New To Hops

[Captain BJ]

Hey Guys,

I'm still pretty new to home brewing. My first kit brew was a great success, so for my second I decided to experiement a bit and add wheat malt and hops - trying to emulate a Stella type pilsner beer. The way i was told to add the hops was to mix the 20g of pellets with a cup of boling water and just pour the green sludge in the mix, just before adding the yeast. I'm not sure if this is a correct technique to add hops, as the person at the home brew shop was pretty vague about the whole thing but told me this was the way to do it.

I've been fermenting the brew for about a week, and when i took a hydrometer sample last night a bit of green hop sludge came out before settling on the bottom. The beer looks fairly normal apart from a bit of green sludge at the bottom and some green hop floaties flying around.

Have I completely stuffed my brew or is this normal? Is there any way of salvaging my brew? What is the best way to add hops to a kit brew?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[razz]

Captain, your brew will be fine. If you don't want the hop sludge in your brew ask at the shop for a hop bag, this way you can pull the hop bag out when you're ready.

 

[T.D.]

Yeah, that's totally normal. I usually drain off probably 50ml or so until the beer is clear enough for a hydrometer or taste test. It will most likely settle out when fermentation finishes - you shouldn't end up with any coming through into the bottles, but even if you do its no big deal.

What hops did you decide to use?

 

[DJR]

Rack the beer if you can into another sterilized vessel like a water cube or fermenter once the fermentation has settled down a bit - that will leave most of the green stuff behind and give you a cleaner beer too. Have a search on racking techniques - basically you need a bit of food-grade hose and a 2nd vessel.

 

[Steve]

Captain - your brew is fine. Always draw off half a test tube worth from tap and pour down sink and take another full test tubes worth to take a reading straight after. You will notice the second tube will be clearer. You are just pouring sludge that has settled at the bottom of the fermenter.
I often do what you do with pellets in a cup with good results or you can get a muslin hop bag, put the pellets in side that and place into a saucepan of boiling water for 10-15 mins and then just pour the liquid (hop tea) into the fermenter. Another way is to get one of those hop tea bags that you put in cup of hot water for 10 mins. She'll be right.
Have fun :beer:
Cheers
Steve

 

[MHD]

Ditto all the above...

Also one other thing to not is not to be scared by the overwhelming hop taste when you taste out of the ferm... It mellows with time...

 

[Trough Lolly]

Hey Guys,

I'm still pretty new to home brewing. My first kit brew was a great success, so for my second I decided to experiement a bit and add wheat malt and hops - trying to emulate a Stella type pilsner beer. The way i was told to add the hops was to mix the 20g of pellets with a cup of boling water and just pour the green sludge in the mix, just before adding the yeast. I'm not sure if this is a correct technique to add hops, as the person at the home brew shop was pretty vague about the whole thing but told me this was the way to do it.

[post="123798"][/post]​

G'day Captain BJ and welcome to the forum!
Good to see you having a go at experimenting, even if it's only your second brew - that's good to see and it's a great way to learn more about what goes into making a good beer. If you thought the first beer was good, you should really enjoy the substantial improvement the second beer will have with wheat malt and hops added...
Just out of curiosity, what were you adding the wheat malt and hops too? Am I correct in assuming that you had some sort of lager kit to begin with?

One thing that may be worth having a go at, next time, would be to grab a decent sized kitchen pot, add 500g of wheat malt extract, top up the pot with water to 2/3rds full, bring to the boil and toss in the hops (watching out for possible boilover) and giving the hops a decent rolling boil for about 20 minutes.
Boiling the hops in malt rather than straight water allows you to extract a reasonable amount of bittering from the hop pellets, in addition to flavour and aroma, as the hops bittering properties get keyed into the malt extract. Adding hops to boiling water will not provide the same degree of bitterness in the finished product, as you get from giving the hops a 20 minute boil in some malt.
Once the boil is over, add the concentrate to the pot, stir gently through to combine the kit and malt/hop tean, then cool the pot in an icebath in the sink, pitch into the fermenter and top up with the water to reach desired volume or starting gravity...

Cheers,
TL

 

[Captain BJ]

Thanks for your help everyone. I got the recipe out of a home brew book i got with my starter kit. It's supposed to be like a Stella Artois, as i'm a big fan of European beers. The ingredients i used were:

Muntons Premium Pilsener Kit
1kg mix of dextrose, malt (and something else i ca't think of)
500g wheat malt
20g hallertau hop pellets
Saflager Yeast

I've just taken another hydrometer sample now (24 hrs later) and there was no green sludge, but still a few floaties. I took 2 samples yesterday and both had the sludge, but todays reading is still 1010. I'm also going to add finings once its finished fermenting and leave it another 5 days which should help clear it up a bit. The guy at my local home brew shop swears by finings. Do you guys use them?

I've taken all those hop techniques on board and will definately use them in the future, so thanks again!