I have a bunch of new hops I want to try out. What would be the fastest and easiest way to brew - say - 1 or 2 gallon batches? I would like to have it done in as little time as possible, so I can do it at night. All my brewing equipment is in the basement, and the less I need to carry upstairs the better. Would a simple combination of dry extract and C40 (and maybe some carapils) at - say 1060 be a good base? I could then bulk mill the C40 in advance and maybe store it in the freezer? Then I would steep the cara malts and boil it with the extract and some bittering hops, and add the new hops in the whirlpool & dry hop. Any suggestions to standardize, and optimize the procedure, and still obtain the best possible beer within the limits of this procedure? Ah, and how about brewing salts? Can anything be added when one uses dry extract?
I think the recommendation is usually to not use any salts when using extract as the manufacturer already treated their water when making the extract. You could try a standard 5G batch and split into several smaller batches post boil and experiment with different dry hop schedules for the separate batches. Bitter the batch with a known quantity and try out your new hops simultaneously across the smaller batches. Just a thought
Yes, that would work. I would then use 500 gr LME, 50 gr C40, 5 gr Warrior for 1.048 & 45 IBU in a 4 liter batch. I have these 2 oz packages of hops from Yakima valley, so I could whirlpool with 1 oz and dry hop with 1 oz.
If you are just looking for a flavor / aroma profile, I’ve heard of adding pellets to bottles of Bud Light and recapping. Some breweries do this when they get experimental hops to try.
I also went into a bit more specifics on my blog as well:
I’ve cranked out as many as 8 batches in the time span of a typical all-grain brewday. You can steep some crystal instead of the Munich LME if you’d like, but I find things work more quickly with the LME.
On my last IPA, I did a traditional all-grain mash but then divided it into several soup kettles and boiled them simultaneously on my stovetop. If you’ve got several good sized kettles in your kitchen, you can do the same. You could split a 3-gallon batch into two 1.5-gallons, or a 5-gallon batch into 3 or 4 small batches. Depends on how many kettles and how good your stove is I guess.
One key thing to keep in mind when using multiple kettles – due to greater surface area of the boiling wort, you’ll want to add at least a quart of distilled water to each kettle at the beginning of the boil because otherwise you’ll end up with a very small amount of high gravity worts. Boiloff rate is crazy, around 30-35% over the course of an hour with small batches, compared to the typical 15% for 5-gallons. The distilled water you add will keep things at a more level playing field with the total volume you are used to seeing post-boil.
FWIW, I always have C40 on hand, so that’s why I just throw a couple oz in a muslin bag, into the water as it heats, and pull it as the water hits 165F or so. It’s enough to give the wort a little color and malty sweetness. No time lost.
While this can be done, the time I did this with 6 different pellet varieties (from EKG to Citra) yielded a very similar, out-in-front grassy/vegetal character to the beers. Couple that with the trouble of recapping and the sludge I got from the hops, I’d recommend Eric’s method hands down.
In a gallon of 1.050 I’m adding 1 oz in a 20 minute steep and 1 oz dry hop. Basically equates to a hoppy APA, which is a good base to assess the hop character IMO.
If you’re simply looking to check out flavor and aroma, then bittering with a neutral hop should be fine. Personally, I like to get an idea of bittering quality as well, so I do a FWH to 40-45 IBU with the same hop that I’m testing. It all depends on what you’re going for.
Don’t count on zero flavor from the warrior bittering. Neutral doesn’t mean flavorless. 50 IBU from any bittering hop seems like a lot for trying to learn flavor/aroma hops. Unless your plan down the road is to make beers that have 50 IBUs of warrior at bittering addition.
Magnum is also considered a “neutral bittering hop” but, to illustrate my point, last winter I brewed a Helles with just a half ounce at 60 min, nothing else, and multiple judges, including two Masters, said that it had too much spicy/floral hop flavor and aroma. Point being that some will come through and it will interact with the late hops you are tryin to test out.
I used to bitter with whatever the hop was, but I always seem to have a lb or two of Warrior and Columbus in the freezer and just prefer those to bitter especially American styles. I don’t rule out going true single hop occasionally on the ones that are higher AA% though.