If you've ever heard anyone go on and on about 'brewing day' and the 'perfect hoppy IPA' they made, you could be forgiven for thinking that making beer takes all day and only the keenest enthusiasts make beer.
But if you don't have all day to muck around and you don't need a milk stout but just want beer, let me assure you that you can make beer in 20 minutes.
That's right, you can make beer in 20 minutes if you're organized.
Here's how to make beer in 20 minutes
Boil the kettle Take your fermenter. Sanitise it with sodium percarbonate. Rinse. Add your can of malt to the fermeneter. Add your beer enhancer. Add the boiled water from the kettle Stir it. Add hops. Add water to the 23 litre level. Pitch the yeast. Put the fermenter in a warm place. Congratulations, you have made beer in less than 20 minutes. Now store it properly for 3 weeks and then enjoy with my regards.
What’s the best way to properly store opened hops?
Hops are expensive, and if you’ve got some spare, keeping them fresh makes good sense. Freezing leftover hops is common practice among brewers—it preserves their aromatic oils and alpha acids.
Fold over the top to expel as much air as you can, then seal. If you have a vacuum sealer, use it to remove the rest of the oxygen.
Label the bag with the hop variety so you won’t forget what’s inside.
Store the bag in the freezer until you need it.
Proper sealing slows oxidation; freezing adds an extra layer of protection.
RiteBrew Cascade pellet hops
You can also refrigerate the hops
Store hops in a fresh zip-lock bag or other airtight container. Properly sealed hops can remain fresh in the refrigerator for up to a year.
How to get cheap hops
Specialty brewing shops often offload older hops to regular customers. Follow your local brew shop on social media and watch for giveaways when they clear out old stock.
Signing off
As long as your hops haven’t been exposed to too much oxygen, they’ll keep well and you won’t have to worry about staleness.
Understanding Hop Storage for Optimal Brewing
To keep hops at their best and ensure maximum flavor, it’s crucial to know what degrades them and how to guard against it.
The enemies of hops: temperature, oxygen, and light
Temperature – Store hops cold (1°C–5°C / 34°F–41°F). Freezing won’t harm them and helps lock in oils. Avoid temperature swings.
Oxygen – Oxidation dulls bitterness and creates off-flavors. Remove as much air as possible before sealing.
Light – UV exposure leads to “skunky” off-flavors. Keep hops in opaque, airtight containers.
Best practices for hops storage
Vacuum sealing – Reseal opened packages immediately. Vacuum sealing is ideal; if you can’t, squeeze out as much air as you can.
Packaging – Use mylar foil bags or glass jars with tight lids. CO₂ flushing adds extra protection.
Refrigeration/freezing – Store in the fridge or (better) the freezer. Cold slows the breakdown of alpha acids and oils.
Use promptly – Once opened, aim to use hops within a few days for best aroma and bitterness.
Hop Storage Index (HSI)
HSI measures oxidized vs. non-oxidized hop acids.
HSI ≤ 0.32: fresh hops.
HSI 0.33–0.40: slightly aged.
HSI > 0.40: quality is questionable.
Additional tips for homebrewers
Buy in bulk – Less handling means fresher hops overall.
CO₂ flushing – Displace oxygen in storage containers for longer-term freshness.
Avoid odors – Keep hops away from strong-smelling items; they can absorb unwanted aromas.
Impact of storage conditions
Oxygen – Causes oxidation and loss of aroma.
Light – Leads to skunky flavors.
Heat – Accelerates degradation of hop compounds.
By following these guidelines, you can extend your hops’ shelf life and keep your brews flavorful and aromatic.
1 dop for a 300 - 500 ml bottle, two for anything over 750 mls.
Once you have added the drops and bottled the beer, it will take about 7 days to condition. This is the bare minimum before which you can drink your beer. The patient beer brewer should wait about 3 weeks before sampling their brew but we know you won't listen...
Beware over priming your beer. If you add too much sugar or dextrose, too much CO2 will be produced by the yeast and it will have nowhere to escape. It will escape in the form of a 'beer bomb' when you open your beer and it will gush out the next of the bottle like a geyser and go all over the place and you will have committed a cardinal sin, wasting beer!
You can use drops to carbonate apple cider as well as beer. The measurements are the same to get the same amount of carbonation.
Different temperatures will play on how well the carbonation process goes. The yeast in beer generally enjoys a warmer temperature to do its thing - so if you are questioning whether the drops didn't produce enough CO2, bear in mind there are other factors at play such as being too cold! Beer should be kept warm for a few days after adding the sugar. Then move to a cool place.
If you do choose to not use drops and just wish to add granulated sugar to the bottle, we recommend the use of an ordinary kitchen funnel as it speeds things up and helps reduce the mess of sugar going everywhere. You could also consider batch priming your brew.
We once tried using jelly beans as a substitute for carbonation drops. The results were quite interesting! Basically, you can use any form of sugar lollies for carbonating beer - as long as it fits down the neck of the beer you'll be right! You can also use honey!
We've used Mangrove Jack's drops many times and had no problems so are very happy to recommend their use.
If you are buying drops online, say Coopers Drops from Amazon, we suggest you order at least a couple of packets - that way the cost for delivery becomes more effective by price per unit.
You can probably guess that if you're beer is skunked, your beer is done for.
Just like your clothes are ruined if a skunk manages to offload the contents of their anal glands over you, skunked beer can be undrinkable.
So how does beer become skunked?
It occurs when a chemical reaction happens in the bottled beer due to prolonged exposure to sunlight.
This 'lightstruck' beer is caused by the UV radiation in light from the sun.
If a beer has been left too long in a store under the shops lights, it can happen as well.
What actually happens is the so-alpha acids in the beer (which come from hops) are broken down and form a new compound in the beer by joining with any proteins floating around.
This compound stinks! Kind of like a skunk's odorous spray.
So how can you prevent skunked beer?
It seems pretty obvious eh, keep your beer in the dark and at the very least, out of direct sunlight.
Brown glass is pretty handy at preventing this from occurring but not so much green bottles or clear glass.
So, the trick to avoiding skunked beer is clearly to store your beer in the dark.
To sum up:
If you are brewing a lager, bear in mind a strange smell could be 'normal' and may disappear after the beer has been conditioned.
It could well be your beer is contaminated by bacteria, in which case nothing will save it. Head to the pub for a self pitying pint.
Lightstruck or skunked beer can happen when bottled beer is left in sunlight too long so leave your homebrew in a cool and dark place.
There are two times when you need to add hops to your beer brew.
For each, it depends on how you are making your beer batch.
All grain boil ups
The beer wort is often boiled with the hops added at crucial moments just prior to being cooled.
The timings of when to add the hops in the boil can be critical because the different boil times cause the hops to work differently on the beer by imparting differing qualities.
If you are making your own wort (that is you are not using a beer kit) then it's best practice to follow a tried and true recipe, at least as you start out.
This part of the process is often referred to as the “hop schedule”. A hop schedule will list the length of time that the hops should be in the boil, not the amount of time you should wait to add the hops. So pay attention to what you are reading!
Following the schedule properly will allow you to make your timings correctly. It's basically the rule of 'follow the recipe' - until you are experimenting with hops!
The rough guide to using hops on the boil is the longer you boil the hops, the more bitterness they will impart into the wort.
The shorter time frame you boil them, the more flavors will be added to the beer.
It all depends on how you want your beer to benefit from the hops addition.
Some beer recipes will also call for hops to be dry hopped when fermenting.
Adding hops with a beer kit wort
If you are using a simple beer extract kit then you can add the hops when you are preparing the batch of wort.
Just add it to your wort and fermentation will do the rest.
Some people like to delay adding the hops until a few days later. This is fine, but in our experience of using brewing kits, it makes little difference to the end result in the hop aromas and taste your beer will have.
Dry hopping is often considered inefficient as not all the bittering components of the hops are released into the beer - one way to increase the efficiency of the release is by making a hop tea.
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