Adding Knockout Hops?

How do all of you add knockout hops? I've always thought you want to chill as quickly as possible to lock in hop flavors & aroma and decrease the amount of DMS precursor in your wort, but I've been reading about steeping knockout hops during the whirlpool.

What do you do?

 

I turn the flame off and add the hops, stir and start the plate chiller. Hops are in wort for as long as it takes to fill 2 fermenters. About 6-7 minutes.

 

Turn off the flame and dump them in....then start my chiller.

You should driven away all the dms precursors during your boil, so that's not something to worry about.

 

just throw them in at flameout.

 

I guess my main question was how long do you let them steep before starting your chiller? I read in brewing classic styles among other places to let them steep for several minutes in hot, non boiling wort before starting to chill.

 

It usually takes about 7-10 minutes for my wort to chill down to about 120° or so. I use an immersion chiller. So for me it works out just right to dump in my "flameout" hops.

 

So if I was to let them steep, I wouldn't need to worry about proudcing any DMS precursor? I use a whirlpool chiller.

 

It will take anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour to chill depending on how you chill, that's how long they stay in. They really give up all that essential goodness briefly, probably only 20 minutes or so anyway. So it doesn't really matter if they are in 15 minutes or an hour, or if you dump everything in your fermenter as long as they are in there. We do flame out so not to drive off all the good hop aromas, but those compounds are only going to be given off for a short time. It really isn't an exact science, not is it something you need to over think....you just drop them in, they do their job while your wort cools, and that's that.