Hellfire Whirlpool

[ninkwood]

I recently brewed a hazy IPA that came out more bitter than anticipated. I conducted my whirlpool in a way that I've never tried before and I suspect this is what lead to the extra IBUs but I'm not sure.

I brewed a 1.065 wort on a stainless steel (uninsulated) kettle outdoors in the cold (few degrees above freezing). The hop additions were as follows:

Boil
•0.75 oz Mosaic 11.6% @15 min for 11.5 IBU

Whirlpool
•3.5 oz Mosaic 11.6%, 20 minute whirlpool at 80°c/176°f for13.4 IBU
•1.5 oz Citra 12.6%, 20 minute whirlpool at 80°c/176°f for 6.2 IBU
•1.1 oz Amarillo 10.2% 20 minute whirlpool at 80°c/176°f for 3.7 IBU

I also dryhopped with an identical charge to the whirlpool additions after hitting an FG of 1.020 and chilling to 10°c. I transferred off the hops approximately 48hrs after the dryhop, and the beer was already extremely bitter before this.

Where I think this one went off the rails is I dropped temperature very quickly during chilling, and passed my 80°c target shortly after shutting off my immersion chiller. I compensated by firing up my Hellfire burner at very low heat and kept the temperature between 70 and 80 Celsius for the 20 min whirlpool.

All looks good, however this beer is far more than ~35 IBUs. It tastes more in the 80-100 range, and considering the high FG, that's saying something!

I think I likely scorched the bottom of my kettle and extracted far more bitterness from the whirlpool hops than anticipated. Is this likely the case or could something else be going on here? Is it possible that I'm tasting astringency from sparging too hot/not acidic enough, or are those distinctly different flavors?

Appreciate the insights!

 

[Robin Edwin]

It sounds like the Hellfire burner might have caused scorching, which could explain the higher bitterness. Reheating during the whirlpool can extract more bitterness than expected, especially if hop matter settled on the bottom. Astringency from sparging would taste dry and puckering, not just bitter, so it’s likely not the main issue. Next time, try holding the whirlpool temp steady without reheating to avoid over extraction.

 

[Deadalus]

Did you remove or account for the 0.75 oz of Mosaics? If you didn't take them out, they are still present and contributing IBUs during the whirlpool and that includes the time it took to drop to whirlpool temp, where the hops would still be producing bitterness.

You sound aware of this but I'll mention that you will continue to drop temperature after turning off the chiller-about 5 degrees F. If you pop the IC out maybe less. There's some lag and it is system dependent.

I usually aim to whirlpool at 165F or sometimes at 155 but rarely anymore at 175F as I find more bitterness occurs at 175 and I am typically wanting more mellow aroma characteristics. At <=165, calculations show low IBU extraction, and these are weak IMO. But up around 175, I found in the past these were definitely notable additions of IBUs.

Outside and uninsulated in the cold no less would require continuous heat input to maintain the temp. In my garage, unheated, my uninsulated keggle requires around 15% power on the 5500W element to keep a fairly steady temp. Replicability is important here given the changing effects that even 10 degrees F can produce. The two best approaches in my view are to either keep the temp really steady or to just add at the target temp and let cool on its own. Bouncing around too much by applying heat sporadically won't be reproduceable.

Do you manually stir or use a pump? A pump should keep the flow moving just fine. I use a pump and never had a scorching issue but the BK is electric. Still, I never see much center cone formation after 20 minutes, so with a pump, I'd guess you wouldn't be scorching or overheating the hops due to flame use. Manual stirring maybe. I've only ever been able to get a good center pile of hops by whirlpooling after chilling completely for about 30 minutes.

 

[DaniellePuckett]

It sounds like scorching the kettle might be the culprit. Try using a diffuser or plate chiller to distribute heat more evenly. Also, consider lower whirlpool temperatures and different hop varieties.

 

[day_trippr]

Actual scorching should leave at least traces behind on the kettle bottom.
I suspect as Deadalus does that 175°F is too high a temperature for prolonged whirlpooling if one wants to minimize IBU contributions. I begin my neipa whirlpooling at 170°F...

Cheers!

 

[wepeeler]

That's a lot of hops in the whirlpool. Personally, I'd skip the 15 min boil altogether. MAYBE @ flameout. I do 4 oz WP at 170 (ideal temps are between 165-180F) for 15 min, and I get plenty of bitterness. I used to do 20 min, but it was too much for me. I've slowly been backing off on the amount in the WP as well. I find 4oz is still plenty bitter and juicy.

 

[ninkwood]

Thanks for all the feedback!

I'll definitely try lowering the WP temps next time but also shut off the chiller earlier, and perhaps also reduce the amount of WP hops at least until I am close to producing the beer I'm going for.

Did you remove or account for the 0.75 oz of Mosaics? If you didn't take them out, they are still present and contributing IBUs during the whirlpool and that includes the time it took to drop to whirlpool temp, where the hops would still be producing bitterness.

I'm assuming Brewfather accounts for this, but I'm sure how that calculation differs from my reality. It could be quite a drastic difference.

You sound aware of this but I'll mention that you will continue to drop temperature after turning off the chiller-about 5 degrees F. If you pop the IC out maybe less. There's some lag and it is system dependent.

I was not aware prior to this particular batch, but that was certainly something I noted. I'll definitely shut the water off earlier next time.

Do you manually stir or use a pump? A pump should keep the flow moving just fine. I use a pump and never had a scorching issue but the BK is electric. Still, I never see much center cone formation after 20 minutes, so with a pump, I'd guess you wouldn't be scorching or overheating the hops due to flame use. Manual stirring maybe. I've only ever been able to get a good center pile of hops by whirlpooling after chilling completely for about 30 minutes.

I'm using a pump. There is definitely a good amount of flow going on, but the IC gets in the way of a proper whirlpool forming. I have no idea what is happening in the kettle during this time but I suspect that a fair amount of hop matter gets trapped inside the circumference of the IC

 

[Deadalus]

Beersmith has an option somewhere to included the boiling hops in the whirlpool calculation. I sort of remember it may not have been working. I used to repeat the boiling hops as an another whirlpool addition instead of checking the option off. What I do now though is I put any boiling hops in a hop spider and I pull that out at flameout. Just how I do it as I often have a 60 minute hop in there and then perhaps some much closer to flameout. If you are just adding boiling hops at under 15 minutes, you may want to leave them in as they may have life left in them vs a 60 minute addition. In which case, make sure they are accounted for properly in Brewfather where it may not be the default to carry them through for the total IBU calculation.

So I have an e-keggle and I have used an IC but it sits above the bottom of the BK. If you have a flat bottom pot and a tightly coiled IC, that might actually trap hops close to the bottom. My IC would just sit on the element but later I picked up a tip here and attached a U-bolt to the risers (neck) of the IC so that it would hang off the side of the BK. I felt that I got reasonable circulation with a March 809 pump that way.

 

[ninkwood]

My IC is only about 7" in interior diameter, and it sits right on the bottom of the kettle with lots of liquid above it. The whirlpool port is around the same level as the top of the coils so I suspect hops get trapped inside the coil. I suppose I could give it a stir every few minutes or so, but ultimately I think I'm just going to refrain from adding heat during the WP.

Down the road I might grab a Hot Rod from Bobby to help boost my HLT for better step mashing performance, and perhaps that could be useful for some gentle WP heating.

I'll take a look at Brewfather - I'm glad you guys mentioned that this could be the issue too otherwise I may have repeated the mistake again without knowing! However I might also make a NEIPA with only whirlpool and flameout hops. I've yet to brew one that wasnt bitter enough.

 

[HM-2]

That's a lot of hops in the whirlpool.

It's quite a lot bigger than I'd typically suggest going for hazy finishing under 6% (it's about where I shoot for in my 8-9% beers)...

I suspect in this case there's probably been enough of a heat variation in the kettle during the time the burner was on that the overall temp read around 80 but some spots were hot enough to isomerise the alpha acids in the hops.

 

[Deadalus]

My IC is only about 7" in interior diameter, and it sits right on the bottom of the kettle with lots of liquid above it. The whirlpool port is around the same level as the top of the coils so I suspect hops get trapped inside the coil. I suppose I could give it a stir every few minutes or so, but ultimately I think I'm just going to refrain from adding heat during the WP.

Down the road I might grab a Hot Rod from Bobby to help boost my HLT for better step mashing performance, and perhaps that could be useful for some gentle WP heating.

I'll take a look at Brewfather - I'm glad you guys mentioned that this could be the issue too otherwise I may have repeated the mistake again without knowing! However I might also make a NEIPA with only whirlpool and flameout hops. I've yet to brew one that wasnt bitter enough.

Here's a pic of that U-bolt fix I mentioned.

You could gather some data as to whether or not your hops are getting trapped and/or possibly overheated. It's a whirlpool, so it is conceivable you had hops driven down and possibly aggregated in the center with your IC sitting on the bottom. If you were careful at the end to not move the IC, you might see if there's a greater concentration of hop residue in the center after draining. And if you have a long probe thermometer, you could test the local temperature at the center bottom while whirlpooling, to see if it is varying from wherever your thermometer is reading from. Plus you could take additional readings at different spots of interest with the long probe thermometer.

What system do you brew on? Do you have a gas fired HERMS? Doesn't sound like you direct fire the MT. Is the flame control not good on the Hellfire? Something like a hot rod might be useful but I have no idea about how fast a temperature rise is best (vs adequate) for step mashing. I do it occasionally but I have an EHERMS. I usually do a single infusion then use heat to raise the next step (I think I am describing that correctly but perhaps not.). I would think that with good ability to simmer you could maintain the whirlpool without fear of localized overheating. Partiularly if you get the IC off the bottom if it is necessary.. On my EHERMS, I have Inkbird PIDs to control the HLT temperature and read the MT temp but do not have one installed specifically for the BK, it's just a power controller. However, I just recently installed a t-probe for the BK and have an Auber ESBoil DSPR-320 ready to install into my panel to replace the power controller on the BK. That will allow me to set the whirlpool temperature.