Removal of Hops

When do you remove the hops from the kettle? In my 3 brews I usually fish out the hop bag while cooling the wort.

What you're doing is fine. There isn't a single correct time to remove the hops, some people use a hop bag and remove it when they're cooling the wort, some people strain the hops out when transferring the wort to the fermenter, some people leave the hops in and transfer everything into the fermenter.

I had run into a recipe where hops are to be dropped in at 0 minutes boil
and I realized I had really no idea when to remove them!
That begged the question when any boil hops should be removed.

This post is 9 years old and I'm wondering if the above answer by c.n.budz is still considered correct.

It really depends on the recipe. We use a hop spider so for beers that get a FWH but no boil hops, we pull the hops after the sparge before the boil. 99% of the time we pull the hops at flameout and add our whirlpool for 5 minutes while the wort is on its way to the chiller.

Yes. It’s still valid.
I used to use a hop bag and remove the hops after cooling. Now I just leave them all in the as I transfer to a primary. One less step and I have not noticed a difference in my beers. They will settle out in the trub.

fizzix said:

I had run into a recipe where hops are to be dropped in at 0 minutes boil
and I realized I had really no idea when to remove them!
That begged the question when any boil hops should be removed.

This post is 9 years old and I'm wondering if the above answer by c.n.budz is still considered correct.

Click to expand...

Couple of things that may be helpful regarding adding hops after the boil is completed or FO - Flame Out. If you simply add FO hops in for a few minutes as soon as the fire/heat is off, you'll be near boiling and this can be considered Steeping. You'll get nice aromas from the hops w/o driving off aromas by boiling. Another technique used after boiling is Whirlpooling which is moving, stirring or creating a vortex in the kettle to help late addition hop utilization. Whirlpooling can be as simple as stirring by hand with a mash paddle or spoon, or as fancy as using a pump to circulate the wort. Some folks want wort temps to drop before adding the whirlpool hop addition, such as waiting to get down to 180F before the hop addition.

Long story short, if you turn off the flame to add hops, 5 to 10 minutes is the norm to leave in the hot wort before removing the hops or to begin chilling.

Very helpful. Thanks all.