Effect of bagging your hops in the boil...

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Hey all,

I have a boil kettle without any sort of false bottom or screen to the out spigot.  I use a Therminator wort chiller and want to keep the chunkies out of the chiller.  I have been using a large nylon bag to put my hops in over the last year or so.  This seems to work, but I am wondering if this is affecting my process at all.  Do I need to change my alpha acid numbers to account for the bag?  Also when I add Whirlfloc or Irish Moss to the last 15 minutes of the boil, I get a coating on the bag…will this affect my aroma hop additions?

Thanks for your input!

–Eric Wentling

2

I use bags for whole hops, too.  The ROT is that they reduce your utilization by about 10%, so I just increase the IBU by that amount.

3

+1

I do the same thing. Works fine.

4

Thanks for asking this question. Now I know why my last beer seems less well-hopped than I expected.

5

How big of a bag?  something like this I wouldn’t think would change the utilization all that much:

http://www.bayareamashers.org/gadgets/Hop%20bag%20holder.pdf

6

Thanks for the quick info guys!  I think I’ll work on one of those bag holders…that looks sweet!

7

I used one of the bag designs in the link for the past year.  I have noticed my hop utilization seems lower than it used to.

I didn’t use it for the the last few beers I’ve made to see if it is really making a difference.  I haven’t tasted the finished product yet so I can’t say.

Paul