only done 3 kits previously.

I've bought 150g of citra hops. Sorry for the confusion. Lol. I wasn't putting them all in anyway lol. I was thinking about a third.

Thanks for the advice. You've made me think and can only be good.

 

[Sneedhearn]

Sorry for the ignorance. What's DME I keep seeing this abbreviation.

DME = Dried Malt Extract

 

[MashBag]

Yup. Hop tea all the way. Perhaps at 80/85c

But when you say you like hoppy beer. Which bit of the hop flavours do you like.

I can't see this ending well. I would brew and taste as it is, and then plan the next one.

 

[Leon103]

Yup. Hop tea all the way. Perhaps at 80/85c

But when you say you like hoppy beer. Which bit of the hop flavours do you like.

I can't see this ending well. I would brew and taste as it is, and then plan the next one.

I agree with this.

What are you trying to achieve? I guess the kit is a generic bitter kit, will 50g of. citra improve it. You say you like hoppy beers but which ones. Even 150g of citra in 21l isn't hoppy for my tastes so not sure what 50g will do.

 

[An Ankoù]

I think you should have added more fermentables at the start to increase the original gravity to get a higher strength beer.
DME would be best, but you can add sugar, this will give strength but add nothing to the body of the beer.

Have you done this kit before without the hops?
Dry hopping in a bag will mainly add to the aroma.
Using a hop tea is more flexible as the tea will be higher temperature to extract more from the hops.
There are other forum members who are more experienced than me to give you advice on how long to stew your hop tea & how much hops to add.
To me 150g is an awful lot to add to a bitter. It's the quantities used in the current fashionable yank styles.

But like a lot of this you may just be down to experimenting to see what you prefer. Personally I would do a hop tea with about 50g of hops stewed for 5-10 minutes.

Remember to keep a few bottles back as you might need them to taste test against the next batch when you tweak your additions further.

Yep agree with everything above except adding fermentables. Reducing the volume is perfectly ligit.
But 150 g of hops as dry hops when fermentation is finished is going to give you grassy flavours as well as some aroma. If you want a hoppy bitter / light ale then a teas using no more than 50g would be more than enough. If you want an AIPA, then I think you should start from scratch on thinking about the hopping schedule.

 

[user 49754]

Yup. Hop tea all the way. Perhaps at 80/85c

But when you say you like hoppy beer. Which bit of the hop flavours do you like.

I can't see this ending well. I would brew and taste as it is, and then plan the next one.

I like the bitterness of citra and cascade hops and their aromas and freshness. I tend to go for apa or IPA off the shelf beers

Yep agree with everything above except adding fermentables. Reducing the volume is perfectly ligit.
But 150 g of hops as dry hops when fermentation is finished is going to give you grassy flavours as well as some aroma. If you want a hoppy bitter / light ale then a teas using no more than 50g would be more than enough. If you want an AIPA, then I think you should start from scratch on thinking about the hopping schedule.

I've got another kit ready to start. It's the Geordie bitter 40pint kit. Where Would you recommend hopping this kit? At the start maybe or towards the end?

 

[An Ankoù]

If this were a "boiled" beer, I'd add some at the last five minutes of the boil and some more when the temperature dropped to 80C. But the instructions tell you to:
Simply combine it with sugar and hot water, then top up with cold water to yield 40 pints.
Which won't do at all. You'll need boil some of the wort with the 5 minute hops and then make a hop tea with the rest.
I have to confess to never having done this. Perhaps others can confirm or correct.

 

[MashBag]

I like you thinking, but never done from a kit.... But does that matter? The process you suggest is same as AG.

 

[The Baron]

Personally I would not be over hopping kit Bitters but find a appropriate kit for style to hop

 

[An Ankoù]

Jumping from Geordie to all-grain is a very big step, but going from "pimped" kits to extract brewing is a relatively short one. Why not look into this. Your beer will be many times better and you'll have much more control over it.

 

[The Baron]

I agree with AA pimping a kit is ok but putting large amounts of hops in will unbalance the beer massively.
You have most of the kit to do extract as advised you can then make a beer to style and be pretty hoppy if that is what you want.
Loads of recipes out there for extract brewing. This will then usually lead into AG in the future if time allows as it takes 4 hour plus to do AG.