The Various Forms of Hops
by Al Folsom
When buying hops for their next beer, homebrewers are often confused by the forms in which they are found. At Keystone Homebrew, we carry hops as whole (sometimes mistakenly called leaf), plugs, and pellets. Which is better, what should you use?
Quoting from the Hop Union Web site: "hop pellets are prepared from leaf hops which have been hammer-milled into a powder and the powder subsequently pelletized by passing through a conventional pellet die. They contain all the vegetative and lupulin material of raw leaf hops and can be used as a full replacement for leaf hops in the brewing process."
Whole hops are the entire hop cones, or flowers, which have been systematically dried. The main difference is that they have not been powderized and compressed.
Plug hops, by the way, are simply whole hops that have been compressed into plugs about an inch in diameter. Their advantage over whole hops is in the ease of handling. When added to boiling wort, they will quickly expand to their original size, and perform identically to whole hops. This form of hop was originally intended as a way of adding dry hops to English cask conditioned ales, as the plugs just fit through the bung holes in the casks. One thing to note about plug hops: The only machines to manufacture plugs are in England! If you buy plugs of American hops, they have been shipped to England, processed, and re-imported. Think about that when you consider how fresh your hops are!
There is a popular belief that whole hops are "better" than pellets, somehow. Again quoting from Hop Union about whole hops: "The shortcomings are handling, storage, variability and a small level of physical contamination have to be borne in the mind with this product." Again, the advantage is a perception, but the shortcomings are very real. While I would never argue that you should not use whole hops, be aware that they are not somehow magically better than pelletized forms. Some brewers have a perception that pelletized hops are harsher in some way than whole hops. I can only say that, using fresh pellet hops, I have never noticed this.
So, what are the real pros and cons that a homebrewer might see from whole hops? One advantage is that the hops will form a filter bed when straining, removing hot break and other material from your precious wort. However, if you are making a highly hopped beer using a lot of hops, a large percentage of your wort could be absorbed by whole hops. To reduce this loss, hop bags are used, removed from the wort at the end of the boil, and allowed to drain back into the kettle. This reduces the loss of wort, but also eliminates the advantage of the filter bed. One disadvantage with whole hops is in the recipe-design phase. Because of the larger storage requirements, most homebrew stores stock only a limited number of hops in whole form.
Pellet hops, on the other hand, take up very little room, and so many more varieties are typically available. In addition to the ease of handling and selection, pelletized hops will not absorb wort to the same extent as whole hops. Also, you do not need to worry about pellet hops clogging your equipment; and you can get by without using hop bags. However, if you do use the fine-pored hop bags, a good percentage of the hop sediment will be trapped in them.
Because pellet hops are initially powdered, the individual lupulin glands are burst open, which is not true for whole hops. This means that, on average, you will get 10-15% more bitterness (and hop flavor/aroma) out of an equivalent amount of pelletized hops versus whole hops. Failing to accommodate for this may be one reason pellet hops are perceived as harsher.
I think the belief that pellet hops are inferior to whole comes from the dark days of homebrewing, when the pellets might sit on the shelf for years. When I first started brewing in 1979, I was sold "hops" which appeared to be a gray powder. I shudder to remember that, especially with the variety and quality of hops available today. Turnover of hops at Keystone is rapid, so you don't need to worry about old hops. When properly processed and packaged, and kept sealed in a oxygen-barrier container, whole hops and pellet hops have essentially equivalent brewing characteristics. Don't be afraid to use the pellets! There's a whole new world of hop varieties available to you to make your beers distinctive!
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Secondary Fermentation, Pros and Cons
by Al Folsom
When we start new brewers off at Keystone, the process includes fermenting the beer in a plastic bucket, siphoning (racking) to the bottling bucket, and bottling. The process is kept as simple as possible so that the new brewer gets good beer, and gets it as quickly as possible! Sooner or later, though, that new brewer shows up at a homebrew club meeting, and hears mention of "secondary fermentation," or something even more cryptic like "I dry hopped it in the secondary," and their reaction is "Huh?"
Secondary fermentation is the process of taking your "finished" beer from your fermentation bucket, and transferring it to another container, usually glass, for a period of aging typically ranging from two days to several months. There are pros and cons to doing a secondary fermentation for your beer. In some cases it may not be necessary at all, and in others, it is vital to the beer.
Let's start with the cons. Racking your beer an extra time gives you one more stage to introduce a flavor-detracting infection in your beer. It's another process where you have to be scrupulously clean and sanitary. It's also another time when you can introduce oxygen into the fermented beer, which can lead to cardboard-like or stale flavors. It adds to the cost, since you need to buy an extra carboy. Finally, it introduces another delay before you can drink the beer!
Given the cons, why would anyone do a secondary fermentation? There are a couple of very good reasons to consider doing a secondary fermentation on your beer. The first is probably obvious. It allows the beer to clear more, giving you a better-looking brew, with less sediment in the bottom of the bottle.
But why not, you might ask, just let your beer sit longer, in the primary fermentation bucket? Because plastic buckets are never fully air tight, and once the primary fermentation has slowed and is not producing large amounts of protective carbon dioxide, oxygen will affect the beer, producing those stale, oxidized flavors. If we're going to let the beer sit after its main fermentation is done, it pretty much needs to be in glass, and away from the spent yeast that accumulates at the bottom of your fermenter.
Also, because yeast are clever little creatures, when they run out of that nice yummy sugar to eat in your wort, they will find other things to munch on. One handy source of nourishment is dead yeast cells. Unfortunately, when the yeast go down this metabolic pathway, they don't produce the carbon dioxide and ethanol that we all know and love. Instead, through a process known as "autolysis" they produce some interesting off flavors, reminiscent of burning tires-definitely something you don't want in your beer.
But why age your beer so long? In essence, longer aging using secondary fermentation will generally smooth out the beer, giving you a more pleasant tasting brew. In the case of lager beers, this type of yeast requires a long, cold secondary fermentation. As yeast consume the sugars, they leave odds and ends of more complex sugars around, and will eventually turn to them for nourishment. It is not unusual for this process to take a month or more in lagers.
Ale yeasts, on the other hand, cannot process these more complex sugars and therefore require less time in a secondary fermentation. Once your ale has cleared to your satisfaction in the secondary, it has probably also completed any biological benefits from the secondary fermentation. Secondary fermentations for ales are usually on the order of a week or so, though it won't hurt the beer to stay in the fermenter longer (but remember that hop flavors and aroma may fade over time). "Big" beers, such as barley wines and imperial stouts, may take a long time to finish fermenting, because there is more sugar to consume, and the yeast is struggling in the presence of the higher alcohol content.
Should you do a secondary fermentation? Some brewers only do it for lagers, some only with their "big" beers, and some (like me) for nearly every beer, to help with the clarifying if nothing else. It's just one more tool to help you make that perfect beer.
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Mystical Mead
by Jason Harris
Did you ever wonder what the first alcoholic beverage was? Chances are it was mead. Revered by the Vikings and sipped by the ancient Greek gods, mead is an alcoholic beverage created by mixing honey and water and fermenting with yeast.
More recently (in the sixteenth century), mead gave birth to the term honeymoon. Tradition has it that the bride and groom should consume mead (honey) for one month (one moon) after a wedding if they want their first-born to be a son. Additionally, mead has long been attributed with aphrodisiacal powers, so you may want to consider mead as the next beverage slated for your fermenter.
Most beer or winemakers already have the necessary equipment to make mead. We recommend stirring 12 to 15 pounds of honey into water to total 5 gallons of liquid. To this, add a mixture of yeast nutrients and fruit acids and boil briefly, from 1 to 15 minutes. After the boil, cool the mixture, and add your yeast. The mead will ferment for two to four weeks before beginning to clear. The most challenging part of mead making comes after the mead has fermented and cleared: the aging process. Although most prehistoric mead makers probably guzzled their mead concoctions within the first week or two after collecting their honey, our personal experience tells us that aging mead at least nine months to one year will give you a much smoother and more enjoyable beverage.
Keystone Homebrew stocks a large selection of honey including: alfalfa, clover, orange blossom, tupelo, wildflower, and buckwheat, each of which has a distinctive flavor from the flower's nectar. Your yeast selection can affect your mead as well. Some suggest wine yeasts, such as Cote de Blanc; other mead makers prefer yeasts specifically designed for mead, such as Wyeast's liquid yeast cultures for sweet and dry meads. No matter which yeast you select, pick up a bottle Jason's Mead Kit--available only at Keystone Homebrew--an award winning blend of nutrients, fruit acids, and clarifier designed for 5 gallons of mead. Finally, to help you explore the magical world of mead, we carry a great new book, The Complete Mead Maker by Ken Schramm.
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