Thanks for all the answers to my other question...Now I have another. When I was going through my equipment I found gypsium. I have no idea what it is for. Any help. Also most of the recipes say to add the hops, do I just put them in the water or in the mesh bag and "brew" them? The malt I got is a powder form and will disolve. Where does the brewing take place? It seems that it is all disolving rather than putting things in a mesh bag and steeping it. Thanks...
Gypsum is used to condition your water for certain types of beers with certain water types. I would think that usually it isn't needed, certainly for a beginner and certainly for a first kit. It probably won't matter much if you use it or not for an extract batch.
Hmmm.... you should have better instructions than that... again go and read thru the website above, especially the extract brewing part. Simple outline is: 1. Steep CRUSHED grain in hot water (if any are in the kit) 2. Remove grain, raise water to boiling. 3. Cut heat, add malt extract, stir, stir, stir. 4. Return to boil (watching for boilovers!) 5. Add boiling (bittering) hops. 6. Boil for about 45 minutes, add flavor hops (if any) 7. Boil 15 more minutes, cut heat, add aroma hops (if any) 8. Cool as fast and as well as you can. 9. Pour thru a strainer into a fermenter. 10. Top up with water to correct volume (5 gal?) 11. Add yeast when below 80F.
Again, these are just rough notes with no water volumes, etc. howtobrew.com will give you all the details.
NOTE - there are some new-fangled "no boil" kits that might have different instructions... never seen one myself...
Good question... I probably don't have a good answer... :) There is probably not a great taste change either way... The best thing to do is to plan two identical brews and do one each way and see! Let us know if you do, and the results. ((I don't brew extract anymore much, so don't use a strainer at all anymore ... )).
well, typically at this point the hops are done adding to the brew. If one was to leave it in, it could possibly affect the taste detrimentaly so one removes that and anything else one can to prevent a grassy flavor imparted as at this stage you're primarily concerned with fermentation. This can take a week or so and some brews you want to leave in the fermentor for longer than this, so anything you can remove, you do, as longterm effects of leaving stuff in for a long time can be quite unknown. Unless working from a known recipe and are experimenting to see what it would do, it's best just to remove whatever one can.
Leaving the hops will not affect flavor. Primarily, hops impart flavor to the beer through resins that are drawn out through high temp. If anything, using the strainer only leads to a higher chance of contamination as you add cooled wort to the fermentation bucket. If you are going to use the strainer, make sure to dip it in your boiling wort for 5 minutes to kill any bacteria before straining. I always take the simple route and leave the hops in. They will be left behind when your siphon to the secondary anyways.
WOW...lots of help from all of you! Thanks...I will try to leave the hops in and see how it tastes then brew another batch and strain them and compare...good advice! Again Thanks...
Brew won't take place for a while but I will try to post updates if anyone is interested.
So my last post is probably a little misleading. The hops from you boil won't impart flavor, b/c all the oils have already been extracted and or boiled off. Adding dry hops to the fermenter after the boil would change flavor. Here's a good description of how hops provide flavor/aroma/bitterness:
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