Hop stand question?

[Troutchaser]

So I am doing a MO Columbus SMaSH right now and want to do a hop stand which I have never done before. I was going to put in 2 oz after flame out. When I put it in brewers friend it said that is 44 Ibu's that seems really high? Is that right? Just not sure about the Ibu's and 44 would put me way over what I was aiming for!

 

[Ike]

Fact: I haven't done a hopstand yet. I meant to do one on my last brew day, but my wort cooled MUCH faster than I thought it would, and I ended up missing the chance completely.

But, I've read up on hopstands a bunch trying to understand them myself, so while I can't speak from brewing experience, I bet I can summarize what you're going to hear from others here or if you search around on HBT.

At flameout your wort is, for all intents and purposes, 212 degrees. You're going to see isomerization (read as: bitterness and IBUs) until you get below 170 or so. SO, if you're looking for flavor and aroma but don't want bitterness, you'll need to wait until your wort cools to below 170 (seems to be a consensus, although actual temperatures may vary from opinion to opinion) before making your addition.

Discussion seems to suggest 140-170 degrees as the sweetspot for hopstands. Above that, you'll get increased bitterness, below that and you won't really see much result.

Sages of HBT: feel free to chime in!

 

[TravelingLight]

No sage here, still a novice, but I've done hopstands on my last two beers.

It depends on what hops I am using for it, but basically I let it chill down to 180 before I add hopstand additions. For example, two beers ago I was doing hopstand with citra (and something else, can't remember). I let the wort cool to 180, threw the hops in, and let them steep for 20-30 minutes, then chilled to pitch temp with my chiller.

For my most recent beer, I was doing a HS with citra and nelson. Nelson isomerizes at a lower temp than citra. So for that beer, I did the same as above for the citra. I let it steep for 20-30 minutes. At the end of that time, I let the wort temp get down to about 165-168 and then threw in the nelson and let it ride for about 20 more minutes before chilling to pitch temps.

Bottom line, if you throw them in at flameout, it's not really a hopstand addition, it's just a flameout addition. You can still get some bitterness from that because your wort is still essentially 212 degrees. For a true hopstand addition, you want to wort down to about 180 or less, depending on the hops and what you want out of them.