Hops give beer bitterness, taste and aroma. It is important to understand how to use hops in your brewing for the desired results.
Hop Processing. Hops come in three forms: whole leaf, plug and pellet. Whole leaf hops are dried and compressed into bails. Hop plugs are whole leaf hops which are compressed into a short, round cylindrical shape. Hop pellets are made by breaking the leaf hops into small pieces and tightly compressing them into small cylindrical pellets (they resemble rabbit food). You can also buy hop oils which are used to add flavor and aroma to beer during bottling or hop extracts which are to add bitterness to your beer.
Using Hops. I prefer to use hop pellets because they store well and are easy to use in brewing. Some people prefer to use whole leaf hops or plugs to pellets but I have found no noticeable difference in the finished beer.
When brewing, I usually place hops pellets, plugs or whole hops in a nylon grain bag and tie it to the side of the pot so that it floats in the boiling wort. I submerge it and press on it from time to time with my brewing spoon. As I add addition for flavor and aroma, I just untie the bag and add hops and re tie again. After the boil, I remove the bag and squeeze out as much wort using a sterile pair of tongs as I can.
Hop Storage. Here at Cascade Homebrew we store all of our hops in vacuum-sealed bags and keep them frozen. You can keep your hops fresher longer by keeping them refrigerated or frozen.
Hops for bitterness. Hops which are added at the beginning of the boil and are boiled for more than 30 minutes are referred to as bittering hops. Sixty minutes is a typical boil time when adding bittering hops. This is because it takes a vigorous boil to extract the bitterness from hops so that it will remain in your finished beer.
Many beer recipes call for a certain amount of home brew units (HBU's) for bittering your beer. To figure this out, it is important to know the alpha acid percentage (AA) of the hops. Any reputable homebrew supplier will list the alpha acid percentage on all hops sold. To calculate HBU's divide the percentage of AA suggested in the recipe by theby the %AA of the hops. This will give you the HBU's. For example, a recipe calls for 9 HBU's of Cascade hops. Your hops are a 6% AA so 9 divided by 6 is 1.5. Thus, you would use 1.5 oz's of hops and boil them for 60 minutes for this recipe.
Hops for Flavor. Many beer recipes will call for a second addition of hops after boiling for 30-50 minutes. These hops will help give your beer more hop flavor but will not add much more bitterness, especially if only boiled for 10 or 15 minutes before the end of the boil.
Hops for Aroma. In many beers, it is important to have a hop aroma. When hops are added the last few minutes of the boil many of the aromatic qualities of the hops remain in the beer rather than being boiled into your kitchen.
Dry Hopping. Dry hopping is the best way to give your beer an outstanding hop flavor and aroma.
To dry hop, I add hop pellets (usually about 1 oz) to the secondary fermenter and let them set for 1-2 weeks. After that time most will have settled out to the bottom and you can easily rack the beer off them. If you wish to use leaf hops, I suggest that you use some sort of muslin bag to keep them from clogging up your racking system as you keg or bottle.