Adding Hops to beer kits

Hey guys, im about to add hops to my beer kit.

Its Coopers Bitter.
I have 110g Amarillo and 110g Citra to use. (4oz each)

So what do you recommend ? Hop Tea ?

Do i boil half of the beer kit and add hops to it for 30mins ?

Please tell me what to do whith these hops and how to do it

Best Regards

Depends what you want from the hops! If you want bitterness than calculate how many ibu's you want, and then decide on a boiling time. if you want flavor, I would add them at 10-15 mins and if you want aroma, toss them in at the end of the boil.

Adding 8 oz to a batch would be a lot but you could mix them and "continuously hop" for 30-60 mins

I would throw in an oz of each towards the end of the boil (10 minutes or less) for some nice citrus flavor, but it's your beer so do what you want. It will be beer no matter what you do!

Do you recommend that i put the can of Coopers Bitter and add sugar, then boil that for 10-30mins with hops, or just pure water and hops boil ?

unionrdr said:

The cooper's "kit" cans are pre hopped,the OS cans are bittered only with a little Pride of Ringwood hops. The other higher end cans have different flavor hops & what not added. Don't boil pre-hopped cans,as it will destroy the hop profile. Not to mention,if boiled long enough,caramelize the sugars in the malt,& darken the color. You could try a "hop tea" in the brew kettle (at the beginning) with a half ounce (15g) of each hop for 15minutes. I did that before & it worked pretty good.
But use a hop sack to keep the pellets contained,as they disintegrate back into granules. Dry hopping works well too. But for aroma,& some little bit of flavor.

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I might try this, thanks for the info.

I was thinking about hop tea 0.5oz, then dry hopping with 2oz of each

Should i use both hops, or would that destroy the flavor ?

unionrdr said:

The cooper's "kit" cans are pre hopped,the OS cans are bittered only with a little Pride of Ringwood hops. The other higher end cans have different flavor hops & what not added. Don't boil pre-hopped cans,as it will destroy the hop profile. Not to mention,if boiled long enough,caramelize the sugars in the malt,& darken the color. You could try a "hop tea" in the brew kettle (at the beginning) with a half ounce (15g) of each hop for 15minutes. I did that before & it worked pretty good.
But use a hop sack to keep the pellets contained,as they disintegrate back into granules. Dry hopping works well too. But for aroma,& some little bit of flavor.

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I am not sure how boiling the extract would destroy the hop profile since they prehop the cans for purposes of bittering.

Plus any aroma hops in a prehopped can could not begin to compare to the quality of the OP tossing some of his fresh hops in a boil for ten minutes.

Ingvaroo said:

Do you recommend that i put the can of Coopers Bitter and add sugar, then boil that for 10-30mins with hops, or just pure water and hops boil ?

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I personally would just boil the can as normal (what I did with my dads cooper kit a few days ago). We tossed some fresh hops in at 15 and 5 minutes to get the flavor/aroma in the beer that prehopped cans lack

unionrdr said:

That can isn't all that "bitter". But still the hop tea is done in plain,boiling water. I used 1.5 gallons when I did it,but 2 gallons is fine. you could even do .5oz (15g) of Amarillo in the hop tea at the beginning,then dry hop.5oz of Citra after FG is reached in primary for 1 week. That would give a nice aroma,& cut the little bit of bittering from each. You'd have a good balance & more aroma that way.
It would destroy it because it's already been through the whole process,trust me. I got that straight from cooper's brew tech director,or whatever Paul's title is. It's his job,anyway. More boiling just drives off the oils that cause bittering,since to get just bittering,you drive off the aroma/flavor oils in a long boil. So,adding boiling time to that,you finish the job.
And only some of the cooper's cans have any aroma hops. The Original Series has none. Just some bittering only.
What I told him to do is very common in Australia,on the cooper's forums. You NEVER boil pre-hopped cans. Over & above the other LME discussions we have on here regarding this.

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Got it, thanks for clarifying!

would 1oz of each be to much for hop tea ?

Aight now, my muslin bag is lost, can i drop the hops right into the water for hop tea ?

thanks doing this now

Its always chilly here, but controlable, house temp is about 25°c, storage temp is at 19°c

Well im done making this batch, here are the results.

18/07/11
Coopers Bitter
OG: 1.044
Hops: 0.8oz Citra 15min / 0.5oz Amarillo 15min tea boil
1.100gr Dextros
Yeast@ 20°c

I Decided to just try this with the hops, if it turns out awfull then "lesson learned"
The smell of the wort was awesome, and now the house smells like that wich is fantastic.

Yeah thats 1.1kg, last batches i've done 1kg and ABV is always around 4.3-4.6% so i added 100gr extra this time to give it a bit more.

The brewing sugar isnt available in Iceland yet :/

It's listed at one online shop here, but its been "Out of Stock" for over a year :/

I'll look around for it, if i find some ill be sure to contact you

Thanks buddy!