Technique

Dry-Hopping Question: When I rack this to a secondary, is it better to put the hops in first THEN siphon the beer....or siphon the beer than add the hops on top. Would one potentially yield greater results?

General Extract Question: When adding in extract, whether it be LME or DME, how much is too much in the beginning? I don't wanna get that twangy taste, and the consensus seems to be adding in about half of the extract in the beginning of the boil, and then about half at the end? Does this greatly effect the gravity?

Extract:

I would think the gravity should be the same, regardless of when you add the extract. I don't do extract anymore, so I may be out of the loop...but I used to add all of my dry extract at 60 minutes, and all of my liquid extract at 15 minutes. I did plenty of beers that had everything added at the beginning though.

Hops:
I don't typically use a secondary for hoppy beers, so I add all of my dry-hops to primary. I'll wait until fermentation has stopped (so you don't lose any aroma from the CO2 being produced and vented) then add my dry-hops and let it sit for a week or two. I think the best method of dryhopping is to put all of your hops loosely in a bag, and then sink them to the bottom with a heavy stainless steel bolt (or something close to that). I've dropped them right in without the bag, but this usually leaves me with siphoning problems (when I'm using whole leaf) or lots of hop flakes in my final product (pellets).

KennyS1134 said:

Dry-Hopping Question: When I rack this to a secondary, is it better to put the hops in first THEN siphon the beer....or siphon the beer than add the hops on top. Would one potentially yield greater results?

I've done it either way with like results.

General Extract Question: When adding in extract, whether it be LME or DME, how much is too much in the beginning? I don't wanna get that twangy taste, and the consensus seems to be adding in about half of the extract in the beginning of the boil, and then about half at the end? Does this greatly effect the gravity?

Click to expand...

I typically go 1/3 early, 2/3 flameout.

I doubt you'd see much twang either way. The late extract additions can prevent *some* caramelizing of the wort due to boiling most of it with a lower sugar content, but the effect is minimal in practice (depends on exactly how thick your wort is!) and is mostly geared towards keeping extract beers lighter in color. Extract tends to produce a darker beer, compared to style, because of the processing. DME tends to end up lighter than LME because of the way it's produced. I can't see how it will affect the OG, however, if caramelized enough, you might affect the sugars enough to keep them from being eaten by the yeast.

That said, when I did extract, I generally did the 1/3 boil, and 2/3 with 10 minutes or less left.

As far as hops go, I think they tend to float either way, so it doesn't really matter. I try and push them down with a sanitized spoon or stir stick, but until they have soaked up some beer, both methods end up being about the same.

Awesome, thanks for the help! I really appreciate it! I'm trying to get better, but these tiny and most likely stupid questions keep me up at night.

Just keep asking. The effect of these things can be an improvement in your beer, but if you don't mind me suggesting, fermentation is the single biggest area of concern in any brewing IMO.

Proper yeast amount, and consistent proper temps are Key to a great beer.

Another thing to think about is when brewing with extract, you may consider using distilled or RO water. If you have soft or low mineral water, it's not a big deal, but water with a lot of mineral content can unbalance the flavor of a beer.

The extract already contains minerals from when the manufacturer made it. Adding water with a lot of minerals REALLY adds up. It's hard to know exactly how much of what mineral you're adding without a water analysis report, so many people play it safe and use Distilled or RO instead.

If you're beer tastes great then no worries!