Can someone help me understand exactly what the designation (whirlpool 10 min) means? I see this on Amahl Turczyn’s recent Zymurgy Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin Clone recipe.
Does the “10 minute” designation refer to the length of the whirlpool, or a time delay after starting the whirlpool?
I find articles suggesting different approaches for homebrewers with respect to whirlpool hop additions, including maintaining a flame on but lowering the wort temperature to around 200 degrees, and some suggesting much lower temperatures.
My standard practice has been to start my chiller soon after flameout and to use a spoon to whirlpool as a means to get the wort to cool faster.
My assumption for this recipe is that I should add the whirlpool hops at the beginning of the whirlpool and maintain the whirlpool for 10 minutes before chilling.
Welcome to the forum. You are right that there are many ways to do this and you should try out different things to see what you like, but typically a whirlpool occurs at flame out prior to chilling. The 10 minutes noted would be the length of the stand (I.e., the “rest” at that temp).
Yeah, if the recipe said to whirlpool for 10 minutes without a temperature, it’s incomplete. I would take that to mean tossing in the hops at flame-out and waiting 10 minutes before starting to chill. The problem with doing that alone is that you’ll still be pulling significant bitterness and losing the aroma/flavor you’d get with a lower temperature whirlpool.
Many brewers have been bringing the whirlpool temp down to about 175° first, adding the hops and leaving them in the whirpool for 10 minutes (also called a ‘hopstand’, I believe) and then continuing the chill after that. But I agree… without a little more detail, the information is not complete.
Not an expert, but I think that whirlpooling can be done can be done with or without hops. Whereas, like it says, a hop stand needs hops and can be done with or without whirlpooling (using a pump or any other method to create the whirlpool).
Whirlpool hopping has the advantage of keeping the hops in suspension and extracting more of the flavor and aroma and can even be done with a spoon. Even if you’re not whirlpooling, the stand part of hopstand, is the length of time you hold a temperature.
Very possible and thanks for the clarification. I am not a hophead although I do love my pale ales. I have been in the habit of adding hops during the last 5 minutes, adding a flameout, putting the lid on and just letting the hops “steep” and also chilling to 175°, adding hops, stirring with an SS spoon and eventually continuing the chill. People who are more inclined to be hopheads have a lot of terminology and gadgets to get their IPAs where they want them.
IMO 10m is a rather short WP for IPA. Probably the shortest I’ve seen actually. I would be worried 10m at 175 might be barely be detectable. I usually do 30m hot. I did 15m hot but was really subdued.
Depends on the temps you mean. I do mine in the 170-175F range for the most part. As for the lower 120F stand some guys are doing, I haven’t done one yet but plan to on an upcoming APA. From what I’ve read and brewers I’ve talked to, a longer stand @ 120F is likely beneficial as extraction of compounds can take longer as temps go down (think dry hopping). Regardless of temp, I like longer for IPA, shorter for APA.
Gotcha. Truthfully I settled at 170ish mostly because it’s cool enough not to add extra bitterness. I didn’t see a lot of difference in extraction time between flameout and 170F.
This is to be a clone of a commercial beer. Does anyone know a commercial brewery that has a chiller between the kettle and whirlpool? I don’t, but it could be done.
So I think the 10 minutes at high temp could be fine for cloning this beer, but maybe a little short.
Touche’. This is also the reason I stick to higher temps. They could transfer to another vessel (dedicated WP) and that could drop the temp maybe. Who cares, adding fruit to an IPA is sacrilege anyway… ;D
Yes it will drop the temperature, but a 100 bbls (use your favorite breweries kettle size here) of recently boiling wort into a whirlpool will drop it a little, but would guess not <200 F.
Isn’t keeping hop material out of the heat exchanger the original purpose of a the whirlpool? So, I don’t think many would want to chill ahead of the whirlpool unless they use something closer to what we consider a counterflow chiller vs a plate chiller.
Honestly, I don’t know, interesting stuff. I have also wondered if they run the WP for some time prior to adding any hops. To me, it’s less about exactly how to do it and more about the concept getting the majority of your IBU from the WP rather than boil.
To me, it just illustrates how we can have the flexibility at home to do it our way, and not feel limited by procedures that breweries do because they have to. For me, it’s about getting all of my target IBUs at 60 mins, but loading the pot with hops @ 170F to get a s#!*ton of flavor and aroma with little or no extra bitterness. Doing it your own way rocks.