Please Explain Hop Additions and Timing?

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ultravista

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Can someone explain hop additions and timing?

Besides the obvious difference in bittering and aroma. What is the purpose of timing hops and 60, 30, 15, 10, ect?

Many recipes on this board have the same hop at 60, 30, and 15, with an additional aroma hop at flame-out or close to it.

If a recipe calls for 3 oz. of hops, the same hop, why break it up and time differently? I realize boil time changes the IBU extracted but I can't wrap my head around it?
 
No problem,

Your 60 minute hop...and really any hop added up until the last 15 would be bittering hops. For flavor and aroma you make additions during the last 15 up to flame out and then of course dry hopping (hopping in secondary or the keg).

For example, I use Northern Brewer pretty much exclusivley as my bittering hop. The reason being its a high alpha acid hop so a little goes a long way when it comes to bittering. The variety really lies in the flavor and aroma hops. For example if your looking for something grapfruity you go for something like citra or simcoe...if your looking for somehting kinda earthy go with Fuggles...and so on and so forth.

You will find a lot of hop heads who add layer upon layer upon layer of hops because they really dig it.

Most of my recipes however usually have maybe 2 or 3 additions. I'm more of a fan of the English, Belgian and German styles and they are traditionally not as hop intensive as say some of there modern american contemporaries.

Cheers
 
Three things hops give you... Flavor, aroma and bitterness. The aroma is very volatile, so it boils away very quickly. Flavor is next to disappear. Lastly is bitterness. You want a long boil to extract bitterness from hops.

So...

The first additions are for bitterness, so they have a long boil.

Then hops added closer to the end will be added late enough that there's time to extract flavor compounds, but the aroma will boil away.

Lastly, aroma hops are added very late in the boil, sometimes at flameout so that the aroma compounds aren't boiled away.
 
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