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The hop’s flavour- enhancing properties are largely due to volatile oils that contain the bitter, fruity, and herbaceous flavours that we associate with this wonderful plant. By boiling the hops, we release these oils partly into the beer and partly into the air as the wort evaporates. To capture all of the subtle, aromatic flavours of hops, you can try dry hopping. Here, hops are added during the fermentation process, usually after primary fermentation. Generally, you can try almost any hop varietal you fancy, but aromatic hops like Amarillo, Citra, and Simcoe are good ones to start with. Dry hopping captures the grassier, fresher profile of these hops. Generally, the longer you boil hops, the more bitterness is extracted. That’s why you add bittering hops at the start of the boil and flavour/ aroma hops nearer to the end. But, if you want to extract juicier, more fruit-forward flavours from hops without too much bitterness, whirlpool hopping is the way to go. As in the techniques discussed earlier, no one hop varietal is better than another when it comes to experimenting with whirlpool hopping. Rather use the type of hops that fits the style you’re trying to capture. The method relies on your wort being below boiling temperature to reduce the degree of bitterness In a 19-litre batch, you can start with 30- 40 grams of hops, placed directly into the fermenter for about 3-7 days before bottling. The more hops you use and the longer the contact with the beer, the more intensely flavoured (and hazier) your beer will be. Some brewers place their hops in a bag, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Placing the hop pellets directly into the fermenter allows for maximum surface contact and more flavour. Also, don’t worry about sanitising the hops. By this stage, your beer will have enough alcohol to act as a natural disinfectant and besides that, hops are naturally resistant to microbes. Once you’ve got the basics down, you can start to experiment with multiple dry hopping schedules, adding different hops for different contact-time durations in one beer. In dry hopping, much like Australian-rules football, there are no rules. extracted from the hops. To try whirlpool hopping, first create a whirlpool after flame-out, and wait for the wort to cool to around 80°C. Then add the hops. You can start with 30 grams and work your way up from there in subsequent brews to see what the effect will be. In fact, more than a few craft breweries nowadays are using only whirlpool hopping and no early kettle additions to achieve bright, hoppy, sessionable beers. By now you know that adding hops in the boil will bitter and flavour your beer, depending on when you chuck them into the kettle. What you might not know is that hops can be added before you even start to boil your wort. Brewers who employ first wort hopping find that their finished beers have smoother, softer hop bitterness and increased hop aroma. So how does it work? First, move around 30% of your recipe’s total hop quantity to first wort hopping. It’s usually best to use the noble, more aromatic hops, so take that 30% out of the later hop additions. Therefore, if you were going to add a total of 300 grams of hops of which 150 grams were late hop additions (i.e. added in the last 15 minutes of the boil), you’d move around 90 of the 150 grams of late hops to first wort hopping. When sparging, add the first wort hops in the kettle and steep in the wort as it runs into the kettle. If you’re using brew-in-a-bag, simply remove the bag and put the first wort hops in the kettle and then heat to boil. From that point on, just follow your recipe, albeit with the first wort hops now subtracting from your late hop addition. GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY HOPPING! First Wort Hopping Dry Hopping Whirlpool Hopping METHOD METHOD METHOD 02 03 BREW-IT-YOURSELF: Imperial Chocolate Milk Stout Cape Town-based Nick Reed was the grand prize winner in the 2017 National Homebrew Champs. Here he shares his winning recipe. Nuts & Bolts Batch size: 22 litres | ESTD OG: 1.100 ESTD FG: 1.022 | ESTD ABV: 10.4% Boil time: 60 minutes Mash Ingredients Calcium chloride 7g Magnesium sulphate 3g Calcium sulphate 2g Pale malt 7kg Caramunich I 0.5kg Chocolate malt 0.5kg Munich I 0.5kg Wheat malt, Pale 0.5kg Flaked oats 0.25kg Flaked barley 0.25kg Roasted barley 0.25kg Boil Ingredients Calcium chloride 3.5g @ 60 mins Magnesium sulphate 1.5g @ 60 mins Calcium sulphate 1g @ 60 mins Southern Aroma [5.6%] 70g @ 60 mins East Kent Goldings [5%] 29g@ 60 mins PolyClar BrewBrite 5g @ 10 mins East Kent Goldings [5%] 30g @ 10 mins Lactose 0.5kg @ 0 mins Mash Steps: Mash with 27.5L of water for 75 mins @ 64.5 C Mash-out at 75.6°C for 10 mins Fly sparge with 13.8L water. It is important to sparge/lauter very slowly to get the required efficiency. I spent over an hour on this step. Fermentation & Conditioning • As it’s a high gravity beer, use at least 33g of US-05 Yeast. • Ferment for five days at 19°C, then as fermentation slows, ramp up to 20-24°C over two to three days. • At 10 days, add 100g cacao nibs to the fermenter – it’s good idea to soak them in vodka for a few days beforehand. • Ferment for a total of three to four weeks, rocking the fermenter regularly to ensure the yeast stays in suspension. • Cold crash for three days and keg. Bottle conditioning might be a risky option, as an incomplete fermentation due to the high alcohol content could result in bottle bombs. • Carbonate and store keg at 3°C for a few months to allow beer to mature. The beer I entered in the nationals had been in the keg for six months and was bottled just prior to the entry closing date. On Tap / Autumn 2018 / 37