Better Bottles - Review

PET Better Bottles have been around for a while and on occasion I still see posts in forums asking about the viability of Better Bottles. Let's just say that I was a skeptic with them and decided to do some experiments with them before I started stocking them on the shelf. I make wine as well as beer and I figured that storing wine the better bottle would not only test to see if it would discolor over a certain period of time, but also see if they were truly oxygen impermeable. I started a red wine in a bucket and let it do its thing and racked off to a Better Bottle for both secondary and tertiary fermentation. I bulk aged it for over a year, occasionally changing out the water in the air lock. I bottled it up and tasted to see how it came along and to see if there was any distinct oxidation. Lo and behold, the wine had mellowed out considerably and there was no detectable oxidation in it. Thus, verifying that Better Bottles work really well. I now have a few of them and I do use them for both beer and wine. They are fantastic because not only are they light, they are pretty much indestructible, especially compared to a glass carboy.

My verdict is that if you have any doubts that Better Bottles can't deliver, then think again because they are awesome and can be used on both beer and wine. I definitely recommend them.

Limited Editions Kits

Wine Expert has released the information on the latest Limited Edition wine kits. These kits are seasonal and only come out in the fall of each year. They are always different wine and they all make fantastic wine. As a matter of fact, their limited edition wine kits are the only wine kits that I make anymore. These wine kits also make great gifts, too. Depending on the style of wine you choose the wine will be available from January '09 - April '09. For prices and selection on these awesome kits, check out Ben's Homebrew.

Hop Tea vs Dry Hopping

We all know that with the hop shortage more and more people are trying to get creative as to how to get the maximum flavor and aroma out of their hops with the minimum amount of hops used, right? Right. I've been dry hopping Pale Ales and IPAs for quite some time now and I really enjoy the outcome of my beer. Then one day I was reading an article about how people are using a hop tea instead of dry hopping so I was intrigued and decided to give it a whirl myself.

I made a 12 gallon batch of Pale ale split between two fermenters. In one I tossed in 1 oz of simcoe whole leaf hops and let it sit for one week for dry hopping. The other fermenter I simply kegged up. However, before I kegged I made a very weak wort of about 1.025. I used 2 pints of water and 1/2 cup of dried malt extract (light). I didn't bring it up to a boil I simply brought it up to about 170 degrees and dissolved the DME. I then took a french press (you know, the one for making coffee) added 1 oz of simcoe whole leaf hops to that and poured the warmed weak wort over it. I then let it steep for about 40 minutes. I wasn't in a big hurry.

After it was done steeping I added it directly to the keg, sealed the keg, let it pressurize for a few days and waited for the other batch to get done dry hopping. Once that was done I kegged and carbed it, too.

I sat down and let both beers come close to room temperature. They both smelled delicious but I found that the dry hopped one had more aroma than the tea-hopped one. After taking a few tastes I also came to the conclusion that the dry hopped one had just a touch more hop flavor to it, but not much. I was really surprised to find out that the hop-tea did in fact deliver a very desirable flavor and aroma to the pale ale. One more thing to note about tea-hopping and dry hopping is that since you don't boil the hops then the alpha acids are not isomerized into the wort. What does that mean? It means that you can then reuse these hops as bittering hops. I'm sure there is some loss of A.A.%, and as I guess I would approximate at the most 25%. This means you can store them in a bag and freeze them up to use for brewing another day! Can't beat that.

My conclusion is simple: Dry hopping and tea-hopping are *very* similar and yielded similar results. Would I tea hop again? Absolutely. The greatest thing about tea-hopping is that you don't have to wait an additional week as you do with dry hopping. You wait about a half hour, dump into the keg (after it was strained through the french press) and there you have it; instant hop flavor and aroma. I may start doing this on a more frequent basis.

So if you have the extra time to do an experiment, I would suggest doing this for fun. It was an eye-opening experience for me and I'm really glad I did it.

P.S. As for how many oz of hops to use . . . that's entirely up to you but I will say that 1 oz was just the right amount for my french press. If you wish to do more than 1 oz then you may have to split the batches up with your french press.

Ben's Homebrew Website

Ben's Homebrew now has a brand new website! It has far more options available to the customers. One of those options is rating each individual product that the consumer purchases. You can also sign up for a news letter and you now have options when it comes to shipping. There are wonderful photos for all the products too. If you haven't checked it out I highly recommend that you do. You're going to love it. And remember, please support the sponsors so that they can continue to give you good information on homebrewing and wine making! Thanks!

How to Harvest Home Grown Hops: Video

This is a pic of the lupilin glands I was talking about in the video. You can see that the one on the left has nice deep, golden colored sacs compared to the other one that has a lighter colored yellow. It's hard to tell with the actual cut hop but you can see it more clearly with the petals below the hops. The one on the left is fully mature.

Pellet Hops Vs Whole Leaf Hops; What's the difference?

So you go to your local homebrew supply store and they have both pellet hops and whole leaf hops and you're not sure which ones to get because you don't know the difference between the two. Well, it's really quite simple. Pellet hops are just pulverized whole leaf hops that look like rabbit food and there are some differences between them. Since pellet hops are pulverized and crushed up during processing, this also crushes up the lupilin glands in the hops. What does this mean? It means that you will be able to isomerize the alpha acids in the hops better and gain a higher extraction rate. This translates to mean that you'll get more bitterness out of your hops. However, this does not mean that you won't get the same out of whole leaf. Since whole leaf hops aren't processed then they aren't as harshly handled. So that means there are MORE lupilin glands in whole leaf hops, which also means that whole leaf hops generally have a higher alpha acid rating. Usually, pellet hops have a lower alpha acid rating than whole leaf hops. Let's say that cascade pellet hops have a 6.0% rating, if you look at whole leaf of the same variety they'll have a higher alpha acid rating of say 6.8%. Because of this I firmly believe that you get the same utilization out of either kind of hop.

One down side to whole leaf is that they usually absorb more wort in the kettle than pelletized hops. As a general rule of thumb you can expect whole leaf to absorb about a 1/2 cup of wort per oz used. One good thing about whole leaf hops is that they can easily be filtered out of the wort before tranferring to a fermenter. Some people actually squeeze the aborbed wort out of the hops to get as much as they can out of them. If you do this make sure everything is sanitized!

Contact time. Pellet hops, since they are pulverized, have more surface area contact to them, which increases utilization as well. Whereas whole leaf don't have as much contact surface to them, but again, since they have more lupilin glands and higher alpha acid ratings then I believe they are equal.

One other thing, since pellet hops are condensed into a smaller form, their shelf life is usually longer because they aren't exposed as much to oxygen and heat. However, any kind of hop that isn't properly stored in an oxygen impermeable bag will degrade at a higher rate regardless of storage in the freezer.

What I believe it comes down to is personal preference. If the variety I'm looking for isn't in whole leaf then I'll buy pellets and vice versa. I personally use whole leaf because they work the best with my brewing system.

I hope this clears up some confusion as to whether or not you should use pellets or whole leaf. When it comes down to it, they are both hops, so use what you can get, especially during a hop shortage.

One more note: I firmly believe that whole leaf hops are better for dry hopping than pellet. I believe that you extract more flavor from the actual leaf with whole hops than the pulverized leaf from pellet hops.

Happy brewing, and don't forget to dry hop those pale ales and IPA's! I'll be posting recipes soon, too.

Beer and Cheese Event

Here are some pics from the Gilda's Club Beer and Cheese tasting event. It was a lot of fun and a huge success. Everyone loved the beer and the display. I kicked two kegs of pale ale, and one keg each of hefeweizen and chocolate porter. Hopefully we'll be able to do this again next year!