Precision vs lost perspectives.

I appologize in advance but I've noticed a trend within some of the threads that I can't help but rant about. With the exception of a few brewers here who have monster systems (in comparison to the typical 5-10 gallon sizes) the applications of what works and what doesn't work on a professional sized brewery needs to be taken with a grain of salt at a homebrewery scale. Don't get me wrong. The pros have an incredible amount of knowledge to share that is very valuable. The problem I find is the amount of bombing someone's ideas or builds because it doesn't work on a larger scale. Too often I see comments that there will be problems with efficiency, temperature gradients, or utilizations based on what was learned from a pro using a 20+ barrel system. Remember your basic physics people! I'm lucky that I live in an area where the pros and us Joes get to interact closely on different projects and share tricks but it's always with a caveat of "base it to your system". Imagine the size of a hop spider that would be needed at Widmer! It's all about perspective people. I'll get off of my soapbox now.

It's one of my beefs as well.

Agreed. Secondaries are a great example. The idea was born out of the practice of professional brewers dumping their yeast plug from the conical. Homebrewers don't have 100bbl conicals, we have five to ten gallon buckets and carboys. Different ball game.

On the flip side, one thing I've noticed is: Most professional brewers whirlpool their wort hot. Either in the kettle or in a dedicated whirlpool. Most processional brewers will also add their aroma hops during the whirlpool, and they can/will steep for 30 minutes or so. Would it be worth it for homebrewers to allow our flamout hops to steep for 5-30 minutes before we begin to chill?

scottland said:

Agreed. Secondaries are a great example. The idea was born out of the practice of professional brewers dumping their yeast plug from the conical. Homebrewers don't have 100bbl conicals, we have five to ten gallon buckets and carboys. Different ball game.

On the flip side, one thing I've noticed is: Most professional brewers whirlpool their wort hot. Either in the kettle or in a dedicated whirlpool. Most processional brewers will also add their aroma hops during the whirlpool, and they can/will steep for 30 minutes or so. Would it be worth it for homebrewers to allow our flamout hops to steep for 5-30 minutes before we begin to chill?

Click to expand...

I do exactly this, it works well for me and my equipment.

Sounds like a good trick. I whirlpool myself so I'll have to give this a try. Now bring on the naysayers that heard from a (insert source here) that this won't work because you're above the equator and it's not a full moon blah blah blah....

oregonparamedic said:

Sounds like a good trick. I whirlpool myself so I'll have to give this a try. Now bring on the naysayers that heard from a (insert source here) that this won't work because you're above the equator and it's not a full moon blah blah blah....

Click to expand...

Shyt, its not a full moon????

There goes my brewday....

azscoob said:

I do exactly this, it works well for me and my equipment.

Click to expand...

I too have started increasing the hops I add during the whirlpool. A lot more flavor from the hops.

scottland said:

Most processional brewers will also add their aroma hops during the whirlpool, and they can/will steep for 30 minutes or so. Would it be worth it for homebrewers to allow our flamout hops to steep for 5-30 minutes before we begin to chill?

Click to expand...

I've always wondered the same thing and never really got a definitive answer. Some pro's I've talked to said that shorter whirlpool is better while others leave the aroma hops in there for 45min to 1 hour. I got a homebrewer friend that is under the impression that leaving your hops to steep in 200F wort for 3 hours is the best way to get 'killer' hop aroma...

I don't pay a lot of attention to the naysayers, never really have. I am also one of those guys that does "Everything Wrong", but it works for me, everyone really likes my beer and I have only had 1 failure out of about 50 batches.
I don't bother with 3 decimal places on everything but it always works. One of the guys that taught me early on said "Whats the worst thing that will happen? You make beer!

Another thought on the 'every system is different' thing. Ferment temps: Stone ferments an english yeast at around 72* for their beers. They can get away with it due to the size of their fermenters. That would be an ester bomb for me. I'd ferment around 66* to get similar results.

I got a homebrewer friend that is under the impression that leaving your hops to steep in 200F wort for 3 hours is the best way to get 'killer' hop aroma...

Click to expand...

What's the hop aroma like on his beers?

scottland said:

What's the hop aroma like on his beers?

Click to expand...

Not good.

scottland said:

On the flip side, one thing I've noticed is: Most professional brewers whirlpool their wort hot. Either in the kettle or in a dedicated whirlpool. Most processional brewers will also add their aroma hops during the whirlpool, and they can/will steep for 30 minutes or so. Would it be worth it for homebrewers to allow our flamout hops to steep for 5-30 minutes before we begin to chill?

Click to expand...

I always do a hot steep (30 minutes, keep meaning to do some experiments on time and temperature though) for hoppy beers. People seem to like them. They have won lots of medals including an NHC second round Gold medal.

For about the last year I've stopped adding hops between 60 minutes and flameout (for hoppy beers) and believe that gives the most possible aroma and flavor for a given amount of hops. The NHC gold was made that way, it was a fruit beer with IIPA as the base style.

This is a good example of why we should listen to pro brewers, even if we should think critically about what we can and cannot apply.

remilard said:

I always do a hot steep (30 minutes, keep meaning to do some experiments on time and temperature though) for hoppy beers. People seem to like them. They have won lots of medals including an NHC second round Gold medal.

For about the last year I've stopped adding hops between 60 minutes and flameout (for hoppy beers) and believe that gives the most possible aroma and flavor for a given amount of hops. The NHC gold was made that way, it was a fruit beer with IIPA as the base style.

This is a good example of why we should listen to pro brewers, even if we should think critically about what we can and cannot apply.

Click to expand...

You definitely have your system nailed-down for amazing results.

For me, I have only done whirlpool hop additions using my system on a single batch. It turned out well but, to me, the hop profile was very similar to the same beer done with flame-out additions. I'm definitely not disagreeing with your results - you have undoubtedly had many more award-winning batches than me. But, it seems like there are a lot of variables involved here. The most obvious is the temperature at which you are whirlpooling. The temperature would vastly affect your results if it is close to boiling because isomerization will still occur, albeit at a reduced rate. And then it enters into the best-educated-guess formula calculations for utilization over time to try to account for contributed bitterness (this is not to downplay the flavor and aroma contributions). So, at high temperatures, whirlpooling seems, to some extent, to simply be an extension of boil time.

Then again, at lower temperatures, you probably get some better results in terms of flavor and aroma. This may, in fact, be your protocol. I'm just pointing out that a lot of posts here seem to say that x or y is the best way to do something. And this may be the case, but ALL variables need to be taken into account and not doing so leads to a lot of what the OP has brought up. As alluded to by the OP, every system is very different and there are almost always multiple variables at play.

I guess that's part of the fun...

The only problem I have with generic rant threads like this is that they NEVER include links to examples of what the beef is about. I can generally get behind the ideal you're trying to rally behind, but I'm less convinced that this is a real problem around here.

Not sure which posts the OP is referring to. But, for me, its the majority of posts on here (certainly not specific to professional status) that have people posting or replying what they insist to be the ultimate way to do something. I always take it with a grain of salt because there is so much about their system I don't know and opinions are what this site is all about. But I do find it difficult when posts emphatically insist that there is no better way to do something without taking into account differences in set-ups and techniques. I guess this is what I assumed to be the OP's point.

I agree with you Bobby, but I think the prevailing opinion is that there's enough anecdotal evidence to support the OP's rant. I can see where citing specific comments would add value, though.

Well I don't have a way of posting links as I'm on my phone but my tipping point was a comment made to a reply of mine regarding whirlpooling. Basically that my setup (that works fine) just won't work. You can search my profile to find it. At first I thought they were being sarcastic until I read some of their threads and realized they were serious. Did you know that counterclockwise whirlpools don't exist north of the equator? Silly. I've seen other posts that were off base as well on other topics. Most recently about the diy jacketed fermentor and comparing its 15 gallon capacity to a 20 barrel system. Just for fun do a search on which burners are the best or whether or not to boil dme/lme for the extract brewers. My point is that there are some who post without thinking through their info and forgetting that there are systems that are of different shapes and sizes. That basic physics stuff.