I’ve been looking into concrete info on how these compare, but haven’t found precisely what I’m looking for.
How does moving say 2 oz of hops from a flavoring addition to a whirlpool compare in flavor addition? And how does it compare vs an aroma or dry hop addition? And what of the duration it is present before it noticeably declines?
Based on some testing, I’d guess that’s becasue there isn’t any concrete info.
Its Liquid info!
My personal view only…
All additions produce bitterness flavor and aroma, if they are above isomerization temp. Below that they all produce flavor and aroma. Various factors can impact the contribution, and various factors can subsequently diminish the contribution.
There’s nothing concrete.
If you’re trying to achieve bitterness without much flavor or aroma, 60min or FWH is great
If you’re trying for full flavor and some aroma, I like the 170F whirlpool for 30 min.
If you’re trying for full aroma and flavor, I like 170F whirlpool for 30, and 120F for 15 min, and dry hop
Lots of aroma with minimum flavor, dry hop only.
I spent some time looking for academic papers on this and never found anything. But this is a good time to mention again that the Journal of the Institute of Brewing is free to access, except for the last 12 months.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2050-0416
I agree with all of this. I’m never locked into anything, but that’s the mindset I use, too. I may give the 120F stand a whirl soon, maybe some other temps too. It’s all about trying something new vs something I use and like, to see if I like it better.
I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that the term flavor as used in brewing is a bogus concept. What you sense in the mouth is taste; what you sense in the nose is aroma. That covers everything - there is no third sense of flavor.
How do you define the difference between taste and flavor?
Ok I give - what 3rd sense of flavor are you talking about ? I, for one, am talking about varying degrees of flavor and aroma.
edit - I assume you don’t see taste and flavor as the same? Semantics to me.
Except that taste is rarely perceived in a vacuum. Maybe this is more of a semantic issue than anything else, but I consider what I smell when I stick my nose in the glass to be aroma and the sensory experience when I take a sip to be flavor. It’s futile to try to isolate only what the tongue experiences unless you are truly anosmic.
yeah to me flavor is an adjective for what your senses perceive-and smell and taste work together to form these sensory perceptions.
+1
I just listened to a podcast with a guy that specializes in flavor and taste. He said that academically, taste is tongue alone and flavor is tongue coupled with “retrograde olfaction”, smelling through your mouth. There was more to it as well, but I can’t remember. The podcast was completely unrelated, it was just the guys profession and he talked about it for a few minutes.
I don’t expect there to ever be much academic info on these techniques. Much of the academic driven research at a university is going to favor commercial techniques over homebrewing techniques. Maybe the AHA should purchase a gas chormograph so these techniques can get some hard data behind them.
And I’ve read some say that our vision plays a role as well as it works with the other senses of taste and smell.
When I say aroma, I mean nose only. When I say flavor I assume people will understand that includes both taste buds and retro nasal whatever, and if they dont… probably they still know what I mean by flavor.
So, you can have a beer with hop bitternes and extremely minimal flavor or aroma. You can have a beer with very little bitterness and lots of hop flavor but no aroma. And you can have a beer with minimal bitterness, moderate flavor, and lots of aroma. And almost any combo of these.
We also run into the issue of defining this depending on style. For instance, people will try a glass of Munich Helles that only had a half ounce of Magum at 60 minutes, and was gell fined, and say “Way too much hop aroma.” The same person will try a Pale Ale that had 4 ounces at a 170 whirlpool, and gell fined, and will say “No aroma, the gell fining stripped it all.”
At last year’s BSG Humulus U a professor of taste/flavor perception took us through some very interesting exercises. The most dramatic was with cocoa nibs. She had us put some in our mouth and chew/taste with our nose pinched shut. Almost no flavor, mainly texture. If I didn’t know it was cocoa nibs I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have guessed correctly. Then after a short bit she had us let go of our nose. Chocolate!
Very instructive, and a fun exercise for those who doubt the role of smell in taste.
And FWIW I realize that smell and taste are connected in terms of how something tastes to us. But in terms of brewing beer, we still break hop character down into flavor and aroma, bitterness aside. Close enough for me.
+1
I was simply passing along how the terms are defined in an academic sense since somebody mentioned semantics.
Pertinent to discussion and good info Steve.