Flameout additions in hop bag

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JuanKenobi

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I recently started using the nylon-bag-hanging-from-pvc-fitting dealy for hop additions during the boil. I was wondering how people who use a similar technique deal with flameout additions. How long do you wait before removing the hop bag?
 
i dont use one of those contraptions (though i am thinking about building one), but my guess would be to wait until the wort is cooled or the kettle is empty, depending on which cooling method you use. (cool wort with IC, empty with CFC/PC... or however your system works)
 
I've had really mixed results putting flameout additions into a bag. It really doesn't have a lot of time for the oils to diffuse into the wort. If you can get away with it, let that addition swim free.
 
Berserker - I highly recommend building one. It's dirt cheap and works great, especially if you make highly hopped brews. I do cool with and IC, which is another problem. I successfully boiled the chiller with the hop bag apparatus in my kettle at the same time during the last session, but the batch didn't require tons of hops. The last DIPA I brewed with lots of whole hops and the bag was really loaded by the end of the brew. I don't know if I'd have gotten away with boiling the IC. Eventually I'm sure that I'll move up to a bigger kettle with a valve and use a CFC and all that, but right now I'm on a tight budget and use a regular old 10 gal SS kettle and transfer directly from that to fermenter.

Bobby - That was my initial thought too. Just toss the aroma addition in loose and then strain it going into the fermenter.
 
I use the same contraption and love it. Depending on the recipe, I'll let my flameout addition stay in until the wort is down to 120 or so. But I've also had flameouts that I let sit for 1/2 an hour before I even start to chill the wort, that's gives some nice flavor!
 
I had the same predicament during my last brew where I was using a hop bag for the first time. My particular problem was that I usually whirlpool my wort before running it out to the CFC, but figured that the hanging bag would either screw up the whirlpool or make it a PITA to stir to get a whirlpool. I ended up adding the flameout hops to the bag, letting it sit in the wort for 5 minutes but pulling the bag to whirlpool. It will be interesting to see if I have the aroma from the flameout hops in the finished product.

Long story short, with the hop bag my trub/hop cone is greatly reduced so next time I think I won't bother whirlpooling and just let my bag sit in the wort while I let it settle a bit, then drain with whatever going into the fermenter going in. Thoughts?
 
I've never used a CFC and pour my wort from the kettle, so I'm not sure how important the whirlpool is. I find with my method, letting it settle is just as good as whirlpooling. However, the hop bag really does greatly reduce hop sludge in the kettle. I bet you'll be fine without the whirlpool.

What scares me about leaving the hop bag in during cooling, is that the hops will hold on to more wort at cooler temps. With a big hop schedule it could really hurt, especially with whole hops. Ideally I think it would be best to pull the grain bag just before flameout so it drains at the hottest possible temp. I'm definitely going to do the flameout addition outside the bag on the next batch, but it might be worth doing some experimenting to see the difference. Maybe a couple batches split before the boil.

I'm bottling a DIPA today that I used the hop bag method on and a mix of whole and pellet hops. By the time I got to flameout the bag was so full that it was hard to get the final addition below the top of the wort (Now I use a bag that the whole kettle could fit into). I let it sit for like 5 minutes before cooling, but I'm afraid that the last addition probably didn't do a whole lot for the beer. Unfortunately, I also dry-hopped the crap out of this sucker so I guess I won't be able to tell.
 
. . .

What scares me about leaving the hop bag in during cooling, is that the hops will hold on to more wort at cooler temps. With a big hop schedule it could really hurt, especially with whole hops. Ideally I think it would be best to pull the grain bag just before flameout so it drains at the hottest possible temp.

Not sure what you mean by this, but I'm curious. Do you mean hold to more volume of wort, or hold on to more hop goodness?

Anyway, in my case I use a 5 gallon paint strainer bag from Lowes, and it gets pretty full. It fits inside my IC, and I leave it in there until I get down to 80 or so. I squeeze it out as much as possible to wring the liquid out.

Referring to Bobby_M's comment about flameout hops - I had/have a similar concern. For my last brew I put these into a separate (identical) bag, and really took some pains to dunk it and swirl it around, FWIW.

I worry about about the squeezing from a sanitation perspective. I spray starsan on my hands, because inevitably some wrung-out wort does touch my hands. No infections yet (only 5 brews) but you never know.
 
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