FWH Amarillo

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SailorTodd

SailorTodd

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Good idea or not?

I want to brew an Amarillo IPA, and thought about trying FWH with the Amarillo. the recipe would look something like this:

10# 2-row
2# Munich 10L
.5# Crystal 20L

2oz Amarillo (8.5aa) FWH
1oz Amarillo @15min
1oz Amarillo @2
1oz Amarillo DH at 5 days.

WLP001 California Ale yeast

My concern with FWH is that Amarillo is a moderately high AA hop, and the guidance I've read in the past has been to only practice FWH with low AA hops. It seems to me that Amarillo is slightly above the threshold on this, but I'm not sure. Thoughts?

Let me know what you think, and what adjustments you might make to my recipe.
 
I wouldn't worry about the alpha per say. However amarillo has unusually high mercyne (spelling), which when boiled a lot can have a petrolium taste. And since amarillo is so scarce this year I would use it where it really counts, near the end of the boil for flavor and aroma additions. There are plenty of economical and abundant varieties that you can use. Summit would be great and I think you would totally be fine fwhing with it.
 
I FWH Amarillo all the time, I wouldn't bitter with it, but the FWH definitely comes through without petroleum tastes.
 
I'm assuming when you fwh you are removing those hops before the boil gets going. Looking at his recipe it looks like he's leaving them in and using the fwh for bittering as well.
 
Sucram2202 said:
I wouldn't worry about the alpha per say. However amarillo has unusually high mercyne (spelling), which when boiled a lot can have a petrolium taste. And since amarillo is so scarce this year I would use it where it really counts, near the end of the boil for flavor and aroma additions. There are plenty of economical and abundant varieties that you can use. Summit would be great and I think you would totally be fine fwhing with it.
Click to expand...

I agree with this statement for the most part, but I love me some summit so I like to save those for late additions too, however FWH with summit does work well. I bitter most of my brews with nugget.
 
I don't remove my FWH, I essentially just skip bittering additions in most beers. With the limited availability of Amarillo, I would avoid bittering with it, as you could use any high alpha with the type of bittering you are after in lieu of it.
 
Hmm, I haven't had any experience with Summit yet. The characteristics look interesting. With such high AA, I see that turning into a sharply bitter beer if I FWH with enough Summit for it to count.

I'd already been iffy about first wort hopping the Amarillo, considering other recipes that could still incorporate it. I may just bitter with a more traditional bittering hop (Magnum or Chinook) and saving Amarillo for flavoring and aroma.

Alternatively, I may be tabling the Amarillo idea and going with an all Chinook brew for now. I like what I'm reading about it...

Thanks for all of the insight.
 
FWH is adding flavour. I've gotten appreciable flavours from a half ounce of Amarillo as my FWH, of course it really all comes down to what you're trying to brew. The bitterness you perceive from FWH is different from the traditional 60 min bittering charge.
 
SailorTodd said:
Hmm, I haven't had any experience with Summit yet. The characteristics look interesting. With such high AA, I see that turning into a sharply bitter beer if I FWH with enough Summit for it to count.

I'd already been iffy about first wort hopping the Amarillo, considering other recipes that could still incorporate it. I may just bitter with a more traditional bittering hop (Magnum or Chinook) and saving Amarillo for flavoring and aroma.

Alternatively, I may be tabling the Amarillo idea and going with an all Chinook brew for now. I like what I'm reading about it...

Thanks for all of the insight.
Click to expand...

I have an all amarillo and an all chinook sitting in primaries right now, both of which were fwh. I'll let ya know how they turn out in a month or so
 
I was going to FWH an IPA using Warrior...I've noticed that when adding this option on an online homebrew calculator, the IBU's go down...That is assuming you remove them before the boil, correct? I imagine that if you were to leave them in the kettle throughout the whole boil, you should extract more bitterness from the hops...I'm a bit confused here. What is the proper FWH procedure?
 
toast said:
I was going to FWH an IPA using Warrior...I've noticed that when adding this option on an online homebrew calculator, the IBU's go down...That is assuming you remove them before the boil, correct? I imagine that if you were to leave them in the kettle throughout the whole boil, you should extract more bitterness from the hops...I'm a bit confused here. What is the proper FWH procedure?
Click to expand...

You get more IBUs from First Wort Hopping than a standard 60 or 90 minute addition, not less. However the bitterness is less harsh making the beer seem slightly less bitter than it is, YMMV.

Normal procedure for FWH is to add the hops to your kettle before or during lautering, and leaving them in there for the entire boil.

The following is from the HBT wiki: First wort hopping is the practice of adding hops to the first runnings in the brew kettle. Unlike hops added during the boil, hops added to the warm wort appear not to lose their aroma and flavor characteristics when boiled, possibly due to chemical reactions which occur in the warm wort. The result is a beer which many tasters feel has superior hop flavor and aroma and a more pleasant bitterness than traditionally hopped beers
 
FWIW, I've taken to splitting the bittering IBUs between FWH with a .5-1oz of dual-purpose or aroma variety and then using a high-alpha variety @ 60to get where I need to be. Best of both worlds.
 
BigRob said:
FWH is adding flavour. I've gotten appreciable flavours from a half ounce of Amarillo as my FWH, of course it really all comes down to what you're trying to brew. The bitterness you perceive from FWH is different from the traditional 60 min bittering charge.
Click to expand...

That's good to know that you can get enough flavor from a half ounce.

I have only tried first wort hopping once, with an all-cascade, 2-row smash. It turned out great. I added an ounce as I was lautering and then another ounce each at 15 and 2. It turned out more bitter than I had expected (don't really know what I should have expected...) but as many said, not in a harsh way, just more intense.

I've wondered about two things Palmer mentioned in How to Brew, namely that you should use at least a third of the hops you would normally finish with, and that the hops should be low AA since they are in the boil for so long. So in my case with the Cascade FWH, I used 1 ounce FWH, and another each at 15 and 2 minutes left in the boil. In a case where I chose not to FWH, but wanted the same flavor, I'd use some (any) hop to bitter with, then add 1.5 ounce each at 15 and 2 minutes left (or some combination equaling 3 ounces). I get that it should be a low AA so you don't end up with an overly bitter beer, but does anyone know why Palmer recommends minimally a third of the hop addition be FWH?
 
SailorTodd said:
That's good to know that you can get enough flavor from a half ounce.

I have only tried first wort hopping once, with an all-cascade, 2-row smash. It turned out great. I added an ounce as I was lautering and then another ounce each at 15 and 2. It turned out more bitter than I had expected (don't really know what I should have expected...) but as many said, not in a harsh way, just more intense.

I've wondered about two things Palmer mentioned in How to Brew, namely that you should use at least a third of the hops you would normally finish with, and that the hops should be low AA since they are in the boil for so long. So in my case with the Cascade FWH, I used 1 ounce FWH, and another each at 15 and 2 minutes left in the boil. In a case where I chose not to FWH, but wanted the same flavor, I'd use some (any) hop to bitter with, then add 1.5 ounce each at 15 and 2 minutes left (or some combination equaling 3 ounces). I get that it should be a low AA so you don't end up with an overly bitter beer, but does anyone know why Palmer recommends minimally a third of the hop addition be FWH?
Click to expand...

I FWH with high AA hops (including: Nugget, Summit, Chinook, Warrior, Nelson Sauvin, Columbus) all the time. I have not had any problem with any of them being too bitter, however when I do FWH I like most of the bitterness to come late from the 20 minute mark on down, and usually only have .25-.50 oz for the FWH addition. IMHO if you are wanting hop flavor in your beer and are using 1+ oz of hops at the beginning of the boil, your missing out on a chance to get more hop flavor by increasing the late additions.

Also the high Alpha Acids aren't really the issue, it's more about using hops with a high co-humulone %, like Chinook, in large quantities in the beginning of the boil.
 
I'm drinking an Amarillo Vienna SMaSH right now that had a fwh addition of .75oz. I'm not getting any petroleum tastes or anything I would say is off.
 
Nothing wrong with FWH and Amarillo. I do it a lot. I like Amarillo for bittering as it is very low in cohumulone, especially compared to other high alpha hops.
 
pm5k00 said:
Also the high Alpha Acids aren't really the issue, it's more about using hops with a high co-humulone %, like Chinook, in large quantities in the beginning of the boil.
Click to expand...

Chinook is a low Cohumulone hop.

Also, if your looking for low Cohumulone hops, check out Glacier. Most low CoH hops are 20-30% but Glacier is 11-13%.
 

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