A Basic Guide To Hops For Homebrewing

A Basic Guide To Hops For Homebrewing

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Introduction Even if you ve never brewed beer before, you ve certainly heard of hops. They re one of the first things craft beer drinkers learn about, and they ve been made famous by such great breweries as Boston Brewing Company (makers of Sam Adams) and Dogfish Head (famous for many beers especially their India Pale Ales). This guide will give you a quick introduction to how hops are used in homebrewing, and help you decide how much of which ones to include in your homebrew. What are hops? Long story short, hops are actually a flower. They grow all over the world in usually not-so-hot climates, and just like any other variety of plant, differ greatly in terms of taste, strength, and aroma. The picture on the first page shows freshly harvested whole cone hops. Why are hops used in beer? Hops impart primarily a bitter flavor to beer that is useful because it balances out the sweet flavors of the malt. If we didn t add hops to beer, it would taste very sweet and would not be nearly as refreshing or complex. Additionally, hops add a bit of preservative power to the beer. Ever wonder how India Pale Ale got its name? British brewers found that much of the beer they shipped to troops in India became spoiled during the long journey. So they added tons of hops to the beer and found it worked well as a preservative and kept the beer fresh and vibrant.

Buying hops A variety of hops added to my hoppy pilsner homebrew Hops are usually dehydrated, compressed into pellets, and sold in 1- ounce packets. Hops are also sold whole-leaf, plugs, as whole-cone (the entire flower still intact), and you can also purchase hop oil extract. You can of course experiment with these different forms of hops, but for consistency purposes in calculating recipes and brewing, working with pellet hops is recommended.

Storing hops It s best to keep hops sealed in their bags in the freezer to keep them fresh as long as possible. Obviously the fresher the hops the more flavor and aroma you ll get out of them, and they should retain a good amount of their original potency up to a year if kept frozen and sealed. How much hops do I use? Great question with a complex answer. Many style guidelines have been created that designate just how bitter a particular style of beer should be. But how do you measure a beer s bitterness? I m glad you asked

Calculating IBUs Brewers have created a way to calculate just how bitter, or at least how hoppy a beer is. This value is referred to as International Bittering Units (IBUs). In order to calculate IBUs for a beer, we first need to calculate the Alpha Acid Units (AAUs). All hops have a measured alpha acid content that is printed on the packet they come packaged in. Alpha acids are basically a way to gauge the bittering power of hops. Here s how we calculate AAUs: Alpha Acid Units (AAUs) Formula Alpha Acid % X Amount of hops (in ounces) Here s an example: 1.5 ounces of Cascade hops at 5% alpha acid = 7.5 AAUs.

Now that we know the AAU value, we can calculate the IBUs. But first we need to define a few more values. Volume (V) = The final volume of our batch size (usually 5-gallons). Boil Original Gravity (BOG) = The planned starting gravity for the actual amount of liquid we ll be boiling. Boil Time (BT) = How long we plan on boiling particular hops (60 minutes for example). Utilization (U) = The efficiency of extracting the alpha acids as a function of time. This formula is very complex and will come from a table I ve inserted into this document. International Bittering Units (IBUs) Formula IBUs = AAU X U X 75/V

So let s do an example end-to-end for a beer: Pale Ale Target orginal gravity = 1.050 Final Volume = 5 gallons Boiling Volume = 3 gallons 7 lbs of dry malt extract 1.5 oz of Spalt hops boiled for 60 minutes, alpha acid content = 6.4% 1 oz of Fuggle hops boiled for 15 minutes, alpha acid content = 4.6% First we calculate AAUs: AAU Perle = 1.5 oz X 6.4% = 9.6 AAU Fuggle = 1 oz X 4.6% = 4.6 Next we calculate our BOG: Our planned starting gravity for our 5-gallon batch = 1.050. However, we ll be boiling 3-gallons and later topping off the fermenter with cold water to make 5-gallons, so we need to calculate what our gravity will be for those 3-gallons we re actually boiling. Starting Gravity 1.050. This was calculated using our recipe which calls for 7lbs of DME which yields about 40 Gravity Points Per Gallon (PPG). Starting Gravity = 7 lbs X 40 PPG/5 gallons = 56 or 1.056 We need to adjust this gravity value for 3 gallons to get our BOG: BOG = 7lbs X 40 PPG/3 gallons = 93 or 1.093 Now we need to get our Utilization value from the table located at the end of this guide for each of our hops additions.

For the Spalt hops, we re boiling for 60 minutes, so using the 1.090 gravity value in the chart, we get a utilization value of.161. Doing the same for the Fuggle hops which we re boiling for 15 minutes, we get a utilization value of.080. Now we plug all of our values into our IBU equation for each of the hop additions: IBU (Spalt) = 9.6 X.161 X 75 / 5 = 19.32 IBU (Fuggle) = 4.6 X.080 X 75/5 = 5.52 So our total IBUs for this beer = 19.32 + 5.52 = 24.84 which we ll round up to 25. Phew! That was a pain, but luckily we can let technology do the dirty work for us. Below is a link to an online IBU calculator that I highly recommend using. Simply follow the directions on the web page to quickly calculate your IBUs. http://www.realbeer.com/hops/ibu.html Summary So now you know what hops are all about, and how to calculate the IBUs for your homebrew. Next time you re drinking a great craft beer take a look at the bottle, many breweries list the IBUs right on the label. In creating great beers, it s all about experimentation and learning from your mistakes. Keep detailed notes on the recipes you brew and how they turned out. Once you get a few batches under your belt, it s very easy to design your own recipes and know what to expect in the finished beer.

Types Of Hops The following tables provide a helpful guide to choosing the correct hops for your homebrew, including possible substitutions if you can t find a particular variety.

Utilization Table