Hi all. I personally have only ever done the typical Bittering/aroma additions to the boil but I’m brewing an American Amber tomorrow with 34 IBU’s and was looking to try something different. I’m bittering with Chinook and using Cascade and Willamette aroma hops. My recipe calls for a 60 minute addition of the Chinook and a 10 minutes hop stand of the aroma. I’m thinking about trying the FWH with all of the Chinook and doing the hop stand with the aroma. I’ve read that some people do 30% FWH of ALL hops including aroma while others do some or all of just the bittering hops. I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the pros or cons of this approach.
I’m not familiar enough with chinook to speak to it as a FWH option. You will get a decent amount of flavor out of a FWH so that’s something to think about in terms of which hops you use for that addition.
When i make an IPA I do a FWH, 60 minute, and flameout/steep/hop stand. I use the same hops throughout although I will sometimes use some high alpha neutral hops at the 60 minute point. I get lot’s of flavour and aroma from both the FWH and hop stand.
Chinook makes a great FWH. That said, I don’t consider FWH to be a substitute for a bittering addition. To me, it’s another way of doing what would be a 20 minute-ish flavor addition.
I’ve done all FWH and Whirlpool for an IPA before. I liked it - lots of hop flavor and aroma (dryhopped too though which is a different variable) but it did have a softer bitterness, and I like more bite in American style ales.
that said, i do FWH/Whirlpool only, using the bittering charge as FWH on a lot of my german lagers now and it lands me right exactly where I want to be.
I feel an experiment coming on! I’ll have to brew this one time with 30% of my bittering hops as a FWH and then brew another batch using all of the bittering as a FWH, then compare. I’m hopelessly hooked on brewing… Damn good thing.
I agree with Denny. You do get bitterness out of the FWH but it isn’t the perceivable bitterness you get out of an early boil addition. It’s a great technique paired with a bittering charge but I wouldn’t rely on the FWH for all the bittering in any beer that needs noticeable bitterness.