When do you remove your aroma hops?

I'm sure I will get more than one answer here, but I was wondering, if you use a hop bag, when do you remove the hop bag? Before chilling? After Chilling? After Whirlpool?

after the pot is empty.

I don't remove them. (as modified by TD)

When I rack the beer into the bottling bucket.

You leave all the hops from the entire boil in the primary? I guess if you just dump it all in you do... Doesn't that screw with the IBU you're trying to hit? I mean if you see a recipe that says 30 IBU do you think that recipe thinks you're going to leave all the hops from the entire boil in the beer for the entire pre-bottle/pre-kegging?

Netflyer said:

You leave all the hops from the entire boil in the primary? I guess if you just dump it all in you do... Doesn't that screw with the IBU you're trying to hit? I mean if you see a recipe that says 30 IBU do you think that recipe thinks you're going to leave all the hops from the entire boil in the beer for the entire pre-bottle/pre-kegging?

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Recipes don't do a lot of thinking. Your IBUs are coming from isomerized alpha acids that become isomerized during the boil. After the boil, your hops are no longer utilized for bitterness because they are no longer boiling (or being isomerized). Leaving all the hops in the primary will have other effects, but the effects on IBUs are zero to negligible.

Netflyer said:

You leave all the hops from the entire boil in the primary? I guess if you just dump it all in you do... Doesn't that screw with the IBU you're trying to hit? I mean if you see a recipe that says 30 IBU do you think that recipe thinks you're going to leave all the hops from the entire boil in the beer for the entire pre-bottle/pre-kegging?

Click to expand...

Consider what would happen if you didn't have a hop bag and had no way of retrieving the hops after cooling. That is why the above posters say they just leave it in the pot.

Eric

Lol, the designer of the recipe 'thinks' or 'thought' is what I was trying to mean...

So I have been removing my hops bag after the chill, has my beer been suffering due to that removal?

Netflyer said:

You leave all the hops from the entire boil in the primary? I guess if you just dump it all in you do... Doesn't that screw with the IBU you're trying to hit? I mean if you see a recipe that says 30 IBU do you think that recipe thinks you're going to leave all the hops from the entire boil in the beer for the entire pre-bottle/pre-kegging?

Click to expand...

Yes, that's what I do.

As the others said, the hop oils are only isomerized while the wort is boiling- that's why we add them at different times, for flavor and aroma. Once the 0 minute hops are added, and the flame is off, I start cooling.

I usually just dump everything (except for the really thick crud at the bottom of the pot), but I've recently changed my system and it's easy to clog with hops debris so I have to start thinking of a way to keep that stuff out of my chiller. I think a stainless steel scrubby on the dip tube will work fine. The only reason I'm planning on filtering my wort is so I don't clog up my chiller, though. If I didn't have that concern, I'd still just pour it all in the primary and let it sort itself out.

Cool, that would keep my fermenting volume up considerably too... as long as no ill effects.

I switched to pellet hops. A quick whirlpool at the end of the boil avoids all of the concerns in this thread.

Here is what I observed recently:


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/double-batch-results-158921/


Maybe someone can correct me but I think that leaving the hops in the fermenter, at least for a significant late addition (5min), will increase the hop bitterness and aroma.