Ah-ha! I've been doing a Homebrand experiment with the last few brews, just waiting on them to get to my minimum 2-week test date so I can try a few.
Hops can give certain qualities depending on what you do with them. Boiling will give bitterness only at over 40 minutes, mostly flavour (with mild bitterness) at 15 minutes, and mostly aroma at 5 minutes. Using hops without boiling is best done after the 4th day of fermentation by throwing them into the brew dry, and is (not surprisingly) known as dry hopping. This gives excellent aroma and often a quite fresh hop quality to the brew. The reason its done so late is that otherwise carbon dioxide given off by fermentation will rob the hops of their alpha acids, thus rendering the hops less noticable in the final beer.
Boiling the hops is best done in 100g of malt per litre of water to aid the extraction of the essential oils (alpha acids). I generally add my dry ingredients to the fermenter and then ditch the boiled liquid straight in to dissolve them.
So a boil of 40 plus for bitterness, 15 for flavour and 5 for aroma. Dry hop for a stand-out quality and great aroma. I'd use 15g of hops in a 15 minute boil to start with so you can get used to the effect they have. After that modify and use different methods, but use the stock 15g starting point for each new technique so you can get used to the effect.
Cheers mate - boingk
PS: There are a lot better reference charts around, see the site supporters in the top banner for some info. For example, Cluster is a good bittering and flavouring hop, and while traditionally used in American ales, it is also a hop widely used in the Australian beer industry. XXXX is hopped with Cluster, as is Tooheys New I suspect.
