Effect of Whirlpool/Hopstand on Boil Additions

Hi All,

I can't seem to find this discussed all that much and given the focus on huge hop stand/steeping additions these days I figured it was an interesting topic:

What is the effect of a 10-20 minute whirlpool after flameout on hops added during the boil (FWH, 15, 10, 5, etc)?

It seems strange to me that when plugging flameout hops into BeerSmith and designating them as whirlpool addition, the calculated IBUs shoot up but the predicted IBUs for a late 5 minute addition don't budge. I imagine that the lack of a rigorous boil has an effect on hop utilization and isomerization, but its clearly not zero.

Does anybody else account for these when doing a flameout hop burst? Am I way off base?

Thx.

What temperature do you whirlpool at? I know Beersmith assumes something like 190-200*F. Isomerization drops off rapidly with temperature decreases much below that, so I typically whirlpool at lower temperatures if there is potential for unwanted increased IBUs.

Yeah, it doesn't work properly. It will include the bittering of the hops you designate as steeping/whirlpool but it doesn't continue the calculations for the hops you added previously. Obviously the hops you added at 1 minute will continue to isomerize during the hop stand, but BeerSmith doesn't take this into account as these weren't part of the 'steep/whirlpool' addition. He needs to make the calculations for prior additions include the hop stand time when a whirlpool/steep addition is added to the recipe. I even tried adding 0oz of hops for a steep/whirlpool additions so that it would know I'm doing a hop stand, but it isn't smart enough to extend the calculations.

grathan said:

What temperature do you whirlpool at? I know Beersmith assumes something like 190-200*F. Isomerization drops off rapidly with temperature decreases much below that, so I typically whirlpool at lower temperatures if there is potential for unwanted increased IBUs.

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grathan, I agree with you in a general sense. Yes, temp does have an effect on isomerization. The issue I have is that regardless of the temperature that BeerSmith is using, I don't see a reason why it should assign IBUs to the whirlpool hops only and not the hops added during the boil. Depending on the hop usage in the recipe (probably high since this is an IPA technique), it has the potential to drastically understate total IBUs.

Beersmith is retarded. That is how I look at it and it makes it easier to use it.

It doesn't change the IBU on the 20 minute addition at all in the software. In reality if you steep @ 90*c for 30 minutes then your 20 minute addition should become a 50 minute addition, but this is not the case in Beersmith.

Couple of things to consider:

Typically (not set in stone, although its the assumption BeerSmith makes), the hops added during the boil are removed at the end of he boil and only the post boil hops are present post boil.

Isomerization of hops stops around 180F - 170F; if you don't cool your wort before you add your post boil addition, your post boil addition will contribute IBUs.

If you cool your wort below 170F before you add your post boil hop addition it will not contribute IBUs, it will only add a lot of flavor. Myself, and several others on the forum, have used this method pretty successfully for getting some great hop flavor. My experience has been that the hop flavor isn't as intense as you would get from dry hopping but the flavor last much longer.

I usually drop my wort to 160 post boil, add new hops, and do a whirlpool; since there won't be any IBU contribution I set the whirlpool time in BeerSmith to 0 so it won't calculate any IBUs.

Or you could not bother doing it.

I'm finding in my beers, and also a bunch of brewers at a homebrew comp banquet I attended recently, that whirlpooling/hopstands are just making the late additions less effective for aroma. Something is happening in larger commercial systems that's different...

I'm very interested in trying the techniques being discussed here. I have just improved my brew stand at home to include a whirlpool system with a chugger pump and a therminator. I have a temp guage on the output of the therminator and am looking to add whirlpool hop additions at the end of my next brew, which I am planning to be a slightly overly hopped black IPA.

So in reading this correctly, seems the flavor and possibly to a lesser extent, aroma hop additions should be augmented by adding the hops in a whirlpool of 170*? I am envisioning being at flameout, crank up the pump, get the whirlpool rolling, then route the wort through the therminator (without running the cooling water). Once the temp reads 180* shut down the pump and add the hops. Sit for 20 mins then cool the wort to pitching temp and go to fermentor.

Does that sound about right? I expect I'll play with a few batches before I get my technique down.

thanks

kenmcchord said:

I'm very interested in trying the techniques being discussed here. I have just improved my brew stand at home to include a whirlpool system with a chugger pump and a therminator. I have a temp guage on the output of the therminator and am looking to add whirlpool hop additions at the end of my next brew, which I am planning to be a slightly overly hopped black IPA.



So in reading this correctly, seems the flavor and possibly to a lesser extent, aroma hop additions should be augmented by adding the hops in a whirlpool of 170*? I am envisioning being at flameout, crank up the pump, get the whirlpool rolling, then route the wort through the therminator (without running the cooling water). Once the temp reads 180* shut down the pump and add the hops. Sit for 20 mins then cool the wort to pitching temp and go to fermentor.



Does that sound about right? I expect I'll play with a few batches before I get my technique down.



thanks

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When I do a whirlpool, it's a touch more manual (think big spoon). My advice would be to chill to around 170f and then keep recirculating the wort but not thru your chiller. This should create a whirlpool in the kettle of the input and output are in the right spots. Then toss your hops in for 10-20 minutes with your kettle lid on and then rapidly chill afterwards.

I use an immersion chiller, so I did something a little different in my last batch. I had around 3oz of flameout hops. I added half at flameout and whirlpooled for 10 minutes at like 200f or so. Then I dropped in my chiller, turned that on and stirred while slowly adding hops for the next 5-10 minutes. My hope is to catch a wider range of hop volatile oils. I have the process a tad more detailed in my blog (link in signature). I'll let you know in a few weeks how it worked.





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jnacey said:

When I do a whirlpool, it's a touch more manual (think big spoon). My advice would be to chill to around 170f and then keep recirculating the wort but not thru your chiller. This should create a whirlpool in the kettle of the input and output are in the right spots. Then toss your hops in for 10-20 minutes with your kettle lid on and then rapidly chill afterwards.

I use an immersion chiller, so I did something a little different in my last batch. I had around 3oz of flameout hops. I added half at flameout and whirlpooled for 10 minutes at like 200f or so. Then I dropped in my chiller, turned that on and stirred while slowly adding hops for the next 5-10 minutes. My hope is to catch a wider range of hop volatile oils. I have the process a tad more detailed in my blog (link in signature). I'll let you know in a few weeks how it worked.





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Thanks for the advice, I'm fully expecting to be learning my system throughout the spring and summer.

Just to touch on this, I was going to route the wort through the therminator mainly because I just purchased a nice temp probe on the output side. I figured if I started the whirlpool at flameout after a few moments I would have whatever sediment more toward the center and not being pulled out to the pump. Then I'd connect the chiller so I could monitor the temp, adding whirlpool hops at the 180º mark.

Truth is I don't really know how any of this is going to turn out, but that's what was in my head. What I do know is it's going to be fun, and that's really all that matters to start with. Getting a great beer in the first few batches would be a nice little added bonus!

Thanks again for your input, gonna head over to your blog now.

So in reading this correctly, seems the flavor and possibly to a lesser extent, aroma hop additions should be augmented by adding the hops in a whirlpool of 170*? I am envisioning being at flameout, crank up the pump, get the whirlpool rolling, then route the wort through the therminator (without running the cooling water). Once the temp reads 180* shut down the pump and add the hops. Sit for 20 mins then cool the wort to pitching temp and go to fermentor.

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What I do is at flameout recirculate through my plate chiller until I hit 170F, then just turn off the water running through the chiller and keep recirculating. I usually recirculate for 20 -30 min, the temp will drift from 170F down to 160F.

Cheers.

Brewcycle69 said:

What I do is at flameout recirculate through my plate chiller until I hit 170F, then just turn off the water running through the chiller and keep recirculating. I usually recirculate for 20 -30 min, the temp will drift from 170F down to 160F.

Cheers.

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What I have found to yield the best flavor and aroma is to crash as quickly as possible at the end of the boil after adding the last addition.

As for how steeping time effects flavor and aroma I have a recent example of that. A few months ago I made another batch of Boston Lager clone. This is one of my favorite beers and I like to have it on tap at all times. The brew day went great, but when I went to chill via whirlpool IC I got nothing when I turned on the faucet. The hose had frozen solid. 15 minutes of messing with the hose and 15 minutes of rigging up another cooling solution later I got the beer chilling. Where it normally takes me <5 minutes to get below 120 it had taken me ~30. There is very little hop flavor or aroma in that batch as a result. If I didn't know better I would say it wasn't the BL clone recipe at all, it tastes that different.

A point to remember is that if you are trying to clone a commercial brew then a whirlpool/hopstand step is going to be critical to get the same character in your finished beer. You need to get your process as close to theirs as possible to have success, and a commercial brewery just can't chill their batch as fast as we homebrewers can. They may have a 30 minute whirlpool that reduces hop flavor/aroma and adds bitterness. Large doses of dry hops are often used to offset this loss of volatile hop compounds.

What's you BL clone recipe? I'd love to try one..

Good article here:

http://byo.com/component/k2/item/2808-hop-stands

grathan said:

What's you BL clone recipe? I'd love to try one..

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I pulled the recipe from the BeerSmith database. This is very close to the real thing:

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/2762/samuel-adams-boston-lager-clone

Last time I brewed it I added .75 oz hallertauer for the 5 minute addition and threw in 1 ounce at flameout. This gave me more flavor and aroma without having to dry hop, which I am (sadly) too lazy to do most of the time It had a bit more hop flavor than the real deal but I really like it.

grathan said:

Beersmith is retarded. That is how I look at it and it makes it easier to use it.

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I may have found signature material...

if you read the article linked above, you can see that Brad Smith recommends an estimate of about 10% ibu utilization from your hopstand addition.
BUT if you head on over to beersmith 2, click on preferences, then bitterness, you'll see the settings are actually set to 50% for hopstand/whirlpool. under the description for that it says
"steep/whirlpool factor is a percent of equivalent boiled hops. Should be set to 50% for a steep temperature of 90C/194F."
Seems to me by that description that it is accounting for extra isomerization by all hops added during the boil. hence why the IBUs stated for your whirlpool additions will be higher than your late boil additions. it is simply putting the extra IBUs in that line, maybe it made the programming easier.
i will say, if you ever have any questions about beersmith, one of the best ways to get an answer is simply to email Brad Smith. I did once and got a quicker than expected answer.