First Wort Addition

Northern Brewer General
1

I was thinking of using a first wort addition with my English Best Bitter this week. Never tried this before.

Original schedule (46l batch):
100-110g bittering (25-27 IBU)
20-25g Finishing (split between a 15/20 and a flameout addition)

What I’ve read so far is that I should do aprox. 30% of my bittering hops at FW?

  1. Would I even bother with my later additions if I did the FW addition?

  2. Would my total bittering hops (including FW) stay roughly the same?

  3. Would this give me a suitable profile for the style?

  4. Anything else I would need to know?

Most of the hops are EK Goldings (4.7ish) with some Hallertau (5.5) mixed in at bittering just to make up the numbers.

2

I use FWH to replace the flavor addition, not the bittering addition. I calculate how much bitterness I’ll get from it, then add hops at 60 min. to get the the bitterness I’m shooting for. I leave other additions the same, except for any at 15-20 min. Since I’m using FWH for flavor, I don’t need those.

3

So for example, if I were planning to use 15g at 15 min, this is what I would use for FWH?

And the bittering I would get from those 15g would be the same as if I added for 60min?

Then I might still add something either at flameout or dry hop for aroma?

Like I said, just read 3 sentences about this for the first time this week.

4

[quote=“Brew Meister Smith”]So for example, if I were planning to use 15g at 15 min, this is what I would use for FWH?

And the bittering I would get from those 15g would be the same as if I added for 60min?

Then I might still add something either at flameout or dry hop for aroma?

Like I said, just read 3 sentences about this for the first time this week.[/quote]

1.) yep
2. nope…FWH gives you a smoother, mellower bitterness. Although it actually measured 10% more IBU in the analysis I had done, most tasters found that it tasted less bitter. Since I drink my beer, not measure it, I could FWH to have the same amount of bitterness as a 20 min. addition. You can find the results of my experiment starting on pg. 29 at http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content … nyConn.pdf
3.) yep…either or both. I almost always do.

5

Thanks Denny. This helped a lot. I do actually think I will try FWH for this batch.

What you have indicated does match a lot of the stuff I read up on yesterday. And from the sounds of it, if I were to get a slightly higher IBU rating than I was planning for my bitter it should come out very smooth.

I usually lean towards lower than standard bitterness for styles to avoid having it bite to much. This should be a good solution to that.

I do use Beer Smith and understand that they have a FWH checkbox that will adjust for the 10% boost from the meathod.

As you indicated this can come out as less perceivable, so I may lean toward going closer to 30 IBU without being as worried about harshness.

Thanks again
:cheers: