Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Hopping a kit

Options
  • 13-12-2011 10:12pm
    #1
    masseyno9
    Registered Users Posts: 602 ✭✭✭


    Ok, so I'm getting some equipment for christmas. Well, it's here, but have to wait for the 25th to use it. Anyway, I've been looking around and have the ingredients for a hoegaarden clone. The recipe is from here

    I have the right yeast, the same lager kit and the same hops. The only thing is I got the hop teabags with hop pellets in them. They say to add to fermenter and leave while the yeast does it's thing, but the recipe says to boil them with the spraymalt, sugar etc. This has me confused. Both seem to make sense. Boil for 15 mins and remove wouldn't squeeze the life out of the hops and over-hop the beer (which isn't supposed to be too hoppy anyway) but dunking them in for fermentation would just let the flavours out slowly. So, any idea what to do? the more I think about it, the more I think I'll boil them in with the spraymalt, then let the yeast do it's flavour thing, unobstructed, in the fermenter.

    Other recipes have conflicting advice as when to add orange peel and coriander (either in with spraymalt, or after a week of fermenting). Again, I'm thinking of boiling them in at the start. If it's not aroma-ey (?) enough I can throw a bit more zest into the FV (after boiling it to sanitise etc.) nearer bottling time.

    Does this sound like a reasonable plan?

    I worked in a brew-pub in France for a while so while I did pick up some knowledge about the process, I didn't understand what the boss was doing a lot of the time, so didn't know what to look out for. All this reading about brewing means the pictures in my head make sense now!!
    Tagged:


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    lil_lisa
    Registered Users Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭lil_lisa


    The recipe you're pointing to doesn't have any dry hopping involved, so you would only add to the boil (preferably without the hop teabags). The hops you add to the boil will stay with the wort throughout fermentation.

    Every recipe is different. There are several ways to get a hoegaarden style (or any style for that matter) beer, so look at the responses/descriptions of the beer and find out which recipe to go for. Adding certain ingredients too early (or too late) could deem them almost useless (or extremely overpowering) for the flavour/bitterness/whatever you're trying to achieve with that ingredient.

    That one you posted, the guy commented "it smells more citrusy than hoegaarden, its slightly darker golden colour than hoegaarden, BUT it does taste quite like hoegaarden". That's worth noting when deciding what recipe to go with.


  • Options
    #3
    masseyno9
    Registered Users Posts: 602 ✭✭✭masseyno9


    Yeah I saw that comment about being citrusy. For my first brew I think "quite like" what I'm looking for will do me. In fact, "drinkable" will have me smiling! The next time I try it I'm sure I'll tweak something and note the difference. That's how we learn, right?! I think I'll just add the hop pellet tea-bags in when boiling the spraymalt. Flavours might be a little bit off/weak/something else, but I'll learn something I suppose.

    This seems so much easier than when I was mashing in malts for a 700l batch of beer!!


Advertisement