How to get the best hop aroma from flameout additions?

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bierhaus15

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I know this has been discussed before, but I am curious to see how other people try to achieve the best hop aroma from their flameout (0 min) additions. I was always under the impression that you get the best hop aroma by rapidly chilling your wort to pitching temps right after adding your flameout additions. I have been doing this for years and achieved good results - and I know this method is pretty much ubiquitous.

However, I have recently encountered a few big time homebrewers and professional brewers who have 'informed' me how the best hop aroma comes from letting the hops steep in the non-boiling, hot wort for a long time.

For instance, one guy adds his flameout hops, turns off the heat and lets the hops steep covered for an hour before starting to chill. He claims this gives the best aroma and routinely does this with his IPA's and IIPA's - using 3-4oz flameout additions. The other guy (professional brewer) starts his whirlpool after cutting the heat, adds his hop additions and continues to whirlpool for about 40 min, before starting to cool the wort. He also says this gives more hop aroma than adding the hops during the whirlpool and cooling quickly.

It it just me or does their process seem like a waste of hops? I forget the brew science they used as proof, but to me it seems like you would loose more hop aromatics with a long hot steep than cooling quickly? Isn't what they are doing just a big flavor addition? What is your opinion on this???
 
That's how i do it, flame out, added last hops, whirlpool 40mins, lift the bag up out for draining and then cool, sometimes it sits over night(with hop bag out of wort)
then pitch
 
I took a cue from the BYO mag article about Stone Brewing. Now I flameout, toss in all of my finishing hops and let it sit for at least 45 mins before chilling. I leave the hops in until I'm ready to drain my kettle. Like the article says, You get a ton of hop flavor and aroma as well as some added bitterness using this method.. So I only do two hop additions anymore- One at the start of boil and one after boil. I never hassle with the dry hopping either but I still get super hop flavor/aroma.
 
A hop back device would give amazing hop oil results. But I like he BYO 45 min rest before chilling idea.
 
I took a cue from the BYO mag article about Stone Brewing. Now I flameout, toss in all of my finishing hops and let it sit for at least 45 mins before chilling.

Do you know what issue that is from? I'd be interested in reading what they have to say. I was always under the assumption that the longer you left the hops in the hot wort before chilling, the less aromatics you get. It seems like it is practiced more than I thought.

It would be interesting to see the science behind this, or find out which method actually gives more hop aroma.
 
I like to wait until I have cooled below 120 and then add at least 2 oz of low alpha acid hops. This works well if you are using hops with volatile esters such as Saaz or the other noble hops.
 
Just did a batch today and experimented with this concept. I do No Chills exclusively and have never been totally pleased with how hops added into the cube have performed. I added 2 oz of hops (1oz each of Challenger & EKG) in my 5gal batch as I cut the flame off. I let them steep for 5 minutes before draining the wort away from the hop bag and into my No Chill cube. We'll see what kind of hop flavor/aroma I get from this technique.
 
I added 2 oz of hops (1oz each of Challenger & EKG) in my 5gal batch as I cut the flame off. I let them steep for 5 minutes before draining the wort away from the hop bag and into my No Chill cube. We'll see what kind of hop flavor/aroma I get from this technique.

Let us know how it turns out!

I have been doing some experimenting of my own with two of my recent batches. Both are similar beers with almost the exact same hop schedule. One of them I added flameout hops, let steep for 40 min then chilled. The other I added the hops and chilled almost immediately, achieving pitching temp in 10 min. I would still love to see some real science on the methods.
 
I took a cue from the BYO mag article about Stone Brewing. Now I flameout, toss in all of my finishing hops and let it sit for at least 45 mins before chilling. I leave the hops in until I'm ready to drain my kettle. Like the article says, You get a ton of hop flavor and aroma as well as some added bitterness using this method.. So I only do two hop additions anymore- One at the start of boil and one after boil. I never hassle with the dry hopping either but I still get super hop flavor/aroma.

I've been toying with this, and so far, I'm pleased with the results.
 
It would make sense that a longer steep time would extract more hoppy aroma goodness as opposed to instantly starting the chill. I think the loss of hop aroma is due to boil-off mostly, as the desired compounds are volatile and they will evaparate more quickly if the wort is still boiling.

I've often wondered if that 5-10 minutes after flame-out was enough to extract the aroma hop addition. Personally, I'm not really into hoppy beers, so I haven't worried about it too much. Next time, I plan to let the aroma hops steep for 30 minutes at least before starting the chiller.

Those no-chill cubes sound perfect for doing IPA's and other hoppy beers. You'll get the most out of the aroma hops simply because the system is sealed and there is nowhere for the volatiles to escape. As the temp drops, the potential for generating bitterness would be lessened.

that's my 2c on the matter...
 
If you are allowing a 40-60 minute cool down, how does this affect your cold break?
 
Here's my take on all of the hop additions. Hop qualities (bittering, flavoring, and aroma) come from the isomerization of the oil molecules that are extracted from the hops. Isomerization is the reconfiguration of the molecular structure of these compounds that happens as a result of being exposed to the boiling wort. So, you have the same hoppy molecules that retain their chemical elements but the longer they stay in the hot liquid the more that they change shape - and each shape gives it a different chemical contribution.

So, if a cascade hop is thrown into the boil at 60 minutes, it's molecular structure will be bent into a chain that has bittering properties after boiling for somewhere around 60 minutes. And a cascade hop thrown in at flameout barely changes it's structure and therefore it's molecular structure will be one that gives more of it's natural aromatic properties (this is just like dry hopping because when you dry hop the beer is not hot enough to change the chemical properties and all you get is the wonderful hoppy aroma. Dry hopping is just an extension of flameout hop additions that you can do later for an extended amount of time).

Now in regard to the question of how long the aroma hops need to be exposed, I think it's really just a matter of getting all of their oils extracted from the hops. And if you do get all of the oils (in 5,10 minutes, or whatever it takes) you can chill immediately. The only thing that matters is if you leave your wort in a no-chill cube and the temp remains close to boiling for a long time. Then some of your aroma hops isomerize and turn into bittering hops.

But all in all, I believe that the oils come out fairly quickly from the hops and this is why people can put them in the kettle and then take them out right away. I don't think you get a whole lot more oil extraction from 45 minutes than you really would after only 5 minutes. Just my $.78 ;)
 
When you let the hops "steep" in the wort atflame out, does everybody put the lid on? or leave it off?
 
Screw brew science, a lot of "rules" seem to change every few years anyway. Brew the same recipe twice, but chill one immediately and let the other rest for a while and tell us what the REAL authorities (tastebuds) have to say about it. I'm gunna do it in a few weeks when I start running low on hoppy beer, anyone else with me?
 
So what were the results - I really think this an important bit of homebrewing info?
 
If you are allowing a 40-60 minute cool down, how does this affect your cold break?

You'd be amazed how long 10 gallons of hot wort stays above 180F after you turn the heat off, but dont turn the chiller on.

I whirlpool for 20-30 mins hot and dont lose more than a couple degrees. When the chiller kicks on, it drops rapidly and I still get good cold break.
 
sorry, I was more interested in the effect of non-boiling high temp lengthy steeping on hop aroma.
 
Here's my take on all of the hop additions. Hop qualities (bittering, flavoring, and aroma) come from the isomerization of the oil molecules that are extracted from the hops. Isomerization is the reconfiguration of the molecular structure of these compounds that happens as a result of being exposed to the boiling wort. So, you have the same hoppy molecules that retain their chemical elements but the longer they stay in the hot liquid the more that they change shape - and each shape gives it a different chemical contribution.

So, if a cascade hop is thrown into the boil at 60 minutes, it's molecular structure will be bent into a chain that has bittering properties after boiling for somewhere around 60 minutes. And a cascade hop thrown in at flameout barely changes it's structure and therefore it's molecular structure will be one that gives more of it's natural aromatic properties (this is just like dry hopping because when you dry hop the beer is not hot enough to change the chemical properties and all you get is the wonderful hoppy aroma. Dry hopping is just an extension of flameout hop additions that you can do later for an extended amount of time).

Now in regard to the question of how long the aroma hops need to be exposed, I think it's really just a matter of getting all of their oils extracted from the hops. And if you do get all of the oils (in 5,10 minutes, or whatever it takes) you can chill immediately. The only thing that matters is if you leave your wort in a no-chill cube and the temp remains close to boiling for a long time. Then some of your aroma hops isomerize and turn into bittering hops.

But all in all, I believe that the oils come out fairly quickly from the hops and this is why people can put them in the kettle and then take them out right away. I don't think you get a whole lot more oil extraction from 45 minutes than you really would after only 5 minutes. Just my $.78 ;)

This doesn't make sense from my perspective. True, bittering requires the higher temps for isomerization, and this can happen at 90 and 110C (!). But the aromatic qualities of hops are in many ways disconnected from the bittering. Once you are boiling, in either Death Valley or Denver, you're pulling a lot of the aromatics out of the wort.

Say your inline chilling takes 10min. A 0min addition is going to add (keep?) WAY more than half a 10min addition, even though the 0min addition lasted half (10min vs 20min) the time. The 10min addition had double the wort contact time, but half that time was driving a distillation off to the atmosphere, whereas the 0min addition spent no time doing this. Evaporative loss of aromatics ought to be WAY slower than that by active boiling.
 
Screw brew science, a lot of "rules" seem to change every few years anyway. Brew the same recipe twice, but chill one immediately and let the other rest for a while and tell us what the REAL authorities (tastebuds) have to say about it. I'm gunna do it in a few weeks when I start running low on hoppy beer, anyone else with me?

Yeah, but I'm interested if anyone has done the experiment.
 
i forgot all about this thread! I just happen to be running low on hoppy beer too...

i'm going on vacation for 3 weeks... and when i get back i'm ordering a bunch of the 2011 hop harvest and gunna do it up. i plan on brewing a 10 gallon batch of IPA, splitting it into 2 pots and going to town. i recently met a professional microbrewer who lets the hops "rest" in the hot wort and honestly i prefer my hoppy beers... but i don't want to make the judgement until i try both methods off the same system.

I just thought of a problem... won't dry hopping the piss out of these beers make the results too hard to differentiate? I refuse to not dry-hop 10 gallons of IPA. I think i'll do some other beer style, I make a simple "house ale" that my wife and friends massacre every time. It's lighter, much less intense and will probably be better at exposing the victor.

est. og. 1.048
ibu 18.7

10# pilsner
8# vienna
1# carafoam
1/2# honey malt

split into 2 pots once the wort has been evenly mixed, then the hop additions in each pot are as follows:

.42oz magnum 12.5% @ 60 min
.75oz saphir, spalter, sterling.... I still have to decide what next year's bulk noble purchase is going to be. @ 0 min

Ferment w/ either s-05 or wyeast scottish ale, I'll decide that one later on too.

It'll be ready just in time for winter sipping... lol.
 
I think it is a bit of six to one, half dozen to another. It probably has the most to do with contact time and temperature. As long as it is not too hot, you will get better extraction of the hop aroma compounds with the higher temp, and the longer time will allow for more complete extraction. You will also get some flavor and bitterness with the extra time, which should be adjusted for in any earlier hop additions. You will not get the flavor and bitterness with the quick chill. Whatever works best for your system.

I think the best aroma comes from dry hopping. It is cooler, so it is slower, but the contact time is much longer. I've taken to upping my flavor additions, moving them away from later additions and rely more (but not exclusively) on dry hopping for aroma. One drawback though is I think the aroma from dry hopping might not last as long as your beer ages - so drink it fresh!
 
FWIW - Sierra Nevada, for SNPA, dumps their hops in after flameout, and lets it steep for a while before cooling. Apparantly, they used to use a hopback, but went to this method because it was simply easier to brew this way, and the results were similar. I learned this in the excellent book, "Using Hops", by Mark Garetz - which I've owned since I started brewing in the mid-nineties.
 
Soooo.... did the brew yesterday.

10# pilsner
8# gambrinus "esb" malt (i couldn't get my hands on any vienna)
1# carafoam
.5# honey malt
mash @ 154
90 minute boil

.8oz magnum @12.5%

When it was chilling time i split the beer into 2 pots and added .7oz saphir to each, immediately chilling the first 5 gallons and letting the other 5 sit there while the first batch chilled. Each bucket received a re-hydrated pack of S-05 and they're now fermenting away happily.
 
Personally I find that the flameout and late additions (in my system) have limited returns. I recently made an ale with an entire pound of cascade at 3 minutes left in the boil (10 gallon batch) and I found the aroma to be underwhelming considering that the entire 10 gallons of wort was saturated with whole leaf hops and I chilled it to 60 degrees in 20 minutes after FO. I use a heavy hand on the 30-10 minute additions for my hop flavor and use a big dose of dry for my aroma.
 
FWIW here's what I have been doing. At flameout, turn on the chiller and within about 3-4 minutes I'm down to 180. I stop chilling, add in my 'flameout' hops and let steep for 10 minutes, and then resume chilling, which takes another 15-18 minutes.
I have not done any sort of side-by-side comparison with other methods, but I can say that my beers (all IPAs) have lots of hop flavor and aroma, and people love them.
For 10 gallon batches, I'm using* about 1.5 oz of hops at 15, 10, 5, and 0 (as described above) minutes, and dry hopping in the keg with an ounce of so of hops. Generally I'm using some combo (not all at the same time) of Centennial, Amarillo, Cascade, Willamette, and small amounts of Citra. I also FWH, and I typically bitter with Chinook or Columbus.
* With the apparent shortage / higher cost of hops this year, I'm going to back these amounts down somewhat.
 
UPDATE!

I bottled these over the last couple of days. I've been labeling and referring to these beers in my notes as insta-chill and delay-o-chill, and judging by the smells and tastes of the young, flat and room temperature beer, the delay-o-chill certainly has a more potent hop character. I don't know that the 2 beers have the same kind of hop character though; it seemed like the insta-chill's hops tasted "brighter" but much weaker while the delay-o-chill had a deeper kind of hoppy quality. Too soon to tell really, I didn't taste them side by side, but the difference was enough to declare the delay-o-chill hoppier. You can really tell the difference in the aroma too.

Now with that said, these beers are real young and green who knows what they'll taste like when they're all carbed up and conditioned. We'll see!
 
+1. I just got my whirlpool recirculation working yesterday, (after a THIRD attempt...first two didn't even spin the wort!), and I gave about a 5 min steep before turning on the chill water... Be interested to see how long I should potentially go.

(3 oz horizion at 20 min, 4 oz cluster at 5 min, 5 oz cascade at 0 min, whirlpool for 5 min, then chill was my method on a 10 gal, 1.055 pale ale. If I remember, I'll report back in a month on how it did!)
 
I made a hop tea with my bittering hops on one batch a few months ago. I read that the tea pulls the aroma and flavor out but leaves the bittering portion behind. After the tea steeps for a while, using a french press, press the hops down, keep the tea for a flameout or pre-pitching addition and put the hops in the boil as normal (60 min usually). The beer turned out well, but I would need to perform a control experiment before I could provide any form of empirical conclusions.
 
FWIW here's what I have been doing. At flameout, turn on the chiller and within about 3-4 minutes I'm down to 180. I stop chilling, add in my 'flameout' hops and let steep for 10 minutes, and then resume chilling, which takes another 15-18 minutes.
I have not done any sort of side-by-side comparison with other methods, but I can say that my beers (all IPAs) have lots of hop flavor and aroma, and people love them.

What's the reasoning behind cooling to 180° before adding the hops?
 
Spartan1979 said:
What's the reasoning behind cooling to 180° before adding the hops?

I'm not 100% sure and he may have another reason, but i believe adding the hops below 180F will stop isomerization and not extract additional bitterness.

When adding hops at flame out, and letting steep for 30 mins before cooling can almost be considered close to a regular 30 min hop addition adding flavor but also adding significant bitterness.

I assume he chills to stop from adding bitterness, but to continue to add aroma and flavoring from the hops.
 
Cooling to 180 (which is what I do, too) ensures that there is minimal steam coming off of the wort, which will pull the hop aroma away with it.

I typically add a few ounces at 180, mix them up and let steep for about 5-10minutes (as long as it takes to hook up my chiller and get things ready), then wirlpool and chill. I always get huge hop flavor and aroma.
 
Do u cover ur pot after flame out? I do as soon as I kill the flame. This keeps all that aroma in very well.
 
I tend to do a bittering addition and then do a finishing addition at flameout. I add this addition and begin my whirlpool. I run my CFC back to the kettle and chill slowly. Once I hit around 160 I then move my CFC return from the kettle and then move to the fermenter. Total contact time is nearly 30 minutes. I have found I gain some bittering from these hops, but it gives it more of a smoothness vs. a boil addition at 10. As far as aroma, I don't think I get much of the aroma here. Dry hopping and warming my beer to the low 70's during the dry hop gives me the aroma IMO. I made a hopback and couldn't tell a lot of difference, even though it was used only once. I'm doing an IIPA coming up and I'm stuffing the hopback with my homegrown hops. I calculate my whirlpool addition IBU as a 5 min boil addition. Not sure if this is correct, but dat is how I do it. Works for me. :mug:
 
What's the reasoning behind cooling to 180° before adding the hops?


I'm probably going to get killed here, but... I've been under the impression that it is good practice to get your wort under 180 ASAP after the boil to limit the production of the precursors of DMS (dimethyl sulfide), and other volatiles that are expelled during the boil but are still produced but trapped at temps above 180ºF

Personally, I have done flame out additions with 20min whirlpool before chilling in the past, but I am currently using my DIY hop back. I find that gravity feeding through the hop back then going directly through my CFC has given me the best aroma. It takes about 15-20min to drain the kettle through the hop back, so I'd consider the contact time to be similar.
 
I'm probably going to get killed here, but... I've been under the impression that it is good practice to get your wort under 180 ASAP after the boil to limit the production of the precursors of DMS (dimethyl sulfide), and other volatiles that are expelled during the boil but are still produced but trapped at temps above 180ºF

Personally, I have done flame out additions with 20min whirlpool before chilling in the past, but I am currently using my DIY hop back. I find that gravity feeding through the hop back then going directly through my CFC has given me the best aroma. It takes about 15-20min to drain the kettle through the hop back, so I'd consider the contact time to be similar.

I could be wrong, but I think the DMS "danger zone" is between 140 and 180. 140 is the temp you want to get below ASAP, IIRC.
 
I have started doing my 60 minute addition as a FWH and then putting all of the remaining additions into the cube (no-chill). So far this has been used on an ESB, APA, and a dry stout.....very different sort of bittering (much milder than usual) and a HUGE hop aroma/taste. Obviously this is better for certain styles but i am extremely pleased with the results at this point.
 
IMO , you get zero aroma from flameout hop additions after fermentation is complete. The CO2 will drive out most if not all the aroma. You need to dry hop to get good aroma. That being said, you get a lot of the hop flavor from letting flameout steep for a half hour or so.
 
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