Question for those of you who’ve gone from making a hoppy beer in the traditional way, to using whirlpool or hop stand hopping----does anyone not like the taste effect and go back to the “traditional” way of adding hops at 20, 15, 10, five minutes etc. Is there some complexity that is lost when you hop stand?
Just interested, i’m getting ready to do my first IPAA using my new whirlpool set up.
Not to me, or I wouldn’t keep doing it. I think it’s better, if anything.
I hop at FWH, 60, 10, 0, and dry hop… I love this schedule and I love the hopstand!
I have recently been doing 60, 10, 0, hopstand @ ~150F for 30 min, and dry hop for hoppy beers. I am more conservative than most with amounts but have liked the results. I need a couple more batches under my belt though…
Just about all my beers are just a 60-minute addition and a hopstand addition for my kettle hops. The 60 minute addition controls my bitterness, my hopstand controls my flavor and some aroma, then dry hops are primarily aroma with a small amount of flavor.
I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything by moving to this approach. I feel like I’ve gained more control, and I can now put a lot more hop flavor in my beers than I was ever able to get using traditional late boil hops.
^^^^. Totally agree. Lately I’ve been 60 min + 170F hop stand + dry hop, with all the late hops moved to the stand. I like these beers better than most any hoppy beers I’ve made.
How do you decide on how much bittering hops to use? Can you give me an example with IBU amounts? I have been wanting to try this but am afraid to get most of my IBUs from the bittering addition. I am worried that it will come off as too bitter. I know I shouldn’t worry too much about how many IBUs but I need some frame of reference.
I usually use bittering hops to get about 50% of my total IBUs for a hoppy beer.
If I’m shooting for a specific amount of IBU’s (something like an APA, for example), then I’ll get all of my IBU’s from the 60-minute addition, then chill to about 175 or so and add my hop stand hops. You can adjust the coarseness/smoothness of the bitterness by choosing an appropriate hop variety.
For a full-bore IPA, I skip the 60-minute addition and do my hop stand right at flameout. I use a massive amount of hops, so this is well over 100 IBU’s. But the bitterness is still pretty smooth at this level of hopping when they’re all flameout hops.
I add ~ 35-40 IBUs @ 60 for APA, ~ 48-50 IBUs @ 60 for IPA.
Thanks guys. I will need to give this a try possibly on my next pale ale attempt.
Right now
Chinook 60 min
Cascade 10 min
Palisade hopstand
Chinook, Cascade, Palisade dry hop
Maybe just push the cascade to hopstand and make up the lost IBUs by increasing the Chinook. Thanks! Sorry to hijack…
just brewed a hoppy session ale this weekend as a last minute modification from a IIPA attempt. I moved the FWH to 15 minutes. It’s a new experiement for me so I’ll report back on the effects in a few days.
so jon - you’re putting almost all your IBUs in at 60, given that you drop the hopstand to 170df first? just trying to clarify.
I still add some in between 20 to 10 min left to go, but I’ve never tried bittering + hopstand only to compare.
edit: oops I see you did clarify that. however, if you dropped to 170 before adding the whirlpool hops, how are you getting more than the 48-50?
Paul, it’s a work in progress. Numbers wise I’m definitely undershooting IBUs though I don’t doubt that maybe a few are extracted @ 170F (don’t notice it though). But I perceive the IBUs as a lot higher than the numbers suggest. And on the last IPA I did (50 IBU @ 60) I only used 6 or 7 oz of C40 and used a lot of gypsum, so the dry finish and lack of excess caramel sweetness brought it into balance (to me). I used 8 oz of hops @ 170F for 40 minutes and dry hopped 5 oz, so the hop presence was huge. But dialing up the bitterness a notch at a time is on the table. I just wanted to start with a nominal bittering charge and figure out what varying the amount and time frame on the stand brings to the party as well. Results have been great though.
I use a hop stand for hop forward beers and I like the results. I don’t necessarily think it’s adding something; instead, I think chilling too fast wastes late hops. Recipes with 10 minute, 5 minute and knockout hops come from commercial brewing, where you’ll be whirlpooling and then transferring for at least an hour.
I don’t think the hop stand is a replacement for dry hopping, nor for bittering hops. In fact, I’ll usually still have multiple additions throughout the boil. I know all late hopping, extra fresh beers are the rage right now, but I think multiple additions add more complexity, bitterness, and stability due to the isomerization of the alpha and beta acids.
I also don’t chill at all before the hop stand. I’d prefer to keep my beer as hot as possible before chilling and pitching. At homebrew scale, cooling happens naturally and pretty quickly. You may be able to get more dry hop like aromas from a lower temperature, but I’m going to dry hop too.
It seems to me like the hop stand is a valuable tool, but people are trying to make it the only tool in the shed. I find that it’s a good addition for homebrewing the traditional Pliny clone recipe, but I prefer that one to the late hop only beers.
Definitely not the only tool in my shed. I’m liking the 60 min + hop stand + dry hop approach especially for hoppy American styles. As for all late hopped beers I don’t do too many of them, though I did do a nice all late hopped cream ale this year. But I look at every style differently depending on what I’m looking to achieve. All things equal, I do like the first approach best for hoppy styles though.
+1; the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Most of my hoppy beers - heck, most hoppy beers in general - use both late boil and whirlpool additions.
I have been moving away from “mid boil” additions in the 45-15 minute range. I generally will FWH and then nothing until the end. Then it kind of depends on what I am going for.
Bigger IPA or DIPA = FWH + 5-10min. + Flameout/Hopstand + Dry Hop
Pale Ale/“session” or smaller IPA = FWH +Flameout/Hopstand + Dry Hop
I find if I want a little more assertive bitterness, I still like a little more contact time at boiling for those later additions.
Also, I think those late (5-10 minute) additions are a decent way to maybe mimic what a commercial brewery is really doing. If a commercial brewery talks about a “flameout” type addition - those hops may be sitting at over 200 degrees for a fair amount of time. In homebrewing, with temps dropping quicker due to small batch size, it is harder to get the effect of a commercial scale hopstand.
In my sub 1.050 beers, where I want pronounced hop presence without a bitterness that overpowers the lower malt bill - I will cut back on FWH and then do everything else at flameout/hopstand/dry hop.
I have been very happy with the improvement of my APA/IPA/DIPA beers in the last year - and I think my changes in hopping are a big part of that.