I’ll take your word on it, but I’d still like someone to tell me what kind of quantities of hops are being used in such a brew. It would seem to me that you’d need to use a heck of a lot of “bittering” (or whatever term you’d use here) hops to get the necessary bitterness if you’re not going to boil the hops. Would you care to post a recipe? And if you were brewing a dark beer like a stout, that has a fair amount of bitterness from dark grains, it would seem to me that you wouldn’t necessarily need to boil at all if your OG from the mash runnings was high enough, and you got enough bitterness from the FWH method, yes? No one has cared to answer that question yet, either. It’s just an experimental concept, I realize, but while we’re on the subject…
Maybe I’m missing your point, but do you realize there are other reasons for boiling?
Maybe I’m missing your point, but do you realize there are other reasons for boiling?[/quot
Besides extracting the necessary bitterness from hops, the only other reasons I know of to boil wort is to reduce the volume extracted from the mash tun to the desired amount and to concentrate the malt sugars to the desired OG. Unless I’m missing something, both of these ends could be achieved by simply increasing the malt bill and using less sparge water, right? I mean you might still want to bring the wort up to a degree high enough to kill off any potential unwanted microorganisms, so you could boil it for a few minutes for that purpose, but aside from that, what else do you need to achieve? Extract brewers have been doing no-boil batches forever with pre-hopped extract, so why couldn’t you do the same thing with an AG batch if you were getting all the hop bitterness you need from the hops with the FWH method? I realize the method I’m proposing wouldn’t really be appropriate for a broad style of beers, but in theory at least, I don’t see why you couldn’t do this with at least some beer styles, like pale ale or most any other beer where melanoidin development isn’t necessary.
Maybe I’m missing your point, but do you realize there are other reasons for boiling?[/quot
Besides extracting the necessary bitterness from hops, the only other reasons I know of to boil wort is to reduce the volume extracted from the mash tun to the desired amount and to concentrate the malt sugars to the desired OG. Unless I’m missing something, both of these ends could be achieved by simply increasing the malt bill and using less sparge water, right? I mean you might still want to bring the wort up to a degree high enough to kill off any potential unwanted microorganisms, so you could boil it for a few minutes for that purpose, but aside from that, what else do you need to achieve? Extract brewers have been doing no-boil batches forever with pre-hopped extract, so why couldn’t you do the same thing with an AG batch if you were getting all the hop bitterness you need from the hops with the FWH method? I realize the method I’m proposing wouldn’t really be appropriate for a broad style of beers, but in theory at least, I don’t see why you couldn’t do this with at least some beer styles, like pale ale or most any other beer where melanoidin development isn’t necessary.[/quote]
There’s a lot more going on. You’re boiling off sulfur compounds (a flavor I wouldn’t want in my beer and why you shouldn’t boil with the lid on) along with the protein dropping out and I’m sure a lot more than I’m aware of. Extract has been boiled already when it is being made.
BTW, I like that you’re asking this question because I do think we should question assumptions.
It’s been a week and I just checked on it. We mashed low and added inverted sugar which brought the gravity down to 1.006 and it definitely has good bitterness. It’s warm, flat, and hasn’t been dry-hopped yet so it’s too early to decide if it’s exactly the bitterness I want but it definitely bittered the beer. I’m really excited for it and will update it again when I’ve kegged it.
[quote=“deliusism1”]I’ll take your word on it, but I’d still like someone to tell me what kind of quantities of hops are being used in such a brew. It would seem to me that you’d need to use a heck of a lot of “bittering” (or whatever term you’d use here) hops to get the necessary bitterness if you’re not going to boil the hops. Would you care to post a recipe?[/quote]For a recipe, just take a standard APA or IPA and move the 20-minute addition to FWH. And you leave the hops in for the entire boil - I think perhaps you’re assuming the hops are removed or something?
It doesn’t matter what quantity of hops, although more and higher AA% would have an impact - if you add the hops prior to the boil and allow them to steep as the temp rises, you will extract some portion of the bittering compounds and the wort will have noticeable bitterness. Might not work if you added 1/2 oz of EKG to a 20-gal kettle, but adding an ounce of Centennial to 12 gallons is more than enough to get the described results. Don’t take my word for it - try it yourself.
So I’ve been drinking this for a while (we named it “Hop Skimmer”) and I have to say that the technique worked and, when we try it again, we’ll cut back on the buttering hops because it actually came out too bitter. I think this means that First Wort Hopping causes the oils to leave the hops while it’s steeping which is why it was able to bitter even though the hops were mostly removed.
Maybe you just need to try shortening hops instead of buttering hops. 
Maybe you just need to try shortening hops instead of buttering hops. [/quote]
No doubt!
I’m a little late to the party, but I think everyone’s missing one thing here. The resins containing the alpha-acids are not inside the vegetative material (i.e., the bracts & bracteoles, or cells themselves) of the hops, but rather the lupulin in the lupulin glands. Undoubtedly, a significant portion of the lupulin will remain in the boiling wort after you skim the hop material. In other words, you’re (primarily) not boiling to release the lupulin from the lupulin glands; you’re boiling to isomerize the alpha acids from the lupulin that has already been released into the wort. Even if you skimmed out all the hop material, I’d be willing to wager that a significant portion of the lupulin was already released into the wort during the FWH time frame (probably more so with pellet hops than whole cones).
This would actually make for an interesting experiment. At extreme hopping rates, would you be able to skim off a significant portion of the hop material (to minimize extraction of off flavors), yet still leave behind enough lupulin to provide the bittering/flavor you’re looking for?
[quote=“erockrph”]I’m a little late to the party, but I think everyone’s missing one thing here. The resins containing the alpha-acids are not inside the vegetative material (i.e., the bracts & bracteoles, or cells themselves) of the hops, but rather the lupulin in the lupulin glands. Undoubtedly, a significant portion of the lupulin will remain in the boiling wort after you skim the hop material. In other words, you’re (primarily) not boiling to release the lupulin from the lupulin glands; you’re boiling to isomerize the alpha acids from the lupulin that has already been released into the wort. Even if you skimmed out all the hop material, I’d be willing to wager that a significant portion of the lupulin was already released into the wort during the FWH time frame (probably more so with pellet hops than whole cones).
This would actually make for an interesting experiment. At extreme hopping rates, would you be able to skim off a significant portion of the hop material (to minimize extraction of off flavors), yet still leave behind enough lupulin to provide the bittering/flavor you’re looking for?[/quote]
That was the rationale (with fancier terms) we were using on why it could work. I was really surprised with how well it worked and will definitely play around with the amounts because I was hoping it would be less harsh (which failed since it’s overlybitter).
