How do you use hops in your kettle?

Use mostly pellets, only get leaf when I can’t find pellets of a certain variety. Boil it free and then pour the wort through a filter into the fermenter.

Use hop bags for dry hopping.

I mostly use pellet. I always use a nylon mesh or muslin bag for dry hopping, and often do for boiling, especially when I’m using a pump. I used to let the pellets loose in the kettle, but found the bags to be easier (especially when doing a lot of batches/additions in one day- tie the number of knots in the muslin bag corresponding with the # addition it is). I did not notice a significant loss in character by bagging the hops.

I use leaf hops, mainly because I replenish my yearly hop inventory when Hops Direct has their harvest and they always sell the leaf first before they get to pelleting. I stock up with 3-4 lbs for the year and buy enough variety to last me for different styles. I have to us a hopsack because I don’t have a filter and it works fine for my setup. For my hoppy beers, I do the bag squeeze to get the resiny hop juice into the kettle. I do love the ease of use of pellets, but it does leave a lot of sludge.

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by JulienHuxley
My question is how can you find/afford leaf hops. They’re almost extinct here in Canada and even ordering them from the US has become prohibitively expensive

Have you tried places like HopsDirect?

Originally posted by JulienHuxley
Placing an order right now. I was a little upset at them a couple years ago when I ordered discounted Belma that was chuck full of twigs and leaves. I was buying hops from freshops then and the quality was not even close to matching. I’ll give them another go