Adding the hops to the Bitter

So, 3 days after I kicked off the Sherwood Forest Bitter, it is time to add the bag of hops. I stupidly added them before taking a picture, but it was basically a small seal bag, about the size of a couple of postage stamps next to each other, full of what looked like a dark cat litter - mmm, nice.

I sprinkled the contents into the beer and, having poured boiling hot water over the stirrer, I stirred them in. Initially, they mostly stayed on the surface, but I'm sure I recall reading that aerating the wort during the early stages of fermentation is not a problem, so I made my best effort to stir them all off the surface. Job done. Hopefully this will add a little more flavour to the final beer.

Prior to adding the hops, I did take a gravity reading:



I took the reading as being about 1.020 - not too bad after 3 days. I will now leave it for at least another 3 or 4 days before taking another reading. I am now keen to not leave any brews for more than a few days once fermentation has stopped.