when to take hops out?

Ok, I just finished brewing a PM beer, with 4 hop additions:

60 min -1 oz
30 min - .5 oz
15 min - .25 oz
5 min. - .25 oz

the way I did it was:

60 min - put in 1 oz
30 min - take out the 1 oz, put in .5 oz
15 min - pull out the .5 oz, put in the .25 oz
5 min - pull out the .25 oz, put in .25 oz
0 min - take out the .25 oz

is this correct? or do I leave the hops in for the entire time, only taking them out at the very end? IE:

60 min - put in 1 oz
30 min - put in .5 oz
15 min - put in .25 oz
5 min - put in .25 oz
0 min - take out all 2 oz total

??

Leave them in! When you collect the wort at the end, strain them out.

Leave them in. The IBU calculations are based on the bittering hops boiling the entire time. Taking the flavor hops out early changes the oil profile.

I leave them in until bottling. I am not a freakish hop head, I firmly believe that the hops aid in clearing the beer and are easily filtered at bottling....



One hop bag and a rubber band, or you can poke a hole in the bag and slip it between the washer and the inside of your bottling bucket (assuming you use one)

cheezydemon said:

I leave them in until bottling. I am not a freakish hop head, I firmly believe that the hops aid in clearing the beer and are easily filtered at bottling....

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cheezydemon is in the minority, and i've never read anything that mentions hops helping to clear your beer (not that it doesn't exist). you do want to leave all the hops in until the end. boiling hops converts the alpha acids from an oily substance that won't mix into the beer to one that mixes in and creates bitterness on your taste buds. the process is called isomerization. fortunately, taking your bittering hops out half way through doesn't mean your beer will only be half as bitter as it should be, but you did lose some substantial bitterness. i'd suspect that the more pronounced effect would be on flavor and aroma. if this beer was intended to be hoppy, like a pale ale, i'd strongly consider dry hopping it after primary fermentation to restore some hop character. let us know how it turns out.

cheezydemon said:

I leave them in until bottling. I am not a freakish hop head, I firmly believe that the hops aid in clearing the beer and are easily filtered at bottling....

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I'm a firm believer that this is the first I've ever heard your technique mentioned. I'm not saying it's wrong, and it certainly won't hurt anything, but I'm not convinced that leaving the hops in the beer until bottling will have any effect at all.

Yuri_Rage said:

I'm a firm believer that this is the first I've ever heard your technique mentioned. I'm not saying it's wrong, and it certainly won't hurt anything, but I'm not convinced that leaving the hops in the beer until bottling will have any effect at all.

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Yup same here. Never heard of that. Would be cool if it did. I love hops and I love clear beer.

Yuri_Rage said:

Leave them in! When you collect the wort at the end, strain them out.

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doh! well, next batch will be a bit different then...lol.

Expect this batch to be under-hopped. You might be at half the IBU's the recipe states.

I leave my hops in for two weeks, also. After two weeks I siphon off of the trub and clear for one more week.

the other thing to concider is that when you leave the hops in you can add to the tannin levels and increase the chance for off flavors in the final product
but a dry hop addition in primary secondary or even turtiary (sp? sorry all) can make huge impacts on the flavor profile of your brew just a thought