More precisely said than on my last attempt...what is the advantage of a hot whirlpool addition over, say, some combination of a 20min addition and a 0min flameout addition. If the answer is just "it makes it easier to clone commercial recipes", that's completely legit.
I see; so why bother with 60 and hot whirlpool if a combination of (60), 20 and 0 (and I assume immidiate chill) can give the exact same result?
*UNSUPPORTED THEORY ALERT*
You have to trace all the way back to why I started using the hot whirlpool in the first place. Despite what Jamil said, I was convinced that the only reason that homebrewer's followed the Papazian-esque...
60 min = bittering
30 min = flavor
0 min= aroma
...was because no one had a choice! A homebrew scale whirlpool didn't exist. I mean, we make mash tuns out of coolers that are meant to hold Gatorade. Eventually we get around to building cool rigs, but we all started by balancing buckets in the kitchen. Point being, Charlie's drilled bucket false bottom was a far cry from a Combi-tank. Sure, commercial brewers want to maximize yield, but I really do not think they are doing it in spite of sacrificing quality. They do it because they are built to do it. Take a peek at my avatar; it is no secret I am a fan of Stone. Listening to interviews, the brewer specifically states that the Levitation Ale is the only beer in their portfolio to feature a late boil hop. They bitter at 75/60, and then do not add another hop until the flame is off and the wort is going into a whirlpool.
Why?
To some degree, Jamil is part right.....money. IMO, and more specifically, avoiding the waste of money. I started allowing my hops to whirlpool hot because I questioned the merit of throwing in 2 ounces of hops, turning off the flame and chilling. I really did not think I was getting much out of that brief addition. The biggest bonus I could see was the new space it was affording me in the hop freezer. I believe it was mentioned earlier that the 5 minutes it takes to chill your wort is not much hot contact time, so how much effect could it be having on the product? That was my point exactly! Following the ancient 60/30/0; I add the zero, chill, let the hops settle, and move the wort to my carboy. Why did I even bother with a zero? If aroma is what I was after, I could have dry hopped. If you are a big dry-hopper, you probably agree that you are not doing yourself a favor unless you allow aroma to develope over 5-7 days of contact time. How much contact time did that zero minute addition have? Maybe 5, 10, 15 minutes; mostly in cooled wort. I think if you really want to get bang for your hop buck, invest in the bittering charge, and invest in the hot whirlpool. Everything in the middle seems like a combination of under utilized bitterness and overspent aroma. Some will disagree (Dogfish Head?) but I feel the whole continous hopping thing is a gimic. Sorry Sam. I'll step on my own foot, and mention that Matt B. from FSW who probably knows more about hop science than most people in the industry, does discuss using a small addition of a utility hop mid boil, so maybe eliminating that middle addition entirely is not completely right (but I am trying to make a point here, so I will pretend I never heard Matt say that in order to make my arguement stronger).
Here is boil schedule for FSW Mission St Pale Ale (provided by EricCSU)
7g Fuggles 4.75%AA at 90m
7g Chinook 13%AA at 30m
24g Cascade 6% at 0m
24g Centennial 10.5%AA at 0m
Discussion Notes:
IBU is calculated lower due to the 45 minute whirlpool which provides not IBUs according to Rager.
So ~11% of hops by weight at 90, 11% at 30, and 78% of hops in the 45 minute hot whirlpool.
I did the 60/30/0/chill, I did the 60/0+30 minute hot whirlpool/chill, and I prefer the results of the whirlpool. I think it is worth a try.
Joe