Adding Hops to Home Brewed Beer

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Eddie Leal, I’m the Brew Master here at Steelhead Brewing Company, and I’ll be talking to you about some of the raw materials that we use during the brewing process. One of those materials are hops. What I got right here is the pellet form of the hops that we use. We use it in pellet forms; basically, because it’s easier to clean up after, considering the type of equipment that we use. Other breweries will use the entire flower. They’ll add the entire flower into the boiling process. The hops are what we add during the boiling process. We do 3 different additions of hops during our boil. The reasons we use hops is basically, hops to us are like cooking spices; it adds flavor to the beer, aroma, and bitterness. The first addition of hops into the boil is particularly for bitterness. The second addition is to add some flavor to the beer, and the third addition is for aroma. The types of hops that we add all depends on the type of beer style we were brewing that day. Some hops are known more for their bitterness; others are known more for the spicy characters they give for flavor. Others are known for floral, the aroma that they give; they’ll give a nice floral aroma to the beers. So, that’s what I’m going to do right now; I’m going to add the first addition, which is our bittering hops for the brew that we’re doing right now."