adding hops before boil

[de5m0mike]

I always come into my brew sessions with a real strong plan, but somehow everything always ends up going a little differently when I actually brew. I always get these spur-of-the-moment crazy ideas to do something a little different than I had planned. Maybe it has something to with the friends being over and drinking, I don't know... Anyway. Last night, for some reason, I decided to throw my bittering hops into the pot before it reached a boil. Not sure why I did it, but something in my head told me it would be better that way. The wart was about 180º when I added them and I think I reached a true boil about 10 min later. So now, after the act I'm trying to figure out how this may have actually affected my beer. Any thoughts?

Also, I was playing around with Beer Alchemy, which I'm pretty new at, and adjusting my hop times/amounts to reflect how I actually brewed, and I noticed the option to choose "in mash", "First wart hopped" or "all of boil" for my hop addition. Any thoughts on which selection would be best for my situation?

 

[buzzkill]

thats first wort hopped, and I like doing it too.

 

[superjunior]

I have a couple heavy hopped recipes that call for this, including a hopslam clone I did yesterday

 

[jjones17]

Yes - search for FWH - or "First Wort Hopping". This is a brewing technique which some say smooths out the bitterness of your beer, as well as enhances the flavour greatly. I now ALWAYS FHW all my beers, it makes a huge difference I find in the hop flavor.

Your beer will have slightly higher IBUs also, but it will not be enough to throw it out of whack.

 

[de5m0mike]

When I first looked up First Wart Hopping it said that it was adding hops during sparging. I kind of figured the extract equivalent would be adding hops while steeping the specialty grains. I had already finished steeping and was just waiting for the boil to start and wasn't really sure if the 10 min. was enough to justify calling it First Wart Hopping.

 

[Shinglejohn]

Same difference.

 

[de5m0mike]

Same difference.

It sounds like it's pretty close but not quite, according to this article I just found, (see last paragraph) The hops should be steeped for 20-30 min before the boil.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/05/09/first-wort-hopping/

 

[Homebrewtastic]

When you first wort hop you increase the pH of the wort which in turn increases the isomerization of the alpha , which gives you better hop utilization and smoother bitterness.

 

[Shinglejohn]

It sounds like it's pretty close but not quite, according to this article I just found, (see last paragraph) The hops should be steeped for 20-30 min before the boil.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/05/09/first-wort-hopping/

Ok, so its not quite the same difference but for your purposes, its all good. Even where you added them, some of those processes have taken place. Its like eating a reeses, there no wrong time to add hops.

 

[de5m0mike]

When you first wort hop you increase the pH of the wort which in turn increases the isomerization of the alpha , which gives you better hop utilization and smoother bitterness.

I like the way that sounds.