First Wort Hopping - Head retention problems?

Gordie · 10-26-2008, 06:37 PM

Howdy. I've been thinking of FWHing for a while and did a bunch of research into it and was really jazzed to give it a go. Then I read an article written by a pro that said no one in Germany will FWH any more since they discovered that FWHing contributed other things to the wort that causes real problems with head retention and possibly other side effects.

After reading The Pol's thread below, I thought I'd throw it out there to all the FWHers and ask if any of y'all have noticed head retention problems, haze issues or anything else.

Everything else I found on FWHing was really positive about the practice so I'd kinda like to know if this guy is full of crap or not.

Gordie

vav · 10-26-2008, 07:51 PM

I've never heard of this.

s3n8 · 10-26-2008, 07:53 PM

I have used it on 3 AG brews and all have turned out great. I am not sure if the haze in my beer is chill haze, or just from 2 oz of dry hops. Head retention has not suffered in my limited experience.

TeleTwanger · 10-27-2008, 07:33 PM

Noonan talks about adding 5-15% of the hops before the onset of boiling but he seems to imply while this is ok for decocted mash beers infusion mash beers should be boiled for 15-30 minutes prior to adding hops or they will combine with proteins and precipitate out of solution along with thier oils. (result: more hops needed)

I have not read anything bad about FWH and a lot of good so I'm not gonna stop.

Gordie · 10-27-2008, 10:30 PM

Righto. I figure the best course of action at this point is to FWH like the wind and see what happens.