The 3 best ways to add hops to your beer

When do I add hops to my beer wort?

This hops guide is focused on making beer using a kit rather than by doing a boil (when hops are usually added during the boil).

It is dead easy to add hops to your wort.

All you have to do is throw those precious green bullets of bliss into your drum once you have mixed all your ingredients together.

This is called dry hopping and it is easy as pitching yeast.

Many brewers add the hops a few days before bottling, once fermentation is complete.

Boom, you have done your beer a wonderful service by adding a magical green plant that will help give your beer a more discerning and bitter beer taste.

In this context, you are using hops for flavor and not so much for bittering purposes which happens during the boil.

But that's the easy way out to adding hops to your beer kit brew.

There are some other methods that you might wish to try which will add character and flavor to your beer.

The 'wait 5 days after fermentation method' 

Some beer brewers insist that you will get a better bang for your buck if you add the hops in 5 or so days after your beer has begun fermenting.

From what I can figure out, the rationale is that the 'aromatic oils' that can be lost in the popular boiling process of beer are retained in the beer.

The dry hopping method does not add any bitterness to the beer itself. So if you're after a really bitter beer, you'll need a kit that has been designed with that in mind or you could try making a hops tea that removes the bitterness from the hops and then add the tea to your wort.

This method of adding hops to your beer will give your beer a nice hoppy aroma which will surely add to your drinking experience.

Dry hopping works fairly well with IPA style beers.

The negative of simply adding dry hops into your wort is that it does increase the likelihood of there being sediment in your beer but with a good pouring technique and refrigeration before said poor, you'll be OK.

To try and counter that from occurring, you may wish to consider:

Placing hops in muslin bags to reduce sediment

The other method of adding hops to your fermenter is adding the hops secured inside in a muslin cloth bag.

We are not kidding.

If you wrap your hops up into a muslin cloth, the idea is that the sediment stays in the bag, but all the flavors get out and into your beer, meaning that you will have a clearer beer.

There are some arguments that this technique will actually hamper the effect of the hops as they kind of need 'room to breathe' and infuse the beer with their magical bitterness and IBU.

If you feel this is a fair point then I suggest you consider the:

The 'Hop Tea' technique to add bitterness to beer

That's right, before you make beer, you are going to make a cup of hop tea.

Put the hops in the muslin bag (or tie up a square of it) and then boil it for several minutes. The hop pellets will quickly disintegrate.

This is normal.

During the boil, have a good smell and enjoy the aromas. That's the deliciousness you want to impart into your beer.

When you've boiled the hops for long enough, turn the pan off but leave everything right where it is.

At this time, you'll also have prepared you wort, so now put everything you've boiled - the whole muslin bag and the bittered tea that you've made. It will be a green mess, like the Hulk puked up or something.

The idea here is that the great hops aromas and oils have been removed from bullets and will mix easily with your brew. You're throwing in the muslin bag for good measure.

The bag itself will not have any effect on the beer or fermentation process, it can be disposed of on beer bottling day.

The key thing is to not overthink things. Sure you could use a hop chart and worry about boiling times but really, if you a starting out, just relax.

If you are using a starter kit, or have done a few brews, what you are wanting to do is make a good, first up time beer and not worry too much.

Using extra hops already shows you are ahead of the curve, just get them into the fermenter and sit back and wait for the hops magic to happen until you are ready to bottle your beer.

Now you've got a nice brew ready, sit back, grab a glass of healthy Kombucha and watch some Star Wars!

Leave a Comment beer brewing, bittering, hops

↠ Do I have to sanitise all my beer brewing equipment?

Yes, you do bloody have to clean, sanitize and sterilize your beer brewing equipment, right down to the bottle caps and stirring spoon

There are plenty of tricks and cheats you can do to product quality tasting beer but the one thing you can't escape from is the proper cleaning, sanitizing and sterilization of your beer gear.

There's a difference between sanitizing and sterilizing

Sanitizing is a technical term that means a certain allowable amount of microbes to survive on the surface of your equipment.

Sterilizing is like sanitizing, but it removes all the microorganisms (the bugs and germs that will ruin your beer).

Think of washing your hands with hot water and soap as sanitization as it kills a few bugs but not all and is an acceptable means of cleaning your hands.

If you want to kill all the bugs on your hand so the skin is sterile with no bugs on it anywhere, then I suggest you boil your hands in water...

For the most part, the typical homebrewers don't need to sterilize, only sanitize. The chemicals commonly used for homebrew brewing are made to sanitize.

Now we've got those definitions clear, there are several methods that you can try to 'sterilize' your gear.

We'll note a couple in detail:

You can drown everything in bleach

A cheap and cost effective way to get your gear free of bugs is to drown your gear in bleach.

But what is bleach?

Bleach is usually a solution of chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide and they act as an oxidizing agent. They are great for all kinds of things such as removing bad smells, making your whites whiter and your brights brighter and for home brewing.

A popular American brand of bleach is Chlorox but there are hundreds of brands of bleach you could use.

As with all these sterilizing methods, you simply soak your equipment in the solution for a good length of time. A quick dip of ten minutes is the bare minimum.

We try and do several hours of soaking if possible.

The trick with bleach is to remember that you need to rinse everything off with clean water after. This is done to ensure that no yucky flavours leftover from the bleach makes it into your batch of beer. 

Use sodium percarbonate as a sanitizing agent

Using sodium percarbonate is our preferred method as it works well, no rinsing is required and it's very easy to order in bulk online.

And it does not smell like chlorine does.

If you've ever tried to buy sodium percarbonate from a specialist beer brewery shop, you'll know that you can get a small bottle or container of it that will cost you a small fortune.

If you can buy it in bulk from an online supplier, you'll do well to nab some as using it will effectively bring down your cost per brew. 

To use sodium percarbonate you simply add it to water. I like to add hot or ever boiling water to the drum so as to get the action of the chemical happening pretty quickly. The boiling water also helps kill off any nasty bugs hiding about as well. 

A home brand with sodium percarbonate.

Here's another trick, this chemical is basically what you might know as Tide or Napisan or any product that's brand name tries to use the word 'oxy' as in oxygen cleaning or oxidization agent.

Chances are you already have some in your home laundry so feel free to use that. I have done so several times with no problems whatsoever.

Non scented house brands are awesome.

Other methods of sanitization and sterilization

• Applying heat - use your oven for a good dry heat.
• Boiling in water with your camping stove or burner
• Use an autoclave or pressure cooker (this seems like a bit of overkill though)
• An ordinary house dishwasher machine can be used for sanitation but remember it's not likely to clean the inside of the bottles as well as you might wish, rather you are using the heat of the dishwasher to kill any microbes. 

The key goal here is to make sure that your equipment is nice and clean and that it has a few microbes on it is possible. You can use whatever means you like to achieve this but you have to do it and you must be consistent.

You cannot take a break from it. If you want a good tasting beer that's not contaminated then you just have to take the plunge. 

If you are looking for a product to CLEAN your brewing equipment then we suggest you consider using PBW:

PBW stands for Powdered Brewery Wash

PBW cleaning product by Five Star is widely used in many commercial breweries but countless homebrewers across the land have cottoned on to how they can use it for cleaning their own brewing equipment.

If you've ever used a 5 gallon stainless steel boil pot you'll know how crusty the remnants on the bottom of the pot can be. A quick round with PBW will sort them out easily. All you have to do when cleaning with hot water, is add just a little bit of PBW, mix it up, and let it sit in the pot. All of that burned-on garbage lifts right off. Ideally, a good burner will not cause this problem!

PBW is also excellent for cleaning the inside of your beer bottles, it can really clean out the beer's sediment. 

The main ingredient is about 30% Sodium Metasilicate. Its chemical formula is Na2SiO3 and it's what kicks grease and beer smegma to the curb. If you want to be brave and buy the main ingredient in bulk, there's plenty of value on offer on Amazon.

Image credit Anna L Martin as per Creative Commons License

Leave a Comment beer brewing, beer kit, home brew, steralisation, tricks and tips

↠ What is dry hopping (and how you do it)

How to 'dry hop' homebrew beer 

Simply speaking, dry hopping is when the brewer adds hops in pellet form to the fermenter after the wort has been readied.

The brewer is, of course, using hops to improve the aroma of the beer and to add some bitterness to the brew (bitterness is best produced by the boiling of hops though). 

This ‘dry’ practice is often done later in the fermentation cycle of the beer. The thinking behind adding the hops later is that the hops aroma is more likely to stay with the beer brew through to the bottling process.

This is because the bubbling process and emission of carbon dioxide via the airlock allows the aromas to escape.

Bearing in mind that one should leave one’s beer to sit quietly for a couple of weeks before brewing to ensure that the yeast has had a chance to do its thing, this is a great opportunity for the oils and bitterness of the hops to also transfuse into the beer.

It’s for that reason that dry hopping is a popular practice.

That said, we’ve thrown extra hops into our brews at the start of the fermentation process and haven’t experienced any taste disasters.

Beware the sediment factor

A point you might like to consider is that dry hopping can increase the chances and amount of sediment settling in your bottled beer. You may wish to think about placing the hops in a nylon mesh bag or muslin wrap.

Shortly before bottling your beer, remove the muslin back of hops with a sterilized instrument and you’ll be fine. 

I’ve read some brewers raise concerns that this method may reduce the chances of the hops being exposed to the beer. If you do share those concerns, you may want to make a tea of your hops!

If you are worried about infecting your beer with hops, don’t worry about it – indeed hops have been found to assist yeast with fermentation by having an anti-microbe effect on any nasties in beer!

But what hops are good for dry hoping? 

The classic hops choices for brewing are popular for dry hopping: Cascade, Crystal, Fuggle, Saaz, Willamette, Golding, Hallertau, and Tettnanger. You can of course dry hop with whatever variety you wish! It’s your beer, you can make it any way you want. 

We would encourage you to match the kind of hops to the kind of beer you are making. E.g. Goldings hops are a popular choice for ale brewers.

How much hops to add to the fermented wort drum?

The question of how much hops should be used when dry hopping is fairly easy to answer. 

Anywhere between 30 – 60 grams is considered normal, however, you can add as much or as little or as you want. It's all about taste and experimentation to find your personal preference.

If you double that 60 grams to 120 you will be more likely to get a very strong hop aroma from your beer.

Any greater amount and you will probably suffer diminishing returns (and hops are expensive!).

Did you know you can grow your own hops?

Leave a Comment beer brewing, dry hopping, hops

The truth about contaminated homebrew beer

It only takes one bad batch of contaminated beer for beer enthusiasts to be converted to the mantra of 'sterilization is mandatory'.

And that's the best approach you can have when brewing beer.

Keeping your equipment and preparation space clean and sanitary will keep you on course for a fine tasting brew.

Things do go wrong.

You might accidentally drop something into your batch.

Maybe your three-year-old son thought he was helping Dad out by throwing the air lock into it (yes, that actually happened).

Maybe you found a Weta at the bottom of your bottle? (true story)!

Maybe you managed to drop some bottle caps or a stirring spoon into it and then let it ferment:

I found the missing spoon!

Or maybe some bacteria decided to live in your fermenting drum. 

Does this mean you've contaminated and ruined your batch?


The short answer is no, yes and maybe.

But the chances are that you haven't screwed things up.

If you've done diligent preparation so that everything else is clean, then the chances are that dropping the odd utensil into your batch is not going to ruin it.

On a couple of occasions, I have been pushing the airlock into the hole in the top of the fermenter lid. As I have done this, I managed to push the rubber bung through the hole and into the batch.

Quelle Horreur! 

I was left with no choice each time to grab a large metal spoon from the kitchen drawer to try and fish the bung out. I had no time to sterilize the spoon - I'd pitched the yeast already and wanted to lock that drum down tight.

Did I ruin my beer by exposing it to a rubber bung and an unsanitized spoon? I possibly could have but in the end, my brews turned out absolutely fine.

Here's my reason why this scenario worked out OK.

If you make sure that you have already produced a hospitable environment for your yeast to take charge of your brew, it's like any introduction of foreign micro-organisms will not be calamitous.

The yeast you use is beer yeast. It's been cultivated for many years to brew the best kind of beers and it knows how to do its job.

If it's just a minor contamination by way of a spoon or dropped airlock (chances are they were actually quite clean as opposed to say a Matchbox toy car) it's more than likely your yeast will win the tussle for beer fermenting supremacy.

I think it's fair to say that a small mistake is not fatal to your beer

A large mistake such as not preparing your fermenter properly (cleaning and sanitizing) would probably have dire results.

If your beer is actually contaminated (smells of rotten eggs, a taste test reveals a disgusting taste) then you may have to consider dumping your brew.

Update: Believe it or not, shortly after writing this post, I managed to find this in my fermenter. The beer was fine.

Image credit to ellai via Creative Commons Licence. We have no idea if Ellai prefers Star Wars quotes, Star Trek or has even read the Mortal Engines book. Have you?

1 comment air lock, bacteria, beer brewing, contamination, problem solving, sterilisation

>> What are the best beer kits to use for brewing?

There is a great range of beer kits to use for home brewing

The best thing about beer kit selection is that it all depends on what kind of beer you want to make. 

So the choice is up to you.

No one wants to screw up their beer, they just want a great tasting beer that they can share with their mates.

Or drink it all themselves while watching the Footy. 

But you gotta make that choice.

So.

Are you after a hearty ale or a light lager? 

Maybe ever something more fancy like a 'saison' which seems to be all the rage at the moment?

There are many kinds of beer kits from all kinds of sellers. They are all intended to be used to make great tasting beer so let’s review a selection of the best beer kits and see if we can find the best one for you.

Things to consider first when buying a beer kit

What kind of beer do you want to brew?

Beer kits are made to cover just about every beer style that there is. 

If you are a beginner brewer we would recommend that you go for a more darker beer like an ale or stout (we love nut brown ales with some fuggle hops ourselves). 

This is because it's more likely you will get a better tasting beer, especially as most first time brewers will not be patient enough to wait for their lagers to properly age!! 

Speaking of lager...

Is the kit reasonably fresh?

If it’s been sitting under the kitchen sink for three years the ingredients may not be in an optimum state and the condition of the yeast will certainly be questionable.

You want your beer kit to be in the best state so as they say, fresh is best. When making your purchase feel free to inquire with the seller or check the batch data.

If it’s old, show the kit the door.

If you are buying from a popular beer specialty store or online site, chances are you will be buying a product of an appropriate age and there should be no reason for you to wonder.

One handy trick brewers often do is discard the yeast pack that comes with the beer kit and instead they add their own fresh yeast they have sourced elsewhere, the Safale yeast is a popular choice with homebrewers.

Many brewers believe that the yeast in beer kits are not as good as specialty yeasts. We say each to their own, and if you can afford it, go for it.

Lager beer kits

Lagers can be a challenge to make as they need lower temperatures during fermentation to achieve the desired result.

Since lagers  are generally light in body it is very easy to tell a lager that has been fermented at too warm a temperature as they may taste too fruity or spicy due to too much ester production.

So what are some good beer kits to use to make a lager?

Getting the malt ready

The very first lager I ever made was a Black Rock Lager with beer enhancer and Dr. Rudi Hops. I have no idea who Doctor Rudi is but he sure helped make a good beer! 

I’ve used plenty of Black Rock Kits and they are just the best for basic home brewing and produce very drinkable beers. 

You could think of these kits as being your 'standard' kit - nothing to fancy but you can be confident they will help you produce good beer.

You’ll also find that Cooper’s DIY Lager is well worth a crack – we do recommend you add some hops of course! We did a great brew of a Cooper's larger with the combination of both Moteuka and Saaz hops. 

Cooper’s kits have been reviewed by drinkers as being “a great beer to start with for new brewers and veterans alike. The flavor is very smooth, has a creamy head and ends with a slight bitterness.”

Another popular choice in the American home brewers market is the Munton’s Premium Lager Kit, which has a 5 star review on Amazon

What are the popular ale kits? Is IPA the way to go?

Some of the tastiest beverages around are ales. There’s something about them that just makes you feel good when drinking them (other than the obvious alcohol effect!).

They are hearty to drink, and pair well with many food dishes.

A well-crafted ale can explore all kinds of taste sensations and they are certainly a great session beer where you can just get on them.

Also, the best ale kits are pretty forgiving to brewing mistakes and they are also able to be brewed at warmer temperatures than those pesky and pernickety lagers ;).

So what are the best ale kits?

We are going to focus on the IPA, the good old Indian Pale Ale.

A style of apparently that was apparently invented by the British during their efforts to colonize India, the IPA is a hoppy style beer from the pale ale family.

There are three kinds of IPA’s American-style, English-style, and Double or Imperial. All have good things going for them, especially Mr Beer’s Diablo IPA.

It is a very popular beer kit. It has been described as being “a very nice dark ale with subtle hints of winter spices, and takes kindly to many different yeasts.”

Get your thrills from your pils (kits)

Let’s have a think about Pilsner beer kits.

Hand tip - use a hydrometer to check the gravity

The pilsner style is arguably the most successful beer style in the world with some counts suggesting that 9 out of 20 beers comes from the pils family or a style derived from it.

Take that with a grain of malt, but there’s no doubt as to the popularity of a good pils (if you ever get the chance, try the Three Boys Pils, it’s one of our personal favourites).

The pilsner has a long history coming out of Germany. The modern pilsner has a very light, clear colour from pale to golden yellow. It will usually have distinct hop aroma and flavour.

Pilsner beers have become nearly synonymous with the four so called 'noble hops'. These are varieties of hop called Terrnanger, Spalt, Hallertauer and Saaz.

So what are the best pilsner beer kits? 

Here's a handy selection of the popular sellers on Amazon:

Stout beers are... strong!

You may always want to try a stout.

Stouts are not for the shy beer drinker, they are a full on ‘meal’ in a glass. A dark beer, they are often 7 or 8 percent ABV and have been around as a beer style since the late 1600s.

The stout, like most beer families, comes in a variety of styles. Milk stouts, Irish, Porters and oatmeal are popular versions.

The most well-known Irish stout is the Guinness Draft, the mostly drunk beer around the world on Saint Patrick's day!

There’s even a method of brewing stout that uses oysters but we recommend the home brewer stay away from adding some of Bluff’s finest export to their brews!

Stouts will often use East Kent Goldings hops but the classic Fuggle hop is used, as are several others.

So what are the best stouts to homebrew from a kit?

Here's a handy selection of popular options from Amazon.



So there you go, there are plenty of quality beer kits to choose from. What to choose depends on what kind of beer you want and how much you want to spend!

We would recommend you go with popular beer kits when you are starting out.

This way you can have some confidence that many brewers have been there before and voted with their wallets as to the quality and taste of the kits.

Always bear in mind that having a good kit is not a guarantee of success – attention to good brewing technique and adhering to the mantra of sanitizing your equipment are also fundamental to the chances of brewing a tasty beverage! A good choice of hops will go a long way too - our Riwaka hops experiment was a great success.

Leave a Comment ale beer kits, beer brewing, beer kit, home brew

⇒ What equipment do I need to start home brewing?

What equipment do I need to start home brewing?

If you’ve decided to brew beer, you’re in great company.

Einstein, Churchill, the mighty Thor himself and every man with a shed, has at one point or another, brewed some tasty beverages.

But they all had to start somewhere, and so here’s a list of what equipment you might need to get started brewing beer.

We’re talking about brewing using a beer kit here, the kind of brewing where your ‘beer wort’ basically comes in a can.

You get to choose what hops or sugar you add (jelly beans maybe?) and the rest is simply following some good brewing instructions.

But what do you need to brew some good home made beer?

This list is just the basics, you could probably actually get away with using less but at the very least, this guide should help you decide what you need to get that golden ale flowing down your gullet. 

What equipment you might use on Brew day

Here's a handy checklist for your set up. Not everything is a 'must have' but you must have clean and sanitized gear, no matter what you do.

Ingredients

• A beer kit – source a handy starter kit brew from an online store like Amazon, or your local brew supplier. Some supermarkets stock them 
• A brew enhancer, DME or dextrose – 1Kg 
• Hops – an optional addition but good for getting some good aromatic flavours and it's easy to add hops to the beer *

Equipment for brewing

• Sanitizer - To sanitize all of your equipment. It’s a must. If you don’t your beer might die. 
• 6 gallon / 23 litre fermenter (drum or bottle). You will use this for making your beer in 
• Thermometer - To monitor the temperature of the wort – this is so you can add the yeast at the correct temperature and avoid killing it. *
• Hydrometer - Used test the original gravity of your batch *
• Paddle or spoon - Something to stir the boil with, maybe not your wife’s best spoon. A long handle is what you need. Try not to drop it in your batch....
• Gloves – making beer can get a little messy * Do not use your dad's chainsaw gloves! Nor, White Ox Gloves, use the plastic / rubber kind you use to wash dishes with. 
• Can opener – to open the beer kit 
• Water - Access to both boiling and cold water 
• Bubble Airlock – to allow the release of CO2 and to assist with the observation of fermentation
• This is totally optionally and really only for seasoned beer makers, a pH testing kit can be pretty handy.
• Ph Meter for checking the water as being suitable for use. Even if you're making kombucha, check the pH level.
• A good gas Burner for boiling water. 
• A multi key chain tool for opening up packets, and opening caps.

Bottling day - what you need

• Bottles! – cleaned and free of dirt and spiders or slugs or bird shit (trust us on this, it’s happened) 
• Sanitizer – Yes, once again you need sanitize all equipment and bottles and caps 
• Bottle caps - Make sure they are not twist-off bottles 
• Bottle capper – speaks for itself, helps you place the caps on bottles 
• Hydrometer - To measure the final gravity *
• Best oil for a chainsaw?
• Priming sugar – Sucrose which is to carbonate the beer while in the bottle (called beer conditioning) 
• Bottling wand - This allows you to easily control the flow while bottling and means less spillage will occur. *
• Patience. Just a little patience. Shit will go wrong, learn from the experience and move on. 

* denotes an optional item of equipment

Also, I'm just gonna randomly add that if you like Mortal Engines, check out the behind the scenes work that goes into the movie.

Leave a Comment beer brewing, dextrose, equipment, how to brew that first beer, sterilization, sugar