Brupaks Fixby Gold queries

[slippyr4]

Hi All,

I'm making a sizable dent in my stocks of Woodfordes Admiral's Reserve so today i've gone and bought my second kit in my refound home brewing hobby, Brupaks Fixby Gold.

Home brew shop man advised this kit because I told him i'm a particular fan of dry, hoppy beers - I especially like the taste of hops in the final product, and i'm really not into sweet and malty brews.

In fact, my top 3 favourite commerical brews would probably be Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted, Deuchars IPA and Adnams SSB. All have a distinct hop flavour.

The brupaks advanced instructions give 3 choices for what to do with the hop sachet:-

1. For bitterness, boil hops for 40 minutes
or
2. For flavour but less bitterness, boil for 10 minutes,
or
3. For a hop aroma, steep for 5 minutes and add to the bulk ideally in secondary fermenter or dispensing barrel

My first question is which of the options is going to give me the best rendition of the hoppy character i describe above?

And my second question, is if option 3 is going to be the best one, when should I add the hops? when i brew, or near the end of the fermentation. Problem is i intend to go straight to bottles, so i'm not clear on when i should be doing the hops if option 3 is the one for me.

any advise is greatly appreciated

thanks

slip

[dunc]

If you like Bitter and Twisted this is definitely the kit for you, plenty of fresh hoppy aroma. I just followed the basic instructions, i.e. steeped the hop bag for 15 minutes and it worked out ok. I did beef it up a little with 500g hopped light spraymalt though, which increased the bitterness. Possibly the best kit I've done.