I’m reading up on the method. Having a hard time coming to a firm conclusion on what works best from standpoint of time, temp, amount, impact on bitterness.
All systems are different, and experimentation is key. But I would like to go in with a little knowledge of what has worked well for others.
Thank you, and cheers!
if you want to minimize the impact on bitterness, but still get all the hop oils and goodness, drop the temp to 180df before adding the whirlpool hops. i prefer this method.
if you can’t or don’t want to do that, i’ve found assuming the whirlpool hops are about a 17min addition for a 30-40 min whirlpool, as the best approximation. of course, you’ll need to add that time/utilization to the hops you added during the regular boil - i.e. if you added hops at 10min, calculate them as 37 min hops. Naturally, the impact on hops added at the beginning of the boil won’t be as great, but be mindful of any late hop additions.
I calculate like Blatz does; for hops added at flame out and a 30 minute stand I estimate the IBU’s like a 15 minute addition. I ignore the extra IBU’s from a 60 min or FWH addition since it is pretty small. Seems to work well enough since my beers are ending up about where I’d expect them for the calculated IBUs.
So I take it you are adding the flameout hops immediately after shutting off the heat. Are you maintaining a certain temp/range during the hop stand? Do you have other hop additions to account for as far as bitterness, or do you just have FWH, 60 and flameout? Thanks.
So I take it you are adding the flameout hops immediately after shutting off the heat. Are you maintaining a certain temp/range during the hop stand? Do you have other hop additions to account for as far as bitterness, or do you just have FWH, 60 and flameout? Thanks.[/quote]
Correct, flameout hops go in right after I turn off the heat. I don’t do anything to control the temp, just turn off the burner, dump in the hops, give it a really good stir, put the lid on and let it sit for 30 minutes. I don’t lose much heat in that time, maybe 10-15 degrees in 30 minutes. My routine for pales, bitters and IPA’s has been to just do FWH, 60 min and flameout thus I don’t have to figure out what is going on with any other additions. I did do a beer earlier this year where the only addition was @ 15 minutes and the suggestion was to figure about an extra 10% IBUs from a hop stand, that seemed to be about right.
I did a drop temp hop stand and I had less than stellar results. YMMV. That said, I tend to agree with the other comments here.
For my IPA’s I prefer a 30 minute covered stand stirred every 5 minutes as the only hop addition but I use a boatload of hops so calculated IBU is off the chart. If you want a bracing bitterness you may need a bittering addition.
Thanks for the responses.
Basically, I have been less than impressed with my results, in obtaining that rich hop flavor/aroma in a good AIPA. I have tried FWH, also with heavy late-hops <15 min., and with dry hops up to 3 oz/5gal. The beers are good, don’t get me wrong… I just want more from the hops.
So I am considering the following:
Total IBU estimate of ~70
O.G. ~1.063
IBU%: 30% FWH / 30% 60min. / 40% Early (hot) 30 min whirlpool (calc @15min)
I am also thinking of adding a cooler step to the whirlpool at say 165-170, with additional hops added, if that means I can halt the bitterness but still get flavor.
My personal hop combo of choice these days is Citra/Simcoe/Amarillo.
Those are some relatively high alpha hops, at least the Citra and Simcoe are above 13%, and the Amarillo is 9%. So I seem challenged to get the hop volume up high enough without overloading the estimated bitterness.
But I also feel compelled to have some bittering hops so that the perceived bitterness to the palate is substantial enough.
I welcome any additional comments…
Oh, and zwiller, your avatar makes me laugh.
Do yourself a favor and try a hopstand without other hot side additions. Plenty of bitterness, just not bracing. Add a dry hop and there you go.
My standard IPA is 12oz hop stand and 4oz dry hop. 2 weeks primary, 1 week dry hop. If I wanted some bracing bitterness, I would do 2oz start of boil, 10oz hop stand, and 4oz dry hop. Make sure you use enough hops. That and gypsum to 300ppm SO4.
First time anyone commented on my avatar. Glad you got it. :cheers:
[quote=“zwiller”]Do yourself a favor and try a hopstand without other hot side additions. Plenty of bitterness, just not bracing. Add a dry hop and there you go.
My standard IPA is 12oz hop stand and 4oz dry hop. 2 weeks primary, 1 week dry hop. If I wanted some bracing bitterness, I would do 2oz start of boil, 10oz hop stand, and 4oz dry hop. Make sure you use enough hops. That and gypsum to 300ppm SO4.
First time anyone commented on my avatar. Glad you got it. :cheers: [/quote]
12 oz hopstand. That sounds outrageous. I assume it must be good, otherwise you wouldn’t recommend it.
What kind of hops did you use? You must not be overly concerned with IBU estimations, because even at just 6% a.a., and at a on O.G. of 1.065 that calculated 88 IBU on Beersmith.
Averaging the three hops I want to use (Cirtra/Simcoe/Amarillo) that would be 12% a.a. if I use equal parts of all three.
I know there are limits to IBU estiamtions but a calculated IBU of 176 seems kind of extreme.
I find it even more interesting, that even still, you imply that the bitterness is not bracing.
I am very intrigued at this idea. But I feel like I need to have a better understanding of what the finished beer will be like. So, if you have any more details you can share regarding your procedure and ingredients, as well as assessment of the finished product, that would be awesome.
Kickboxing. Sport of the future.
I do a few different things depending on what I’m looking for. For IPA’s where I’m looking for full-on bitterness, then I do 60-90 minutes starting right at flameout. I wait until all boiling activity stops, then add my hopstand hops, stir like hell until all the hops are wet/submerged. I’ll give it a quick stir every so often after that. For APA’s I’ll do 30-60 minutes.
For other styles where I want a lot of hop flavor aroma without much added bitterness, I’ll add my hops at flameout then chill to 180F and do my hop stand at that temp. I still get a lot of hop flavor/aroma this way, but without having to worry if my IBU estimate may be way off. That makes a much bigger difference if you are targeting 25 IBU’s than when you’re going for 70+.
The way I calculate it is by adding 1/3 the time of the hop stand to my boil. In other words, if it’s a 60-minute hop stand I’d add 20 minutes to all of my hop additions. I think this variable is something that each brewer has to dial in on their own systems. I get more of a temp drop because I only brew 3 gallon batches in a 5-gallon kettle.
I use Brewer’s Friend for my brewing software, and they have a function for No Chill brewers to estimate additional hop utilization by entering an extended boil time. This gets me in a decent ballpark for my brews.
[quote=“Steeler D”][quote=“zwiller”]Do yourself a favor and try a hopstand without other hot side additions. Plenty of bitterness, just not bracing. Add a dry hop and there you go.
My standard IPA is 12oz hop stand and 4oz dry hop. 2 weeks primary, 1 week dry hop. If I wanted some bracing bitterness, I would do 2oz start of boil, 10oz hop stand, and 4oz dry hop. Make sure you use enough hops. That and gypsum to 300ppm SO4.
First time anyone commented on my avatar. Glad you got it. :cheers: [/quote]
12 oz hopstand. That sounds outrageous. I assume it must be good, otherwise you wouldn’t recommend it.
What kind of hops did you use? You must not be overly concerned with IBU estimations, because even at just 6% a.a., and at a on O.G. of 1.065 that calculated 88 IBU on Beersmith.
Averaging the three hops I want to use (Cirtra/Simcoe/Amarillo) that would be 12% a.a. if I use equal parts of all three.
I know there are limits to IBU estiamtions but a calculated IBU of 176 seems kind of extreme.
I find it even more interesting, that even still, you imply that the bitterness is not bracing.
I am very intrigued at this idea. But I feel like I need to have a better understanding of what the finished beer will be like. So, if you have any more details you can share regarding your procedure and ingredients, as well as assessment of the finished product, that would be awesome.
Kickboxing. Sport of the future.[/quote]
Go big or go home. Seriously, if you want an world class IPA you ain’t gonna pull it off with 4oz hops… There are pro brewers using twice as much as me. Steele’s IPA confirms this.
Last few I’ve been cleaning the freezer/blending but use primarily high alpha low coho hops. I’ve been having some success with adding some high coho hops as well (Chinook). Yes IBU calcs are off the chart. Last IPA was over 300 IBU estimated as a 15 minute addition. Yes the bitterness is not bracing. Sure it’s bitter and BMC drinkers will wince, but it is not course/rough/lingering/whatever to an IPA drinker. Some guys dig that though. I don’t.
I had a long thread going for a while
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111338&hilit=hop+stand+only
+1 tro zwiller’s comment
granted it was a big Imperial IPA, but I just used 33oz of hops (including the dryhop) for 12gallons last weekend.
my regular house IPA uses 18oz for 12gallons.
if you read Steele’s book and start doing some research on hopping rates that the really stellar IPA brewers are using (Stone, Firestone Walker, Russian River), you’ll find that chintzing on the hops is not the way to go if you want to get that massive hop flavor and aroma. 3-5# per beer barrel is not unusual, and that translates to 7.5-12.5oz per 5 gallon batch.
Ok then. I’m gonna do it.
I’m considering doing a FWH addition first but tell me if I just need to put my big-boy pants on and go full-on hopstand.
My thought was that FWH gives the palate less bitterness than the measured IBU. And that what with alpha acid solubility limitation theoretically limiting IBU levels to something like 100, I might hedge my bet in making sure I don’t end up too bitter if I do a FWH.
By my math, a FWH to a perceived level of 27 IBU should actually measure somewhere near 50 IBU in a lab. (20 minute calc for perceived / 60 minute plus 10% for measured)
I could then “sacrifice” that extra ~23 IBU off the top of the theoretical max of approx 100, and I might hope that if I flood the beer with an enormous hopstand I might not exceed a perceived bitterness level in the high 70’s???
Then again, when you give a moron a calculator you never know what crazy sh!t he will come up with. So I might very well be over thinking or just plain wrong about this.
