I’m 2 years into brewing and 3 batches into all grain brewing. I am finding lifting 7 gallons of wort a little hard on the back, so I am devising a system by which I collect wort in a cheap 12qt stainless steel kettle I got from Walmart that I will drill a hole in for a bulkhead and barb hooked up to a pump that will transfer the wort to my boil kettle which will be on a DarkStar burner attached to a cart I built (I brew in my kitchen so I have to boil outside on my porch). I’m hoping this will make brew day a lot easier, and yes, I will make sure the cart and everything on it is well secured when boiling!
So here's the hop related part of my question: Could I add some finishing hops to that 12qt kettle and do FWH? I'm envisioning making a homemade copper manifold attached to the bulkhead and using whole hops from my garden (2nd year so I should get loads of hops hopefully). I'm also thinking that since the hops are in the "transfer" kettle and not in the boil kettle, I'll just get flavor and aroma and not the bitterness (not that finishing hops have much bitterness anyway) and I'll ultimately have less total hops in the boil kettle to deal with when transferring to the fermentor. I was also wondering if I could leave the hops in that kettle the entire time I am sparging, or will the last of the wort collected (low gravity) cause extraction of tannins and other undersireables from the hops? Thank you.
If I understand your plan correctly you are going to transfer wort from your MT to another vessel where you want to FWH prior to pumping to your BK?
Why the need for the ‘transfer vessel’? Why not pump from the MT to the BK? “Normal” process for FWH the hops go into the kettle as the first runnings are going in and stay there throughout the boil. So I’m not sure how your IBU calculations would be affected since it doesn’t sound like you want to transfer the hops from your ‘transfer vessel’ into the BK. Most agree that FWH have a similar effect to a 20 minute hop addition along with a bit more mild bitterness.
[quote=“brewdvm”]I’m 2 years into brewing and 3 batches into all grain brewing. I am finding lifting 7 gallons of wort a little hard on the back, so I am devising a system by which I collect wort in a cheap 12qt stainless steel kettle I got from Walmart that I will drill a hole in for a bulkhead and barb hooked up to a pump that will transfer the wort to my boil kettle which will be on a DarkStar burner attached to a cart I built (I brew in my kitchen so I have to boil outside on my porch). I’m hoping this will make brew day a lot easier, and yes, I will make sure the cart and everything on it is well secured when boiling!
So here's the hop related part of my question: Could I add some finishing hops to that 12qt kettle and do FWH? I'm envisioning making a homemade copper manifold attached to the bulkhead and using whole hops from my garden (2nd year so I should get loads of hops hopefully). I'm also thinking that since the hops are in the "transfer" kettle and not in the boil kettle, I'll just get flavor and aroma and not the bitterness (not that finishing hops have much bitterness anyway) and I'll ultimately have less total hops in the boil kettle to deal with when transferring to the fermentor. I was also wondering if I could leave the hops in that kettle the entire time I am sparging, or will the last of the wort collected (low gravity) cause extraction of tannins and other undersireables from the hops? Thank you.[/quote]
First: Yes, you can do what you’re describing.
Second: I think you have a lot of misunderstandings or misconceptions about what is happening. If you boil the hop oils, you’ll get bitterness. FWH does provide some aroma with that bitterness (compared to a 60 min addition) but nowhere near the aroma that you would get if you waited and added these hops to the end of your boil. “Finishing hops” is when you add the hops not what type of hops they are. The AA% is what will tell you how bitter it will get.
The extraction of tannins and other undesirables is from the grain not the hops.
I’d read John Palmer’s How to Brew (free online) to understand some of these concepts more.
I’m far from an expert, but it doesn’t seem to me like you’d get much out of them from ~150F wort passing through for a couple of minutes. For whatever effect they give, it kind of seems like a waste of hops to me. But hey, give it a shot! It might be awesome and you don’t know until you try it.
What you are describing is somewhat similar to mash hopping. That’s when you add the hops to the mash and leave them there with the spent grains when you sparge. I haven’t tried it, mostly because everyone who I’ve listened to who has tried it has agreed it is a waste of hops - you basically get nothing out of it.
Without any time spent above 180 (which is about the threshold for the bittering reaction to occur), I doubt you’ll get anything from your proposed plan. Yes, oils will come out, but those will disappear in the boil.
But if you have some extra hops that you want to use for an experiment, give it a try. You won’t know for certain without doing that.
Thank you very much for your responses. I greatly appreciate it! Actually, I’ve read Palmer’s book which is where I got the idea of FWH in the first place. I was hoping to get the flavor and aroma of hops but not the bitterness, but I guess I missed the point on that. I’ll go back and reread that section. Sounds like you guys would rather skip FWH and save the hops to the end anyway. I thought I read somewhere that tannins can be extracted from hops too, but I have no idea where I read that. Maybe it’s a myth?
I’m not clear as to how you can pump wort slow enough from the MLT to get down to that 1/2 quart per minute maximum that Palmer recommends. I hit 80.2% on my last mash, and I feel I accomplished that with a slower sparge. Do you guys use a variable speed pump or a pump that you can still run with the MLT valve partially closed? I’m on a budget and got a cheap DC pump to start out with. Even this little pump is supposed to pump 2 gallons per minute, still way too fast of a sparge. How do you guys do it? Thanks again for all the advice.
Oh now I understand. Yes, I do continuous sparging. Yes, food grade and can pump liquids up to 212 degrees. Got it off ebay for about $25.00. “12V Solar Hot Water Pump Circulation High Quality Food Grade 212° F w/ Coupler” from AxePrice. The only thing I didn’t like is that it’s coming from China, but they seem legitimate, and it sounds like the pump is certified food safe. I also bought an AC adapter for it. Haven’t received the pump yet, but I’ll let you know how it works out. I bought it because I saw a handful of YouTube videos of home brewers using a very similar DC pump to transfer liquids on brewing day, and I thought this was a great and inexpensive way to save my back! Thanks for the response.
[quote=“brewdvm”]Thank you very much for your responses. I greatly appreciate it! Actually, I’ve read Palmer’s book which is where I got the idea of FWH in the first place. I was hoping to get the flavor and aroma of hops but not the bitterness, but I guess I missed the point on that. I’ll go back and reread that section. Sounds like you guys would rather skip FWH and save the hops to the end anyway. I thought I read somewhere that tannins can be extracted from hops too, but I have no idea where I read that. Maybe it’s a myth?
I’m not clear as to how you can pump wort slow enough from the MLT to get down to that 1/2 quart per minute maximum that Palmer recommends. I hit 80.2% on my last mash, and I feel I accomplished that with a slower sparge. Do you guys use a variable speed pump or a pump that you can still run with the MLT valve partially closed? I’m on a budget and got a cheap DC pump to start out with. Even this little pump is supposed to pump 2 gallons per minute, still way too fast of a sparge. How do you guys do it? Thanks again for all the advice.[/quote]
FWIW, I have FWH a couple hundred batches and never gotten a hit of aroma from it. I do it mainly for the hop flavor. As to sparge speed, I think you’ll fond that most people these days batch sparge so runoff speed isn’t an issue.
Thanks for your reply. I know this is a hops discussion, but I have questions about batch sparging, so I apologize for the tangent. I did batch sparge once, but I often brew with wheat malt, flaked oats and other things sticky. What is the risk of stuck sparges with opening up the valve wide open in batch sparging with non-barley malts, etc? I believe that with batch sparging, a mashout is not done? What's the risk of running a wheat mash at 150 degrees instead of 168? Thanks again.
Thanks for your reply. I know this is a hops discussion, but I have questions about batch sparging, so I apologize for the tangent. I did batch sparge once, but I often brew with wheat malt, flaked oats and other things sticky. What is the risk of stuck sparges with opening up the valve wide open in batch sparging with non-barley malts, etc? I believe that with batch sparging, a mashout is not done? What's the risk of running a wheat mash at 150 degrees instead of 168? Thanks again.[/quote]
I always recommend starting the runoff slowly before opening up the valve. And of course, you don’t have to run off full bore…it’s an advantage, not a requirement. A mashout is not needed for batch sparging, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t do one if you wanted to. I used to, but now I mash with enough water that I don’t need to add any more before the mash runoff, and I sparge with 185-195F water which does pretty much the same thing as a mashout. I’m not sure what you’re asking with “What’s the risk of running a wheat mash at 150 degrees instead of 168?”.
The whole idea of “raise the temperature of the mash to help liquefy better for sparge” is one of those things that seems reasonably when you hear it, but when you think about it further it doesn’t hold up so well. Warm sugar solutions do flow better than cold ones, but hot ones flow just as well as slightly hotter ones. There isn’t so much of a difference in viscosity between a 150F mash and a 170F mash. Or a 125F mash for that matter. And personal experience seems to bear that out.
If your crush is good enough (or you’ve added enough rice hulls) to allow a wheat, rye or adjunct heavy mash drain well at 170, it will drain just as well at 150.
By the way, I typically do a mash out of sorts, but that is because I tend to brew lower alcohol beers and I need to add more liquid before the first runnings to ensure I get somewhere around equal volumes from the runnings.
And it really has to do with the limit of solubility of sugar in water. If you’re not near the limit, the temp of the water makes no difference becasue you can still dissolve more sugar into it. If you’re at or near the limit, hotter water will speed dissolution but won’t necessarily improve it.
OK, this makes a lot more sense now. Thank you. I’m set up with a 38qt cooler MLT and a copper manifold I made myself. I wanted the option of brewing lower gravity beers and still have good grain bed depth although I rarely brew anything less than 1.050. With continuous sparging, I can mash up to 15lbs of grain at a lower water to grist ratio with this cooler. I’m working on a budget, so at some point, I might jump up to a 48qt cooler (maybe with a braid, Denny? ) and go back to batch sparging. This forum is awesome. Thanks to everyone who shared your experience and advice!
I used this DC pump today for a number of tasks while mashing this morning. This pump worked really well to circulate wort for a vorlauf (no more filling 2qt pitchers), transferring wort to the boil kettle and pumping sparge water from the pot to the HLT. The pump is rated at 2 gallons per minute, but at a height of 4 feet, it's about 1.5 gallons per minute which I thought was still pretty good. It is also very quiet. The only draw back is that it is not self-priming, but as long as the pump is lower than the container holding the liquid, it will run very well.
I used this DC pump today for a number of tasks while mashing this morning. This pump worked really well to circulate wort for a vorlauf (no more filling 2qt pitchers), transferring wort to the boil kettle and pumping sparge water from the pot to the HLT. The pump is rated at 2 gallons per minute, but at a height of 4 feet, it's about 1.5 gallons per minute which I thought was still pretty good. It is also very quiet. The only draw back is that it is not self-priming, but as long as the pump is lower than the container holding the liquid, it will run very well.[/quote]
) and go back to batch sparging. This forum is awesome. Thanks to everyone who shared your experience and advice!