Adding the Seasonings

Hops are the spice of beer. Hops add bitterness and extra levels of aroma to beer.

Now that you have your malt wort boiling, you can add the hops. Depending on the recipe, you can add one type of hop in stages or multiple hop types. Hops added early to the boil are the bittering/flavor component, while late-stage hops are for the aroma.

Get a timer out and set it for 60 minutes. With the wort at a rolling boil, add the first stage of hops (usually 1 oz for a 5 gallon batch) and hit start on the timer.







Stir occasionally. The recipe will prescribe at what point in the count-down you should add more hops.








While you are between hop additions, you will want to sterilize your fermentation bucket, stopper, airlock, and strainer. You could use bleach, but Iodophor is recommended. Iodophor is a food-safe sanitizer. As I mentioned in the last post, you want to keep things as sterile as possible. Weird flavors could be added by stray 'bugs' on the counter.

Now, put some towels on the floor, around the fermentation bucket. The strainer will sit on the top of the bucket. Once the 60 minutes is up on the wort, turn off the heat and temporarily cover the stock pot. Cut open the frozen gallon of water and add it to the bucket. Put the strainer on top of the bucket and pour the wort through the strainer. It is important to strain all hops out of the wort - you don't want debris in your fermentation bucket. Add enough extra water to get the bucket up to 5 gallons of fluid. Add the water through the strained hops to pick up extra flavor.



Once you have 5 gallons, throw out the hops, put the lid, stopper, and airlock on the bucket. Add a little bit of water to the airlock to keep air from getting into the fermentation bucket. Make sure everything is on tightly. DO NOT add the yeast yet. You need to wait until the temperature of the wort has dropped to at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit.









To be continued ...

Update: Part 1, Part 3, Part4