Is there any good reason to boil hops between 60 and 20 min? Seems like it wastes IBUs on one end and flavor on the other?
My thoughts exactly. I desire always to put hops either at the beginning of the boil, or the very end like in the last 5 minutes. Anything else means that the recipe formulator either subscribes to ancient Papazianisms that aren’t necessary (“flavor additions happen at 15-30 minutes” or whatever), or couldn’t make up their mind if they wanted flavor & aroma or bitterness. Late additions give you both flavor and aroma, regardless of whether boiled for 20 minutes, 15, 10, 5, 2, or zero. Even bittering additions actually give you some flavor, but much of it is boiled away. I make fine lagers with just bittering additions that taste spicy from the Hallertau used as the bittering hops. If you want subtle hop flavor in any recipe, consider whether you need any late additions at all. Play around with it. But you’re right. Anything 20 minutes or longer is doing a little bit of both bittering and flavor, which is kind of silly when you can just pick one or the other. If you want both, then skip all the middlemen and do additions both at the beginning and the end of the boil.
No good reason IMO. I bitter @ 60 and/or FWH and get flavor/aroma in the last 15 mins (or whirlpool/hopstand on hoppy beers).
I have gone to only 3 hop additions on my hoppy beers. FWH for bittering. Flameout/Whirlpool for flavor. Dry/Keg Hop for aroma. Staged additions are more trouble than they’re worth, IMO.
These days, I usually do FWH, 60 min., 1 min. and dry hops. But some of my best recipes, like my Rye IPA, have 30 min. additions. I’ve tried it without that and it just doesn’t come out right. So I say “never say never”. Try things, assess if they work for you and do what seems to make the beer you want to have.
Did you objectively identify the non 30 min addition beer (or vise versa) with a triangle test?
+1. We dont need no stinking boil additions! FWH and Whirpool only
Nope. I know that beer so well that it wasn’t necessary.
I agree. These days, my hop additions are almost always a small bittering addition (usually FWH, sometimes 60 min), a small 10 minute addition, a decently sized flameout addition, and a massive dry hop.
Right now I’m at 60-min and whirlpool for everything. I have been toying with replacing dry hops by moving my whirlpool down to 120F. I’m not sold on it yet as a dry-hop replacement for every beer, but it’s close enough for me often enough.
I will be brewing a 120F whirlpool-only (no boil hops) beer in the next few months. I’ll probably send that one to a lab for IBU analysis.
I just sent my most recent IPA to the lab for ABV and IBU. I’ve never done this before and I’m very interested to find out the true values versus what BeerSmith says. Especially since I whirlpool at 175 for 30 minutes. I should probably make the same beer without the whirlpool and send that too and compare.
Sorry, old post
There are always soo many opinion out there especially with hops.
Depends on what you want out of the hops and your beer.
Never say never as Denny said. Listen to the Denny
Have fun
your beer WILL be delicious.