Newbie Question About Ag Brewing

[Truman42]

Pellets settle into the yeast cake, and if you carefully remove the fermented beer from the yeast cake into another fermenter using food grade tubing (commonly called the "bottling bucket"), you won't stir it up, and you won't end up with half an inch of yeast in each bottle either.

You then bottle as per normal from the bottling bucket.

Goomba

No I meant if I threw pellets into the pot while boiling then chilled and tipped the wort into my fermenter would the pellets stay in the bottom of the pot in the trub or would they mix in with the wort and therefore continue to work in the fermenter, thus increasing my bittering (this is dry hopping isnt it?)

 

[bignath]

No I meant if I threw pellets into the pot while boiling then chilled and tipped the wort into my fermenter would the pellets stay in the bottom of the pot in the trub or would they mix in with the wort and therefore continue to work in the fermenter, thus increasing my bittering (this is dry hopping isnt it?)

No. Dry hopping is adding hops to your already fermentING beer. Literally throwing them in either loose, or in something to contain them like a hop sock.

Usually done after day 5 or so for an ale (after most of the fermentation has been done, otherwise all of the escaping CO2 will take the aroma of the dry hops with it = pointless)

Most brewers prefer their beer to be as clean and clear when transferring to the fermenter, therefore, most would try and keep all the trub (mix of break proteins/material AND hop matter) in the kettle.

 

[Nick JD]

I find dry hopping in the keg is the best way to dry hop if you have kegs.

Drinking an APA with 20g of Citra in the keg ATM.

WHOOSH!

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I find dry hopping in the keg is the best way to dry hop if you have kegs.

Drinking an APA with 20g of Citra in the keg ATM.

WHOOSH!

I'm assuming a hop ball is in the keg, to save you getting a mouthful of pellets the texture of green banana?

I've an APA just about to finish carbing and a fridge full of citra, cascade, galaxy, willamette (alright, not in style), stella and a few others and a dry keg hop of that - let's say, I like the sound of WHOOOSH!

Goomba

 

[Silo Ted]

As a general comment to new brewers..... Not meaning to sound rude, but you would do yourself a great justice if you actually bothered to get a basic grasp of brewing concepts. While Nick's guide is by all accounts pretty good (one day I'll read them !), you will empower yourself greatly by knowing a little bit of what's going on, instead of just 'painting by numbers' and asking a hundred questions that are already there on the web, a million times over.

Good luck, and please do some reading. It's a great hobby if you want it to be more than packet soup.

 

[Truman42]

@silo ted. I have and do read as much as I can online about home brewing including some great websites suggested by members on here. However there is so much information to digest that sometimes I ask the question from experts such as yourself so I can get a better understanding and grasp the concepts of home brewing. Plus it helps to remember by asking and reading the answers as I get to take it all in as explained in laymans terms.
So thank you to everyone who has helped annoying newbs like myself and hopefully I can return the favor to a newbie one day.

 

[rich_lamb]

No problem - keep asking!

When you finish your boil your hops will settle to the bottom of the kettle after a while and you may be able to get your wort off this trub (which includes hop residue) and into your fermenter pretty clean. Different brewers use all sorts of ways of doing this - siphoning after using a whirlpool to get the hops in the centre, filtering through a hopback, clever positioning of the pickup tube on the outlet of the kettle. I even used a bed of gravel in my kettle for a while (and it worked well).
Some of the problems here are to do with how long your wort stays on the hop residue while hot. If you have to wait a long time, you can loose the benefit of any very late hop additions. Taking all that hop residue into a no-chill cube, or otherwise letting the wort cool down slowly with it there WILL increase your bittering. I've tested this pretty extensively. That's why most people who no-chill get their wort off the trub somehow, though they don't often mention it unless you ask them. It's also why a lot (most?) brewers employ some sort of chilling to cool wort quickly - although there are a few other reasons too.
If you're worried about your control of hop bittering, have a look at chilling.
If you're worried about the hop residue being in the fermenter, dont - it has no effect after the wort is cool and will just settle into the sludge at the bottom.
If you're worried generally, well - you know the drill...

 

[Truman42]

Thanks heaps bitter & twisted for that great explanation. So basically if I have a recipe that says add hops at 10 mins and 5 mins and I do no chill, as the wort is cooling my hops are still working. So my choices are chill the wort or use a hop sock and take the hops out.
Im not a big fan at all of bitter beer so will probably be chilling just to be sure.

 

[bignath]

Im not a big fan at all of bitter beer so will probably be chilling just to be sure.

Mornin' Truman,

Try to think of it from the other way around. Don't think of chilling as a way of lessening bitterness. In the same way don't think of no chilling as adding bitterness. As mash brewers, one of the things we strive for (among many) is consistency from one batch to the next of any particular recipe...Think of whatever method of chilling you use as "your method" and adjust your hop quantities or usage times to suit.

Hope this makes sense.

Even though no chilling a beer increases the potential for added bitterness, people dont "no chill" to deliberately increase bitterness, if you know what i mean.

I have been a chiller, and am currently no chilling, and i've had to slightly alter my previous recipes and save them as "beer beer beer beer NO CHILL VERSION" or something like that. Once your recipe is in perspective of your chilling method, your beer will be so close to the original chilled version you'd be hard pressed to notice any difference.
Brewers that no chill, often do so for other reasons that have nothing to do with hops. For me, it's the convenience and water saving from using a chiller. I'm not setup to recirculate and reuse my chilling water so it's much easier for me to "no chill". It suits my brewing lifestyle and time constraints. It means i can brew like a ******* when i have the odd weekend off, fill my cubes with wort, and then ferment them when a fermenter becomes available. For me, no chill is all about convenience, and i've adjusted my recipes to allow this method to get the same beer as when i was chilling.

There are many ways the no chillers get around "locking" in hop flavour and aroma that is the signature of the chilling method. It can be done, and it can be done easily.
There are numerous threads about how to adjust hops to compensate for whatever method you settle on, and this post from me alone will probably open the obligatory can 'o' worms, but do a search, read heaps, and as always, continue to ask questions.

Happy brewin'

Nath

 

[Truman42]

Thanks heaps Nathan.

 

[Silo Ted]

@silo ted. I have and do read as much as I can online about home brewing including some great websites suggested by members on here. However there is so much information to digest that sometimes I ask the question from experts such as yourself so I can get a better understanding and grasp the concepts of home brewing. Plus it helps to remember by asking and reading the answers as I get to take it all in as explained in laymans terms.
So thank you to everyone who has helped annoying newbs like myself and hopefully I can return the favor to a newbie one day.

It would serve you well to buy a copy of John Palmer's "How to Brew". While I don't generally endorse this book as much as others, it's great for an introduction to the science behind the process. Don't be daunted by my use of the word 'science', it's not too heavy, and he explains what's going on with your brew day even before touching on the actual making of beer.

For example:

• Chapter 3 discusses Malt Extract, Beer Kits & Brewing Sugars
• Chapter 5 walks the reader through the different stages of adding hops for bitterness, flavour & aroma, and gives you a rundown on the characteristics of many popular varieties. It then goes on to discuss utilisation of AA's, and there's some cool tables and also nomographs to play with
• Chapter 6 spends 17 pages discussing yeast types, strains, pitching rates and more.
• Chapter 8 is eight pages dedicated to fermentation

As you progress, there are chapters dedicated to explaining malted grain and it's function, steeping grains for enhancing kit beers etc.

And this is all before we even get you into doing all-grain batches ! Which he covers also, so its a good investment for now and for the future.

For $20 through The Book Depository it's a small investment that you, as a new brewer, will more than justify the cost when you'll be saving so much money by making your own quality beer.

 

[felten]

Or if you're a cheap ******* like myself, read the online version

 

[Silo Ted]

Or if you're a cheap ******* like myself, read the online version

^^ cheap ******* :lol:

The OP and others like him would benefit greatly from buying the book.

John Palmer, I'm looking for my next endorsement royalty cheque

 

[Truman42]

Thanks Ted for that book suggestion. (And Felten for the online version) I will buy the hard copy though so Ive got it there as a reference.