Flavor hop addition time

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gio

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What causes hops to stop bittering when they are in the wort? When you stop the boil, the wort is still pretty hot so won't they still contribute to the bitterness of the wort even though it's no longer boiling?

I just made an IPA recently that had a relatively low amount of bittering hops, but a huge 3.5 ounces of 11% AAU hops added @10min for flavoring. I turned off the boil after the 10 min, but I didn't put my wort chiller in right away since I was still stirring to get the DME to finish dissolving. Will that extra 5-10 min of hot wort mess up the IBU? Using the calculators it seems that even an extra 5 min with that many hops will cause the IBU jump 15 or more and now I'm worried that my beer will end up too bitter.
 
Yes, alpha acids isomerize in hot but not boiling wort. As an example, Pelican Pub Kiwanda Cream Ale has no hops added during the boil but is around 18 ibu.

I've always wondered how much of the difference between the Rager and Tinseth models were due to how they were calibrated to the authors' systems and in particular perhaps Rager using a counterflow chiller and Tinseth an immersion chiller (the former tends to give higher estimates).

I think these things are best approached empirically and I don't really worry about the models for really hoppy beers. If the beer is too bitter, you know what to do next time.

The isomerization will slow once the boil is over so I doubt you are getting 15 extra IBUs out of 10 minutes.
 
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