Late Hop Additions

[jwible204]

For about the past year and half, or ever since I moved away from an Immersion Chiller and switched to a CFC, I've been using post-boil whirlpool additions after the wort has cooled to around 180. This seems to work well for extracting a ton of aroma out of the hops, but not necessarily the bitterness (at least not as much bitterness). But, I'm finding on some beers, and some hops, that some of those very late (5/0/180F steep) additions are still contributing a fair amount of bitterness and not as much aroma as I would like.

The Hops book talks about the volatility of the different oils in hops, and also gives a rough breakdown of what to expect from each hop variety in terms of their total oils as a %. Combine that with some other research and I'm finding that 180 is still probably too hot for extracting the most aroma without volatilizing the hop oil. Myrcene is the largest oil component to some big American hops, namely the Cs, and it volatizes at 147 degrees. That said, even when doing a steep at 180 for 30 minutes, the wort never drops below about 160, so I'm going to guess I'm getting far more bitterness from those hops than I am/was planning on.

On Sunday I brewed an intensely hopped Pale Ale, should be about 5% ABV. I bittered to just 23 IBUs with my 60 minute addition then had 5 and 0 minute additions of Belma/Cascade. Beersmith isn't good at calculating IBU contribution for a late or whirlpool addition as it doesn't factor in the steeping time in hot wort (or maybe I'm just not using it right) so it's kind of a guessing game. I also added a large addition of hops after cooling the wort to 145, that steeped for 20 minutes. The hope here is that between the 60/5/0 addition I get to about 40 IBUs, then the Whirlpool steep at 145 is just an aroma bomb (some flavor too). In the past I probably would have hit the 60 minute addition with about 35 IBUs, but I'm perceiving way more bitterness than 40 when doing that.

At any rate, the hopping schedule looks like this. Not the most intensely hopped Pale Ale ever, but it should have nice hop character.

11 gallons

23 IBUs @ 60 (Cascade)
1oz each Belma/Cascade @ 5
1oz each Belma/Cascade @ 0
------drop temp to 145 via CFC runoff--------------
1.5oz each Belma/Cascade steep for 20 minutes @ 145

Cascade is between 40 and 60% Myrcene, Belma is in the mid 60's. Preserving more of their character at 145 should work, in theory. I'm dry-hopping Thursday and hoping to get this in a keg next week. I'll report back my results on this thread.

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Does anyone have any insight into a similar schedule? Specifically, chilling to sub 150 before steeping certain varieties.

 

[opiate82]

Hop aroma and flavor will increase the perceived bitterness of a beer. If you take two beers that have the same lab-measured IBU's, but one has a lot more aroma and flavor hops, a tasting panel will think the beer with more aroma/flavor has higher IBU's than the more subdued one.

I'd be curious to hear back on whether you get better/more aroma by cooling down to 145 then doing your whirlpool hopping. It seems like there are a lot of conflicting opinions around here on that fact, but more. I personally just put my flameout hops in a flameout and have always gotten great hop character in my IPA's but I also usually do a ridiculous dry hop.

In theory with your method, wouldn't you be able to take those whirlpool hops out and reuse them for bittering in another batch since you shouldn't be extracting any AA's? Might be useful if we suffer another hop shortage...

 

[jwible204]

Hop aroma and flavor will increase the perceived bitterness of a beer. If you take two beers that have the same lab-measured IBU's, but one has a lot more aroma and flavor hops, a tasting panel will think the beer with more aroma/flavor has higher IBU's than the more subdued one.

I'd be curious to hear back on whether you get better/more aroma by cooling down to 145 then doing your whirlpool hopping. It seems like there are a lot of conflicting opinions around here on that fact, but more. I personally just put my flameout hops in a flameout and have always gotten great hop character in my IPA's but I also usually do a ridiculous dry hop.

In theory with your method, wouldn't you be able to take those whirlpool hops out and reuse them for bittering in another batch since you shouldn't be extracting any AA's? Might be useful if we suffer another hop shortage...

While I agree with you about perceiving more bitterness in beers that have more hop aroma/flavor, I am confident in saying there is more and IMO too much bitterness in some of these beers. Isomerization doesn't end when the wort drops below 212, so there actually is more bitterness coming out of the large dose of flameout hops if it's standing for a long period of time.

Back in my immersion chiller days it didn't really matter, because the wort would come down in temp rather quickly (at least the first 70 or so degrees) so there wasn't much isomerization after flameout.

I think the dry-hopping, especially a large one, can help make up for it (like you said). But I feel like huge flameout additions are wasted effort at those high temps.