Here’s a recipe I’m developing for a ‘lower’ alcohol, huge flavor IPA.
5 lb Crisp MO
4 lb Rahr 2-row
6oz C20
15 minute additions:
1/3 oz each Citra, Galaxy, Centennial & Mosaic
1/2 oz Simcoe
Possible Hop Stand (or I’ll wuss out and do a 5 minute addition):
2/3 oz each Citra, Galaxy, Centennial & Mosaic
Dry Hop:
1 oz each Citra, Galaxy, Centennial, Mosaic & Simcoe
US-05 or equivalent
My question is about the hop stand - if I did it for 30 minutes, wouldn’t my 15 minute addition be more like a 45 minute addition? And the hop stand be like a 30 minute addition? Or is this just a bad idea in the first place?
I’d like to get this right since I’m using some pretty awesome hops and don’t want to waste them on a mediocre batch.
In a word, yes, you should do them, and yes, your late kettle additions will get further isomerization, though the rate falls off as the temperature drops, so it isn’t exactly 30+15 minutes = 45 minutes. Your 15 minute boil addition might be more like a 30 minute addition, and so on…
Although reading through the Ray Daniels pdf may have convinced me to do an 80 minute hop stand and a dry hop… maybe I’ll leave out the Simcoe of the 15 min addition, add the other 4 hops at around 10 minutes left, hop stand for 80 minutes with the 5 hops, then dry hop with the same 5 hops for 3 days.
In general, if you’re looking to really kick up the hop flavor and aroma, I would highly recommend a hop stand. You will get more bitterness, so you may want to move your late additions back by 5-10 minutes.
Unfortunately, there is some trial-and-error for dialing in the right level of hop bitterness for your process & system. A lower-gravity IPA may not be the best choice for your first attempt at calibrating your hop stand bitterness level, especially if you aren’t using a 60-minute addition. A normal-gravity IPA is a little more forgiving if you overshoot your bitterness, especially if you have a good chunk of your IBU’s coming at 60 minutes (early hops shouldn’t be affected to any great extent by a hop stand).
Of course, if you don’t care if you overshoot your bitterness a little bit, then a long hop stand is the way to go (I go for at least 60-80 minutes for IPA’s). Lately I’ve been splitting my flameout hops in half. I add half before my hop stand and half before I start chilling. I can’t say for sure if it makes that big of a difference, but I figure it gives me the best of both worlds.
why not just do a bittering addition (maybe 25-30 IBUs) with something clean - Warrior, Magnum, Apollo etc and then combine your listed 15 and hop stand amounts to do the extended hop stand? that way you would truly get a sense of what a hop stand will do and then you can dial back from that in the future?
What would you consider a ‘normal gravity’ IPA? I should mention I’ve been getting 85-90% efficiency, so that grain bill will be around 6.1%. With beer calculus, this works out to be ~68 IBU? Idk how to calc IBUs in a hop stand - perhaps 18 minutes?
blatz, I considered a 60 minute with something clean, but I don’t want it to be too bitter (okay, I don’t want it to be harsh). I would like something like Lagunitas DayTime, if either of you have had that.
My suggestion would be to first wort hop to 30 IBUs or less of a clean bittering hop. Then do your late/flame out additions. Hop stands are awesome. I believe Stone does this sort of thing for most all their beers, and most of us know how awesome those are.
After adding your flameout hops you let your hops do a hot steep prior to chilling. This really increases hop flavor, but you will get some further hop utilization as well. Typical times range from 30 to 80 minutes.
Gotcha. I think I misread your original email and assumed you were going in the “session” range. It’s hard to judge how a hop stand is going to effect your utilization without experimenting on your system. If you’re in the 6+ percent range, you should be fine just letting it ride. It’s hard to over hop when you’re getting to that range, especially if you’re not bittering with Columbus or Chinook.
Actual measured IBU’s will be different, but the rule of thumb I follow is to treat it like a 20-minute addition. That’s how my brewing software (http://brewersfriend.com) calculates it, and my palate tends to agree with this.
My palate actually disagrees with that - I find if you treat it like a full boil bittering hop but expect it to be smoother and less harsh, you’re good.
Any thoughts on doing a seperate, smaller volume hop steep (in either wort or pre-boiled water), while continuing on with the standard quick chilling, then adding the steeped liquid to the fermenter?
Have also been reading the new IPA book. 1800s IPA brewers would often add the hops from the hopback back into the primary. Was thinking about putting late addition hops in a hop bag, then putting hop bag in fermenter as well. Has anyone tried this (commercial or homebrew), and reported on the results?
It depends on what kind of effect you are going for - different temps will have different effects. So sure, you can cold steep the hops. But it won’t taste the same as doing a hot hop stand, for better or worse.