hop

Australia and New Zealand Hops – Hop Groups

by Brad Smith on December 29, 2023 · 0 comments

This week I take a look at the hops from New Zealand and Australia which have become some of the most desirable IPA hops in the world over the last few years. Hop Varieties from Australia and New Zealand As the US craft beer industry has grown, many of the varieties from Australia and New […]

This week I take a look at the reason why most beer brewers have moved to a single boil addition instead of having short duration flavor and aroma hop additions in the boil. The History of Short Duration Boil Additions When I started brewing back in 1987 it was very common to use short duration, […]

Hop Utilization Models for Beer Brewing Compared

by Brad Smith on September 23, 2021 · 1 comment

This week I take a look at the three major hop utilization models: Tinseth, Garetz, and Rager used to calculate bitterness in beer brewing. Bitterness Levels and IBUs The bitterness of a beer contributed by hops in the boil is typically estimated using one of three major hop utilization equations. All three attempt to estimate […]

Hop Cone Composition and Beer Brewing

by Brad Smith on August 26, 2021 · 0 comments

This week I take a look at the hop cone and how its composition affects flavors when brewing beer. Hop Cone Composition If we look at the hop cone image (upper right, Source: Stan Hieronymus) we can see the various parts of the hop cone. The bulk of the compounds we are interested in are […]

Stan Hieronymus joins me this week to discuss hop breeding programs and some of the new hop varieties hitting the brewing market. Subscribe on iTunes to Audio version or Video version or Spotify or Google Play Download the MP3 File– Right Click and Save As to download this mp3 file. Your browser does not support […]

High Altitude Beer Brewing and Hop Utilization

by Brad Smith on December 8, 2019 · 1 comment

I often hear from brewers who live at altitude asking about how to adjust their beer brewing recipes. Living at a higher altitude means that both water and wort will boil at a lower temperature which leads to lower hop utilization. I spent six years living near Albuquerque in New Mexico, with four of those […]

This week I feature a short video tutorial no how to use the new altitude and elevation adjustment features in BeerSmith 3 for high altitude beer brewing. BeerSmith 3 is one of the only software packages to offer a simple adjustment for the change in hop utilization when brewing at altitude. You can find additional […]

Stan Hieronymus joins me this week to discuss cutting edge research in the use of certain hop oils in beer brewing. Stan has some interesting results regarding which oils provide key flavors in IPAs and pale ales. Subscribe on iTunes to Audio version or Video version or on Google Play Download the MP3 File – […]

Using Hop Extracts for Beer Brewing

by Brad Smith on August 31, 2016 · 4 comments

Hop extracts have the potential to revolutionize many aspects of both commercial and home brewing. While bittering extracts have been used for many years by large commercial brewers, we are now seeing a new generation of hop extracts entering the craft and home brewing markets. Types of Hop Extracts Hop extract typically consists of concentrated […]

Late Hop Additions and Hop Oils in Beer Brewing

by Brad Smith on January 21, 2013 · 22 comments

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A trend in modern brewing is the greater use of late steeped hop additions for many styles. These include steeped hop additions, whirlpool hops, use of a hop-back and even dry hopping. Surprisingly, most of these late additions are not done to increase bitterness, but instead to exploit hop oils which play a significant role […]

This week my guest is James Altwies, the President of Gorst Valley Hops. James is an expert in hop chemistry and this week we’re going to discuss what alpha acids, beta acids and hop aroma oils are and how they can help you make better beer. Download the MP3 File – Right Click and “Save […]

Developing Hop Varieties – BeerSmith Podcast 32

by Brad Smith on February 12, 2012 · 3 comments

This week we talk about American hop varieties and developing new hops. Al Haunold, a retired genetic engineer from USDA and Dave Wills from Freshops.com are my guests as we talk about how some of the most popular US hop varieties came about, how high alpha varieties are used now and how hops are grown. […]

Noble Hops for European Beer Styles

by Brad Smith on February 5, 2012 · 6 comments

A lot of home brewers are familiar with the term “Noble Hops” which refers to four variety of continental European hops originally grown in Central Europe. The four hop varieties are Terrnanger, Spalt, Hallertauer and Saaz. This week we take a look at these popular hops and character in detail. Noble Hops The four traditional […]

BeerSmith Hops and Yeast Updates

by Brad Smith on March 6, 2011 · 4 comments

This week I took a few hours to enter the latest yeast and hops into BeerSmith for you instead of writing a blog article. Many of you have been asking for some of the newest hops and yeasts to be included in a data update – so here it is. First check your version – […]

Dr Glenn Tinseth, the author of the Tinseth equation for estimating bitterness is my guest this week. The Tinseth equation is the most widely used equation for estimating bitterness by brewers from around the world. Glenn talks about hops, bitterness, international bitterness units, hop utilization and much more. Download the MP3 File – Right Click […]