FWH Experiment

I'm going to put 10 oz total of equal parts whole leaf citra and amarillo as my only hop addition and its all going to be FWH. This is for a 10 gallon batch of IPA. My malt bill is aimed at being very light bodied with mostly pilsner and a pound of crystal 10. 90 minute boil.

Probably brew it this weekend or next. Any naysayers or criticisms before I waste this many hops on a batch? Has anybody done an all FWH beer?

I'm hoping it will be all hop flavor, with a rounded out bitterness.

I love fwh'ing... I will follow your results very closely.... Great hop selection!

sounds good, im interested in the results. im assuming your going to leave all the FWH in for the duration of the boil also?

Be careful with the citra. I just made an IPA with them and I used 3 oz of citra and 4 oz of centennial. None of them were FWH, but the citra adds an odd bit of spicyness to the mix. It's a weird black-peppery flavor. It still has loads of citrus/tropical fruit notes but there is a very unique spice there as well. The beer I made is fantastic, but I would be wary of adding more citra to the mix.

Edit: nevermind, I just saw that this was for 10 gallons, this should turn out pretty well.

Great experiment, I will be watching for updates on this.

Do you have the ability to do two 5 gal batches? I think it'd be interesting to compare the all FWH beer to an identical beer with normal hop additions (60, 20, 10, 1)

But that's just my $.02, great idea either way.

I would be interested in the results too...A friend and I did essentially the same brews and he did FWH and I did no FWH. I personally thought the FWH didn't do much. Maybe he didn't use enough? In either case, further testing is needed. Keep us updated with your results!

My advice would be to calculate your IBUs as though you were doing everything as a 20 minute addition. Everything I've read says that's about what your perceived bitterness will be regardless of your length of boil. If that's not as bitter as you want it, consider upping your hops.

I just taste tested a Dortmunder where I FWHed the 20 minute hop addition. The beer is really good but I almost wish I had done the 20 minute addition instead because the bitterness is a little too smooth.

I did an IPA with only a Columbus FWH. It was the first time I FWH and I wanted to see what it was all about.

It was pretty awesome.

Just did the calculations. Assuming FWH is a 20 minute addition for IBU count, I'll have 75 IBU in a 1.065 OG beer if I use 4 oz of each hop instead of 5.

I'm thinking worst case scenario, the bitterness is in the pale ale category, or its an extremely hoppy IPA (both situations are absolutely fine with me). I'll try to do this beer this weekend, I'll keep everyone posted.

personally, i would leave it at 5.

ive never done it, but i think if you do the same recipe but
1 with 1oz at FWH (including 60min boil)
and the other with 1oz at 20mins

and no other hop additions....the 1st one will be much more bitter than the other

chefchris said:

I did an IPA with only a Columbus FWH. It was the first time I FWH and I wanted to see what it was all about.

It was pretty awesome.

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What days do you work this weekend? I want to bring you a bottle of my FWH IPA and see what you think.


BTW, I FWH all my beers, it keeps me from forgetting the first hop addition...

mullenite said:

What days do you work this weekend? I want to bring you a bottle of my FWH IPA and see what you think.


BTW, I FWH all my beers, it keeps me from forgetting the first hop addition...

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Saturday. I'm looking forward to it. I'll try to remember to bring at least one of my brews up there.

I don't know if it is possible to do, but a really interesting test would be to then do exactly the same recipe with the hops additions added to the boil. Could see which is more bitter, which has more flavor, etc. Perhaps you could do two 5 gallon batches? God I love the scientific method! I will be VERY interested in finding out how this works. I FWH'd my latest brew but really have no confidence in it making any difference. I would love to find out for sure!

Klaus

So? Have you brewed/tasted your experiment yet?

unfortunately, I underestimated how much studying I would have to do for the Bar Exam, so I've decided to delay brewing activities until August 1st. It's the first thing on my brew schedule.

Most people take a vacation after the Bar Exam, I'm just gonna take two weeks off to brew my freaking heart out....

brewing the "all FWH" beer right now.

I used 1.75 oz of citra and 2 oz of amarillo, both leaf. 5.5 gallon batch. The OG is looking to be around 1.068 (a bit higher than I wanted). The IBU is calculated to be 67, assuming that FWH is a 20 min addition. I'll let ya'll know how it comes out in a few weeks.

edit: grain bill is:

11 pounds maris otter
.5 lb crystal 10
.5 lb cara-pils
fermented at 152
using s-04 yeast

Beernik said:

My advice would be to calculate your IBUs as though you were doing everything as a 20 minute addition. Everything I've read says that's about what your perceived bitterness will be regardless of your length of boil. If that's not as bitter as you want it, consider upping your hops.

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Denny Conn's done it and got it measured and also had a bunch of people do a blind triangle test. FWH was about 10% more IBUs than a 60-minute addition. Some people perceived it as having a less bitter or smoother taste, but others didn't; only 7 of 18 could pick out the FWH beer from the non-FWH beer, which is below the level for statistical significance. He wrote:

"...I encourage homebrewers to repeat this experiment for themselves, especially
the blind triangle tasting. When I tasted the beers before the blind tasting, I could clearly discern the differences I’d expected to be there. When I did the blind tasting, it took me 3 tries to pick out the different beer and even then I misidentified which one it was. Only 7 out of 18 tasters correctly identified the different beer, which says to me there may be little difference made by FWH."

Full presentation is here:
http://www.ahaconference.org/presentations/2008/DennyConn.pdf

alcibiades said:

fermented at 152
using s-04 yeast

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Whoa! You're gonna get some crazy esters fermenting at 152 degrees F!

I did a FWH on my cream ale and you can definitely taste the spiciness from the spalt hops, very peppery.

Any updates??? How'd it turn out??

Yeah...we need to know!! This thread is worthless without results!

KaceMN said:

Yeah...we need to know!! This thread is worthless without results!

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reviving this just to say how disappointed I was to see know feedback

OP's last post was almost two years ago. I'm guessing this is another "Hey everyone, I'm going to do this experiment! Here it goes. Bye"