I've just started my fourth brew using simple ingredients (Cooper's can plus "brew enhancer") and, when it's done, I'd quite like to know what the next step is. Hops?
If so ... what are they? What do they do? Where do you get them?
Most importantly though ... how do you add them?
I'm sure this stuff is second nature to a lot of you but it's all new to me, so please dumb it down as much as possible, cheers
Most beer is made from malted barley and bittered and flavoured with hops. Malt is extracted from the grains and is a sweet sugar. Bitterness complements/counteracts sweetness to stop beer being too sugary tasting. They also have a preservative/mild antibacterial effect.
Hops are the female flowers of a plant. They contain acids that change when boiled and contribute bittering to a malt based brew.
Your coopers kit is malt which has been extracted from barley, concentrated and had hops added to it during the extraction/reduction process. It has been bittered already.
Hops also add flavour and aroma to beer. The longer they are boiled (with limits) the more they add bitterness with shorter boils adding flavour and aroma.
You can add extra flavour to your coopers can by steeping a small amount of hops or boiling a small amount of your can with some extra water. 5-20 minute boil will probably add noticeable flavour. A steep in hot water, like making a tea is an easy way of working out what they will bring before you go nuts.
There are different varieties of hops, all with distinctive flavours. Some work well together (in combination). American hops give distinctive flavours to beers like sierra nevada or little creatures, UK hops give distinctive flavours to beers like Fullers ESB or Young's special london ale and Australian hops give distinctive flavour to beers like cooper's pale or Stone and Wood (different AU hops and different resultant flavours).
The flowers or cones are usually dried and are available sometimes as whole flowers but more often as plugs or pellets. Brigalow also make a product which is called a 'finishing hop tablet' but this product is not a good introduction into what hops do.
You can buy them from decent and semi decent home brew shops (and some **** ones) and they should have the varietal name on them and they should be stored in the fridge. If they are just on a shelf, find another HB shop. They should also be packaged in something opaque like foil as they are photo-sensitive. You should treat any you buy the same way - fridge or freezer, reduced oxygen/sealed and foil packaging.
If you wish to move away from kits and try extract brewing, you will need to look at bittering with hops as well as adding flavour hops (although bittering hops will add some flavour too).
Keep it simple - US hops for US beers, UK hops for UK beers, AU hops for AU beers and German/euro hops for Euro beers.
After that you can experiement when you know what they bring to the party. Some AU hops work in US beers as do many NZ hops, some euro hops work beautifully in UK beers (well one does) and some UK hops work well in euro beers, particularly Belgians.
Remember - bitterness, flavour and aroma. Long boil = bitterness, short boil = flavour, no boil/dry hop = aroma but there will always be crossover. Bittering still adds flavour, aroma hopping still adds flavour etc.
Some basic stuff in this wikipeadia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hops
When it starts making sense, post back and I can link you to some other info about hop varieties etc (or someone else will)
