9
The hop pellets are not supposed to dissolve into your wort. Rather, the boiling isomerizes the alpha acids in the hops (and the isomerized alpha acids will dissolve into the wort), giving the wort its intended bitterness. However, it is totally normal to get an "oil slick", film or foam of hops on top of the boiling wort.
Hops have three purposes: ...
9
Generally, a beer created without the use of hops is called a 'gruit' or 'grut'. 'Gruit' (or 'grut') can also be the term used for the mixture of spices working as a bittering agent in the beer.
Some herbs commonly used in gruit:
sweet gale
mugwort
yarrow
ivy
horehound
heather
juniper
ginger
aniseed
carraway
and really, anything else a gruit producer ...
9
Could you use less hops, or add them 10 minutes later in the boil? There are lots of hops that are less bitter (weight for weight), but whether they are a good fit depends upon the recipe.
Sorry this isn't directly answering your question, but I think you can get what you are looking for (less bitterness) without having to substitute.
9
I happened to have "The homebrewer's companion" on my desk when I read your question, so I quickly checked in it, and it says the following:
Recently the German Society of Hop Research has recognized the
important potential of hop flavor and aroma in their document "New
Trends in Hop Breeding." The German Society of Hop Reserch identifies
key hop ...
8
Absolutely not a problem. You will gain just a bit of extra bitterness by boiling longer, but so little that I doubt you could notice it.
8
The term "Bill": be it grain or hops is simply the list of that type of ingredient, weight and time or stage schedule and how it's applied to the recipe.
Sample:
2oz Galaxy FWH
( weight, ingredient, added to kettle allowing the first wort of the sparge to mix with the hops, hops stay in for full duration of the boil)
Yes all beers have a grain and hop ...
7
There are plenty of online IBU calculators that will help you out, such as this one.
The recipe calls for adding 4 ounces with 15 minutes left in the boil, and 3.75 at flameout. Assuming the flameout addition adds no bitterness, we still have to calculate the IBU contributions from the 15 minute addition. Let's assume these AA percentages:
Simcoe: 13
...
7
Citra is a good bet for grapefruit aromas. Check this link for a nice tool to help with hopping your beers
https://www.hopunion.com/aroma-wheel/
7
Alpha acids, pleasant bitterness you want in your beer, are in inactive form in hops. They need to be isomerized to taste the way it should. This takes time and temperature, around an hour of boil to convert all of it.
Aromatic components of hops needs only to be washed out. But they degenerate and evaporate with boil, so the shorter you keep them hot, the ...
7
Interestingly, I found a presentation by Thomas H. Shellhammer, professor of fermentation science at OSU, that shows the composition of a typical hop cone:
Cellulose and Lignin: 40-50%
Protein: 15%
Alpha Acids: 2-15%
Beta Acids: 2-10%
Water: 8-12%
Minerals: 8%
Polyphenols and Tannins: 3-6%
Lipids and Fatty Acids: 1-5%
Hop Oil: 0.5-3%
Monosaccharides: 2%
...
7
What they're referring to is a process called "dry hopping", which is used to promote hop aroma and flavor in the beer. It's very common and has been in use for hundreds of years. You don't need to worry about contamination from the hops for several reasons...first, hops were originally used for their antibacterial properties. Second, after fermentation ...
7
From Brewtarget (brewing software):
Mash hopping: adding hop in the mash
First wort: adding hop in the boiling kettle and then lautering the wort in the kettle
Boil: Adding hop when the wort boils, at different times
Aroma: apparently adding hops after flameout, also called hop stand
Dry hop of course, which is for someone who starts with brewing rather ...
7
According to the American homebrewer's association, there are 3 main techniques to dry out your hops:
Food dehydrator
Using a food dehydrator is the easiest way to dry out your hops as it ensures air movement but does not get excessively hot.
Well-ventilated oven
You can use your oven to dry your hops by spreading them out on a pan. You will need to ...
6
If your recipe is written as one once by weight, which I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be. You should be fine with dry hopping and late additions. So as long as the pellets are the flavor you are going for you should be fine.
I dry hop all the time with pellets and I don't use bags or strainers and I get excellent flavor and no haze problems.
6
I've had bitter hop flavor come from dry hopping as well.
The quoted text from the OP makes sense to me:
Dry hopping is essentially creating a tincture. Don't believe me? Drop 3 grams of a high alpha hop in a liter of vodka and come back in a month, chose something fruity and popular like mosaic or galaxy. 3 grams is toughly equal to 2 oz in a 5 gallon ...
6
Yes, you are missing a more obvious method..just throw them in the secondary! You don't need to do anything at all to sanitize them and doing something could have negative effects on the quality of the hops. I have dry hopped many, many batches of beer with my home grown hops and infection has never happened due to it. As another example, Rogue has its ...
6
Even if you can't identify the strain, you can try using the cones to brew test batches, to see if it's any good as bittering hops, aroma or flavor. I did this with a batch of random "ornamental" hops, and liked the results enough to try to cultivate them.
6
Something I've read somewhere and tried myself with a degree of success is this technique:
Go out and buy a six pack of the most bland beer you know of in whatever style you desire (I've used But Light for a lighter beer, but not experimented with darkers). At this point you will need to sanitize the hops (you can probably freeze for more of a dry hopping,...
6
You've made your bed of hops, now lay in it.
Now is not the time to be messing about in your fermenter. Or, frankly, opening it up to take pictures of it. The beer is very susceptible to infection right now. Your massive dose of hops might be a little protective, but you can only get so much alpha acid in your beer, so you haven't made some super-immune ...
6
Raising the mash above 78 C generally runs the risk of extracting polyphenols, which will add astringency to your beer.
Additionally you'll extract other compounds that will make having a clear product more challenging.
Boiling with grains can be done if your boiling a small portion of your mash and returning it to increase the temperature of the overall ...
6
Apparently it means to add to Fermentation Vessel as you noted.
https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/blog/diy-dog
I'm guessing it means in the primary, as most dry hops are in secondary.
This would be the similar as a whirlpool addition, but have more rest time and hop trub for the primary.
Edit After more review of the other recipes. FV would be in the ...
5
Regarding essential oils for flavor and aroma, pellet hops typically have less than whole leaf hops due to processing, so you may want to add a touch more.
This BYO article on dry hopping techniques says
Since pellet hops are more highly processed than plugs or loose hops,
there is some concern that volatile oils are lost. When using pellets
for dry ...
5
Your best bet is to use them for flavor and aroma, since then you can use them as is. If you wanted to use them for bittering you'd have to find some way of measuring the bittering acids, such as boiling in a light sugar solution for 30 mins, doing the same with another known AA variety and comparing/diluting until you can get some idea of the bitterness.
...
5
No, you do not. Only the females produce cones, and pollinated cones are not desirable. Buy some rhizomes in the spring, plant them in a location that can meet their requirements (lots of light, lots of height and support for bining), and within a year you'll have beautiful hop bines and cones.
5
A very simple thing you might try, which doesn't require any further equipment at all, is "dry hopping". Depending on what you meant by your first beer not being "hoppy" enough, dry hopping might be the solution. Dry hopping will not add any bitterness, but it can add a great deal of wonderful hop aroma. If you currently rack from your primary fermenter ...
5
The color is just from the oils of the hops, likely discolored further from extended use and boiling. You sanitizing it by boiling it will kill off most unwanted bacteria from settling in.
If you're worried that it'll get too grimy, weight it down into an Oxy-Clean or PBW solution for 24-48 hours, taking it out periodically to scrub it and rinse it before ...
5
It just so happens that Waldo Lake Amber is my recipe. I designed that kit for NB. The technique is called First Wort Hopping and produces increased hop flavor and a smooth, mellow bitterness. Sounds like they kinda screwed up my directions. The right way to do it is to steep the grains, then when that's done and the bag with them has been removed, add ...
5
Bitterness is not linear throughout the boil, so you cannot assume that it will be twice as bitter after 60 minutes vs. 30 minutes. I'm also not sure that you're going to get a great sense of the bitterness in the partially-boiled wort vs. the finished beer, but I don't have a really compelling argument as to why not.
But I'm not understanding something ...
5
I've spoken with hop growers and wholesalers about this before, and short of a DNA analysis there is almost no way to know for certain. You can make a rough guess based on the appearance of the hops and history of the area, but that's about it.
5
If you didn't pitch yeast from an actively fermenting starter, 24 hours is a perfectly reasonable lag time. But if you really are seeing a thick kräusen atop your beer, it sounds like there's just a leak around the airlock. What are you fermenting in? A bucket with a lid gives plenty of opportunity for leaks around the edges. I'd be more concerned if it were ...
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