Hops & Boil Times

Thinking back on the past batches I've recently brewed it dawned on me that I was leaving my hop bags in my wort during the chilling process with my IC.

This lead me to think that my hops are spending too much time in the wort.

If a receipe calls for a 60 min hop addition - should I be removing my hop bags at 60 mins? and the same for the other later hop additions?

The extra time those hops spend in the wort during cooling makes a 60 min hop really more like a 90 or 95 min hop.

Separate note, but somewhat related.. I've seen a few pics in the gallery of boil kettles with a 4" piece of PVC pipe with 4 sticks of All-thread, suspended over the top of the boil. Is there a hop bag on that rig? Is that so the brewer can easily pull their hops out at the end of the boil before cooling?

if you weren't using bags you couldn't remove the hops.

Once the wort gets below boiling the isomerization process is really slowed down. This is why commercial breweries can add their whirlpool additions to 190F wort for an hour without gaining much bitterness. I've never used hop bags in the boil, but if you do, it's really up to you if you want to remove them, but not much more is going to happen once you begin to chill the beer down.

And yes, those things you see suspended over the kettle are hop bags. Most people agree that regular bags constrict the hops so they can't flow around the kettle as well, thus not being utilized as well, and the very large bags allow an easy way to filter out the hops, while maintaining good wort contact.

Barleywater, are suggesting that I add my hop cones to the wort using the large grain bag I used previously for PM brewing. Certainly sounds easier than retrieving and repeated opening a small hop bag for late hop additions.

I use ladies Knee high stockings. As long as you use less than 1.5 oz per bag you'll be OK