Using a Hop Back for Homebrewed Beer

The “hop back” is used by many micro and commercial brewers to add hoppy flavor and aroma to any beer.  Homebrewers can also take advantage of this technique with simple equipment to add additional aroma to home brewed beer.

Using a Hop Back

A hop back is a device that is inserted in line as the beer is transferred and cooled from the hot boiler into the fermenter.  The main purpose of a hop back is to transfer delicate hop oils and aromas that would otherwise be boiled off in the boiler.  The technique is used for many ales and related styles where a hoppy aroma is desirable.

Whole or plug hops are used in a hop back, as the goal of the device is to maximize surface contact between the hot wort and the hops.  Typically 1-2 oz of hops are used for a 5 gallon home batch.   The hop back is inserted at the hot end, closest to the boiler to maximize the transfer of hop oils.  Little actual alpha bitterness is added by a hop back, as the wort is not boiling, but a lot of fragile hop oils and aromas can be added.  Since aroma, and not bitterness, are the goal it is best to use low alpha aroma hop varieties in your hop back.

Commercial brewers often make dual use of the hops from their hop back.  After the hops have been used in a hop-back, many of the fragile oils have been taken out but the high alpha bittering hop oils remain.  Therefore brewers can take the hops used in the hop back and boil them to extract bitterness in a subsequent batch.  While this is difficult for homebrewers to do unless they brew multiple batches in a day, some homebrewers have been able to reuse hops in this way when creating parti-gyle brews (more than one batch of beer from a single mash).

You can purchase small hopback device from many home brewing supply stores.  These typically consist of a small watertight container that can be easily opened and sanitized before use.  Hops are added to the container and it is sealed for use.  An inlet tube and outlet tube flow the hot wort through the hop back, and then into either a counterflow chiller or other cooling device before the wort is transported to the fermenter.

Making your own Hop Back

You can also build a hop-back at home from most any watertight heat resistant container.  One of the more innovative home designs I’ve seen consists of nothing more than a ball canning jar with holes drilled into the top where tubes and fittings have been added to produce a watertight seal.  An article on Bodensatz brewing (image shown above) has one of these devices that uses a copper or stainless steel put scrubber to help form a filter on the outgoing end of the hop back to prevent hops from plugging up the outlet hose.  If you create such a device it is important to use lead-free solder when soldering the pieces together, and check the system to make sure it is watertight before use.

Using a hop back is a great way to add an extra burst of hop flavor and aroma to your favorite ale.  For more hop techniques, see our hop technique round-up.  Thanks for joining us again on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  Please subscribe or drop us a comment below if you enjoyed this week’s article.

• Best Hop Techniques for Homebrewing
• Brewing Hops Storage: Preserving Precious Hops
• The First Wort Hop: Beer Brewing Techniques
• Dry Hopping: Enhanced Hops Aroma
• Brewing Hops: 10 Tips for Surviving the Hops Shortage

Video: Home brew beer, the basics of beer brewing

The step by step process used by Jordan M. Wright, to brew a malt extract recipe beer. This is a great video to watch if you’re brewing for the first time, or want to know more about how to home brew.

Home brew beer, the basics of beer brewing

Hops Style Guide – What hops in what beer….

One thing I love about home brewing is that when it comes to recipes, anything goes, you can add or do what you want.

Recently while taking inventory, I found that I had several ounces of random hops; Saaz, Styrian Goldings, Argentinian Cascade, Cascade, Hallertauer… I decided to throw some recipes together that were indicative of the representing hops. Short of reading the BJCP Style guidelines, I compiled information for the list below for an easy quick reference. I’ll be cleaning it up and adding more info as time permits. Read the rest of this entry »

Basic Ingredients of Beer (Home brewed, micro brewed, and commercial)

The main ingredients found in beer are water, malted barley, hops, and yeast.  There are other ingredients such as flavoring, sugar, and other ingredients that are commonly used.  Starches are used as well, as they convert in the mashing process to easily fermentable sugars that will help to increase the alcohol content of beer while adding body and flavor.

Historical Ingredient Reference of Beer
In Germany the “Reinheitsgebot” law, or “German Beer Purity Law” stated in it’s original text written in 1516, that the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops. The Reinheitsgebot was designed to prevent inferior methods of preserving and flavoring beer that had been used before the introduction of hops, which is a natural bactirial inhibitor and major flavor component of modern beer. Prior to this, medieval brewermasters had used many problematic (and toxic) ingredients to preserve beers, including, for example, soot and fly agaric mushrooms. More commonly, other herbs had been used, such as wormwood, yarrow, stinging nettle and henbane. Pre-hop beers are generally referred to as “Gruit”.

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Hops – Possible Substitutions

Hop Substitution Chart

The chart below is a rough guideline to help you find possible solutions to missing or locally unavailable hops. I’ve relied on it several times. If you have any additions, or comments please let me know!

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