How to hop?

[hoox]

Has probably asked a hopillion times...but.

OK so hopped beers let of a particular aroma (I can never pin point the flavors like they try to on the labels!).

I tried a Hop Federation Red IPA and boom...I could smell the actual hop as if I had just snorted it.

Three homebrews I've tried: Epic Pale Ale Clone x1 and a American IPA x2 from a local website

Neither come close to the sensation I experienced. Will freshness be 'a massive' key?

All of this has made me think a little bit about how I brew using hops.

Let's use an example recipe that has additions at 60 minutes/30/15/7/1 and then two dry hopped additions.

1) I will simply add the pellets into the kettle.
2) I then add into my primary without much filtering. At the moment I've been limited to scooping it out of the kettle (yikes!) and I pretty much leave nothing behind (I'm sure this isn't right!). In my 23L (5G?) I get an 20-30mm (1in) of sediment
3) When I add my dry additions I do this after I've had active fermentation for 2 days.

No additions are in hop bags and I do not use a hop filter.

So having thought about it...I add hops for 60 minutes to make it bitter, but because I do no filtering then are all my hops doing a crap load of bittering by floating around? or does the bittering only happen during the boil? (the extraction of acids, right?)

Will I get more accurate hopping by filtering properly? In my head I've now got it so that any residual hops will still be bittering/doing something untoward.

Or is all this not a worry and as per design and the beer shall be according to the recipe?

 

[morticaixavier]

I wouldn't worry about the hops getting into the fermenter. that's certainly not going to mess with your aroma. if you are after more intense aroma I would change up your boil schedule to 60/0. keep your bittering charge as is and move all the rest of the hops to flame out. after flameout put a lid on and let it set for ~15 minutes and then chill.

On the dry hops, wait till fermentation is totally done and the yeast has dropped out. then add your first charge of dry hops. wait three days and add your second charge, wait another 5 days, crash cool and bottle.

Yeast in suspension will grab alot of the lovely hop aroma you are infusing with those dry hops and drag it right to the bottom.

the 30 and 15 additions are just blowing their aroma off with the boil and you'll get plenty of flavor out of a 15 minute steep.

 

[hoox]

Thanks for the quick response man.

OK so getting into OCD questions...

1) adding at the end of the boil will continue to do some bittering? Or do I wait until the kettle has dropped to something like 90degs?
2) will the effect of a 30 minute addition be 1/2 bitter 1/2 aroma (compared to the 60min add), or full bitter with 1/2 aroma...or is it just not as simple as that?
3) or do all additions extract all their aroma equally it is just that when they boil they also contribute to bittering?

 

[carluchi]

Regarding your questions:

#1. It will add some bittering, but we are talking like 0.5 to 1 point - you will never notice it so add the hops right after you turn the gas off

#2. Sorta. A more correct analogy would be 50% bittering, 50% flavor (not aroma). The calculations are little more complex, but this is the general idea - the longer the hops boil, the more aroma is driven off and the more pronounced the bittering becomes over flavor.

#3. Again sorta. The additions do impart some aroma, but almost all of it is driven off by the boiling wort, hence the reason to add aroma additions at flame out.

 

[morticaixavier]

Regarding your questions:

#1. It will add some bittering, but we are talking like 0.5 to 1 point - you will never notice it so add the hops right after you turn the gas off

#2. Sorta. A more correct analogy would be 50% bittering, 50% flavor (not aroma). The calculations are little more complex, but this is the general idea - the longer the hops boil, the more aroma is driven off and the more pronounced the bittering becomes over flavor.

#3. Again sorta. The additions do impart some aroma, but almost all of it is driven off by the boiling wort, hence the reason to add aroma additions at flame out.

This.

Also, just to make it a little more complicated, I find that a hop stand right after flame out provides a noticeable additional bitterness but not a ton. I also like to do a First Wort Hop in which you add hops to the kettle before running off your wort from the mash tun (assuming all grain/partial mash) or with the steeping grains if extract with grains. It's in there longer so it gives you more bitterness but it also seems to leave behind a lot more flavor than a 60 minute addition.