HOP INTO A HOPBACK

As you really get into this hobby, you will learn that hops are a vital ingredient in brewing. Hops of course can be added for bitterness, they can be added for flavour, and they can be added for aroma. The methods they can be added are just as varied, they can be added in the mash (mash hoping), added to the wort before the boil (First Wort Hoping-FWH), added at the start of the boil, during the boil, towards the end of the boil, at the finish of the boil, dry hopped in the primary fermenter, or even the secondary fermenter.

All methods have certain advantages and disadvantages, with no method the perfect one. One method that I want to discuss is what they call a hopback, a method I believe captures certain flavours and aroma the best. To understand how it works, we must understand the normal method of adding flavour and aroma hops.

If we add hops to a boiling wort, immediately the hop oils react with the boiling wort and start dissolving. Now almost immediately, the most volatile compounds will be driven off. They are being immediately lost. These are both aroma and flavour compounds. By 10 minutes most of the aroma compounds have been driven off in the boil. But by this time the majority of less volatile flavour compounds have at their maximum. Now if the boil proceeds they too are driven off, til after about 20 to 30 minutes they have been removed as well. All that is left is mainly bitterness. That is why most recipes say flavour hops 10 minutes from the end and aroma hops at the end of the boil - what they call strike.

Now imagine if you capture all the aroma compounds, in other words absolutely none is lost through evaporation. This is what a hop back does. It is sealed container that hops are placed into. The hot wort passes through this to a counter flow cooler and is cooled rapidly. ALL the very volatile compounds are trapped and locked in the cooled wort. The attached photo shows this perfectly.

The hop back you see holds 30 grams of leaf hops, and is in between the boiler and my cooler (the PVC pipe it is sitting on). The hop back is made out of a length of stainless steel pipe (from a scrap metal dealer), about 20 cm long and 5 cm diameter. I welded a plate on each end, then welded two thread blanks 2.5cm diameter after putting a hole in each end. The hoses and plastic fitting I got from a hydraulics hose shop as well as the thread blanks. The filter is off cut termi-mesh I got from a builder. Whole thing cost under $10.00. As the photo shows, you put the filter in the fitting on the downstream end, and screw it up. Fill it up with your hops and screw the other end in. Its now ready to attach to your boiler. Really you can make one out of anything, as long as it seals. Let your imagination fly.

Shout Graham Sanders

There is nothing complex in a hopback as you can see here. Its a sealed container, in this case a stainless steel pipe, and a filter to keep stop the hops clogging it up.

Filter ready for insertion into hop back. the filter is a roll of termimesh, as long as the hop back. once it in place, hops are fed in the other end and the other hose connected.

This it in in operation. Its sitting on my cooler. The hot wort leaves the boiler, thru the hgopback and into the cooler. Mine holds up to 30 grams of leaf hop.