Boil Time Confusions

Know I might get flamed for this but I need something cleared up. When I read through a recipe I see the boil times and always get confused and think I may be doing things backwards.

If a recipe calls for 2oz of kent goldings @ 60 minutes and another oz @ 20 minutes, is this 2oz at the beginning of the boil and an oz with 20 minutes left to the boil? Or an oz 20 minutes INTO the boil and 2oz @ 60 minutes into the boil?

Boil times are pretty much always listed as amount of time from the end of the boil. So if you're doing a 60 minute boil, you'll add the first (2oz) hops once you hit boil and then the additional ounce when you're 40 minutes into the boil (or 20 minutes from the end)... It's pretty basic and described in all the 'beginner' books out there.

Antler said:

If a recipe calls for 2oz of kent goldings @ 60 minutes and another oz @ 20 minutes, is this 2oz at the beginning of the boil and an oz with 20 minutes left to the boil?

Click to expand...

YES that is the standard way to show hop schedule for 99% of all recipe. Once in awhile I see a recipe written differently, in an attempt to make it clearer to a novice, but it just adds to confusion.

I always look at it as "boil for 60 minutes" "boil for 20 minutes" "boil for 1 minute." It makes sense to me but you may still be confused. As long as you know your boil time (in this example 60 minutes) everything should be from the end of the boil time.