# Beat The Hop Shortage With No-chill.



## Thirsty Boy (14/5/08)

I've been thinking - 

A while ago I ran a test on my new hop/trub filter. I wanted to see if it would clog up under brew conditions, but I didn't want to waste a whole brewday's worth of effort to find out. So what I did was heat up 25L of water to about 95, stir in a couple of hundred grams of old POR hop pellets I had lying around, let it sit for a few minutes so the hops would re-hydrate, then drain it out through the filter.

The test was a success and my filter handled the load as well as I wanted. All good.

But I also wanted to make sure that I would not be transferring any "plastic" flavours to my brew by running it through the plastic filter housing. So I saved 500ml of the filtered liquid for tasting once it had cooled. It was (thankfully) lacking in plastic flavours, very very hoppy and (finally getting to the topic) very very bitter.

This surprised me a little, I was expecting bitter, but not the intensity I encountered. Remember, these hops had never been boiled, only steeped in 95C water, and not for very long at that. 10mins max of soaking before I started to run it through the filter, and it was all through in maybe 15-30minutes.... So these pellets had a _maximum_ of 40mins contact with hot water and no boiling... yet I patently got a significant amount of utilisation of the alpha acids.

It didn't strike me as much until the last couple of days, when I was contemplating the hop shortage and how you could try and save hops. So here's my idea (of course someone has probably already talked about it, so I apologise in advance if this is the case)

*Assumptions*  - really they are. I'm speculating about what might be the case if they are true.

If you put hops into a no-chill cube and seal it up - all the aroma compounds and all the flavour compounds that normally get "boiled" off, are trapped and must therefore still be in the wort after it has cooled.
Given my experience described above. Hops put directly into the cube will steep in very hot wort till it cools - and this will result in significant isomerisation of the alpha acids. I'm going to have a stab in the dark and say that the *utilisation is equivalent to that which you would get from a 30min boil*
*Conclusions*

By adding ALL your hops to the NC cube and NONE to the kettle - you could effectively combine the aroma, flavour and bittering kettle additions into one smaller addition in the cube
*An Example* - with numbers to make it real

Take a 20L batch of APA - roughly 1.050with a 4.5kg gran bill. We want it pretty bitter and with intense hop flavours and aromas

so a _normal hop schedule_ would be (using cascade pellets at 6%AA)

25g @90min
40g @10min
40g @Flame Out

for a total of 34.4IBU using *105g of hops in total.*

_Using the NC hopping schedule_ we would need to get the equivalent IBUs from a 30min addition

so 34.4IBUs in that wort would need [email protected] - *thats only 70g in total*

Remember we have assumed that cube hopping retains all the flavour and aroma compounds - so, this means that with 70g of hops we are achieving the bitterness we want and we are actually getting the equivalent of a 70g flavour addition & a 70g aroma addition.

So - just as much bitterness, more flavour and more aroma - all with only 2/3rds of the hops

Sounds bloody good to me!!

I wonder how true it might be??

Thirsty


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## mje1980 (14/5/08)

Interesting idea mate. Let us know how it goes.


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## Ross (14/5/08)

Will be an interesting experiment TB,

Personally i think you'll find it way under bittered once you use sweet wort rather than water. I do plenty of beers with fairly large late/flame out additions, which are then steeped for 30 mins & then cooled for another 30mins & they do not appear to gain any appreciable bitterness. Also, from peoples reports I've read on this forum, when they've poured hot wort onto hop additions in the cube, they've been dissapointed with the aroma profile.

Will be keen to hear how you go though; & nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of Isohop if necessary.

cheers Ross


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## troydo (14/5/08)

I no chill all my brews, one brew turned out extremely bitter, and the only thing i can think of is that it was the first time i used flowers and ALOT of them ended up in the cube... so i think your plan has legs....


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## Cortez The Killer (14/5/08)

I often put about 20g odd of hops into the cube instead of late additions - I can't say that I've really noticed any heightened bitterness

Cheers


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## SpillsMostOfIt (14/5/08)

Someone once advised me to add some hops to the NCCube to enhance aroma, which I did. One Trust Point deducted from their score - it just made it more bitter.

When we did our Big Brew with the Pebble Bed Mash Tun, we First Wort Hopped by adding the hops to the kettle before we commenced the sparging operation. The liquor was quite bitter before we even lit the kettles, adding credence to the concept.

If only there was a way to test this idea... :huh:


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## ~MikE (14/5/08)

i think you'd have a better chance using a pressure cooker to save the flavour and aroma from bittering hops.


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## Sammus (14/5/08)

I think boiling the bittering hops is fairly important, as you drive of certain undesirable compounds in the boil. Maybe you can add a little bitterness by adding a plug or two to the cube, but I think if all your bitterness was done that way you'd have a pretty mediocre result.

That said, I'm not expert and am still curious to see how it goes...


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## kevnlis (14/5/08)

If you add the hops to the cube, once it has been filled with wort, then cap it ASAP, how will you lose the oils? They have no way to evaporate.

I have always wondered at what temperature hops stop isomerising. Never found it in any of my readings. Anyone know?


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## warrenlw63 (14/5/08)

I've added them to the NC cube on several occasions. To be honest I've been underwhelmed in terms of aroma. My highly un-educated guess would be that the effect is more in keeping with a regular flavour hop (say 15 mins from flameout) addition rather than a proper aroma addition you would normally have encountered had you have chilled the wort etc.

From here on if I were looking for better hop aroma rather than wasting twice the amount in the cube I'd rather use half the amount as a dry hop when primary fermentation has subsided.

To me it's still the number one drawback of NC brewing. <_< Capturing that great hop aroma that a flameout addition affords you when chilling the wort via normal practices.

Warren -


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## kram (14/5/08)

kevnlis said:


> If you add the hops to the cube, once it has been filled with wort, then cap it ASAP, how will you lose the oils? They have no way to evaporate.
> 
> I have always wondered at what temperature hops stop isomerising. Never found it in any of my readings. Anyone know?


I'll try and find the link when I get home, but I recall reading it was *70*.


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## Adamt (14/5/08)

The thing I am concerned with for this logic is the assumption which you rightly highlighted, especially considering this "stab in the dark" is the base for the argument. How long does it take for a no-chill cube to cool? I've got some data on isomerisation kinetics which may be able to at least shed light on the IBU issue.


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## Adamt (14/5/08)

kram said:


> I'll try and find the link when I get home, but I recall reading it was *70*.



There is no real lower limit, it's just a lot slower at lower temperatures.


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## mfdes (14/5/08)

When we talk about hop oils evaporating, that is not the only thing that happens to them explaining why we lose the aroma. Hop aromatic oils are being chemically changed the moment they hit the hot wort. These chemical changes alter the flavour and aroma, explaining in part why wet hopped beers taste so different to dry hopped ones, and why hops in contact with hot wort for longer have more flavour and less aroma. The aroma compounds are also largely responsible for what we call flavour. They are just different chemicals that are being converted over boil / soak time.
Do remember that strictly speaking beer only has 4 flavours, like everything else: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Everything else is aroma.

MFS.


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## lagers44 (14/5/08)

Hi Thirsty

I came across this article ages ago which sheds some light on the subject , but also unfortunately pokes some holes in your theory but then it does go on about late hopping not necessarily for cubes.

http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm


Lagers


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## Thirsty Boy (14/5/08)

Adamt said:


> The thing I am concerned with for this logic is the assumption which you rightly highlighted, especially considering this "stab in the dark" is the base for the argument. How long does it take for a no-chill cube to cool? I've got some data on isomerisation kinetics which may be able to at least shed light on the IBU issue.




Yeah - it genuinely was a stab i the dark. But I am confident that there would be "considerble" isomerisation. Those cubes stay hot for a long time and as you said, there isn't really a lower limit, its just a speed thing. I was listening to a pro-brewer talk the other week (either the BNB or BBR) and he was absolutely convinced that there was perceptable bitterness added to his brews even from dry hop additions and certainly from late hop additions.

Actually, from the article that *Lagers44* just linked to Matt Brynildson (Firestone Walker) Talks about whirlpool hopping, which is about as close to cube hopping as you are going to find in more traditional brewing - "Brynildson goes on to say, American Craft Brewers practice a number of different methods of late hopping, with one very popular method being whirlpool hopping. This is a bit of a fusion between traditional late hopping and hopback methods. Adding hops late in the whirlpool results in lower isomerization of alpha acids and good uptake of hop oils and flavor components (especially with pellet hops). The fact that there is some isomerization (about 15% in whirlpool versus 35% in the kettle) of alpha acid means that not only hop aroma and hop flavor can be achieved, but also some bittering. - So if you look at a whirpool addition as being able to achieve only slightly less than half the isomerisation of a kettle addition (ie the 15% vs 35% figures from the quote) then a guess at a 30min addition doesn't look too bad. After all, most whirlpool rests only last for 10minutes plus whatever time the transfer takes. So if you can get almost half as much isomerisation out 30mins in the whirpool as you get out of a "bittering" addition, then I think the much longer contact time you have in an NC cube would have to get somewhere near the 30min addition mark...... admittedly still speculation though.

Maybe one reason why people don't get an increase in bitterness from Cube hopping is that people most frequently "cube hop" with a low alpha hop?? and there just isn't that much alpha acid to convert? probably not though.

*Lagers44 *- which bits of that article poke holes in the theory? I actually found it reasonably supportive of the idea. Not that I care if it gets holes poked in it, I'm just thinking in public on this topic, happy to be wrong. I just got the opposite out of that article is all.

*Mfdes* - your point is the one that is where the whole thing falls down a little. As *Warrenlw63* and others have also pointed out, there doesn't seem to be that great a preservation of flavour and aroma from late (or cube) additions in NC beers (Although Warren did miss the point a little with "rather than waste twice as much in the cube" Remember, the object of this post is to _save_ hops by combining the bittering/flavour/aroma additions into one and simply to avoid the "boiling off" effect that means you lose stuff from earlier additions. The idea is to force the hops to do double and maybe triple duty. Thusly while you might have to put in twice as many "aroma" hops for the same effect... they are also your flavour hops AND your bittering hops, so you have a Net saving.)

*Mfdes* - Your post more or less tells us why the Cube additions aren't so effective. Although I'm not convinced you are 100% right. There certainly are volatile aroma compounds that do evaporate away - every bit of hoppy goodness you smell when you dump your hops in the kettle is hoppy goodness that isn't making it into your beer. Trapping those compounds has to do _something_. But of course you are mostly right about the conversion of compounds leading to the difference between "flavour" and "aroma" additions. 

I just wonder what the effect of putting ALL the hops in the cube would be? I'm certain that with a little number juggling, the bitterness thing is a technicality that could be compensated for - perhaps the sheer volume of hops into the cube in a "cube hopping only" beer would go some way to compensating for the changes in the aroma and flavour compounds. Its not going to be the "same" as a late hop addition, but maybe its a method that can be adapted to give the same sort of results.

One of the interesting things I have seen come out of the response to my idea so far, is that any flavour and especially aroma additions you might put into a No-Chilled beer, are effectively useless. If putting them directly in the cube is pointless - then putting them in the wort and then transferring that to a cube is no different. So you might as well leave them in the fridge and save some dollars?? If nothing else thats a concept thats worth thinking about.

Anyway - like I said, I'm just thinking in public. Not really all that fussed one way or another. I'm more or less over hoppy beers and I get the large proportion of my hops for free. So the hop shortage is something that happens to other people. One of these days I might conduct a split boil experiment and compare say a wort with 35IBUs worth of 60min addition to a beer with my guess at 35IBUs worth of NC cube addition.Just to see what the difference in bitterness flavour and aroma are.

Till then I leave it int he hands of those of you who are into the hoppy beers and have to pay for the hops to make them happen. Just tryin' to give you some options to play with.

Thirsty


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## lagers44 (14/5/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> *Lagers44 *- which bits of that article poke holes in the theory? I actually found it reasonably supportive of the idea. Not that I care if it gets holes poked in it, I'm just thinking in public on this topic, happy to be wrong. I just got the opposite out of that article is all.
> 
> Thirsty



Hi Thirsty

The hole poking refers to the idea that you can use less hops at the end of the boil to impart flavour/aroma & bitterness for cubes. In fact it states that you need lots more hops to achieve this at the end of the process , so it's no way to beat the hop shortage.

Maybe i've read or misinterprated both articles , but thats the imformation I gleened.

Lagers


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## Dave86 (14/5/08)

One way to beat the hop shortage is to buy some standard plugs from Neville at gryphon brewing. $26 for half a kilo! Just got some EKG, saaz and cascade from neville here so I should be right for most styles for a while  Just got to wait for some others to turn up from Ross and I should be right! 

Yes, I am affliated, they sponsor this site!


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## Kai (14/5/08)

I've been adding hops to cubes of hot wort ever since I first forgot to put a flavour addition into the kettle a couple years ago. I get good hop flavour from it and calculate the bittering as a 5-10 minute addition depending on which way the wind is blowing that day.


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## Thirsty Boy (15/5/08)

lagers44 said:


> Hi Thirsty
> 
> The hole poking refers to the idea that you can use less hops at the end of the boil to impart flavour/aroma & bitterness for cubes. In fact it states that you need lots more hops to achieve this at the end of the process , so it's no way to beat the hop shortage.
> 
> ...



Sorry mate but you have misinterpreted what I'm saying at least, although it sounds like you have got what JP is saying - probably a comment on our relative skills as communicators.

The problem can be solved by referring to the example I gave - It clearly shows that you would go from using 105g of hops to using only 70g of hops - so definitely less.

Now my example relies on my highlighted assumptions being true - which they might not be. So the actuality of the situation could be way different.

Like I said, I got from the article a quite nice confirmation of the underlying thrust of my theory, which is that there is significant bittering gained from late additions - roughly 15% AA utilisation from whirlpool addition vs 35% from a "bittering" addition... so almost half as much. I am assuming (again) that you would do even better from a cube addition because there is a lot longer contact time with hot wort than there would be for a whirpool addition.

Shoving that 15% vs 35% utilisation figure into pro-mash (Rager formula) it looks like Matt Brynildson is calculating his whirlpool addition to give the same bittering as (roughly) a 25min addition.

I worked this out thusly

20L of 1.050 wort with 20g of 10%AA POR @ 60min = 30IBU

Now taking Brynildson's 15%vs35% figures, you are getting 43% (15/35x100) of the bittering from a whirlpool that you would get from a 60min addition, so 43% of 30 IBU is 12.9 IBU - keeping the weight and alpha % constant in pro-mash and changing the boil time - I get a figure of 12.1 IBU at 25mins, so near enough.

Which comes pretty close to supporting my original "stab in the dark" guestimate of cube hops being equivalent to a 30min addition... I think the extra utilisation from the extended contact with hot wort might make up the difference. And that would make my 33%ish savings in hops a reasonable ballpark figure.

Either that or it me who is misinterpreting the JP article as well as what you are saying - and thats probably more likely

*Kai -* Cool, someone who does it regularly. Mate you are a man with brewing knowledge out the proverbial. You count the cube addition as equal to a 5-10min boil addition - what do you think the differences between an addition to a kettle and an addition to hot but not boiling wort in a cube are? My guesses would be temperature and agitation. The cube is going to be hot - but less than 100C - even if not a _lot_ less over a period of an hour or so. But I think the main difference is probably the agitation. Hops in a kettle are getting swished about the place fairly vigorously; and in the cube they are just sitting on the bottom. Kind of like comparing jiggling or dangling a teabag. (this is also a difference between a cube and a whirlpool addition) If the object of the game was to increase the utilisation of the hops in the cube - do you think that shaking the cube up every now and again while it was still nice and hot, might increase the bitterness extracted? And if so, do you think it could get up to the levels of a 25-30min addition?? That seems to be the point at which you would actually be able to use cube hopping as a "hop saving" method.

I'd be really interested in what you think

Thirsty


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## Thirsty Boy (15/5/08)

I propose an experiment - looking for feedback on the experiment design please.

This weekend (or next depending on my time) I will brew two very small extract batches. 

They both will be - 1.0L in volume with 0.13kg of DME for an OG of 1.050 - boiled for 60mins

*Batch A* will get the following hop additions which are appropriate for a "hoppy" APA

Cascade (6% AA pellets) 1g @60min
Cascade (6% AA pellets) 2g @10min
Cascade (6% AA pellets) 3g @Flame Out

Chilled in a water bath and transferred to a 1.25l PET bottle for fermentation (with 10ml of whatever yeast slurry I have on the stir plate at the time)

*Batch B* will get the following hop additions

Kettle Hopping - None
Cascade (6% AA pellets) 3.5g @ Cube Hopped

The wort will be transferred to a 1L milk bottle NC cube - this cube will be placed in a hot water bath and it rate of cooling will be controlled. This is to compensate for the fact that such a small NC cube will cool down much faster than a full sized cube. I will control the temp with an electric hotplate and a PID. Every ten minutes for the first 2hours I will give the cube a shake to agitate the hops, and I will drop the set-point of the controller by 2C. So hopefully after two hours the temp will be around 70-75. After that I will just let it cool at ambient and I will stop shaking it.

Once cool to pitching temp it will get the same amount of the same yeast as Batch A (I will hold off inoculating batch A, so they are both pitched at the same time)

According to promash - Batch A will have a bitterness of 27.3IBU and Batch B is calculated as though it were a 25min addition and the 3.5g would give 27.8 IBU if that holds true.

The savings on hops are (6-3.5)/6x100 = 41.7% so if the bitterness aroma and flavour are comparable - that would make it worth it

Both batches will be fermented side by side at ambient and bottled into 3 x 330ml bottles and will set up a few brewers as a tasting panel to compare them. If I do a bit of wrangling - I might even be able to get the beers tasted by a pro-brewer from the tasting panel at work and have them analyzed for ISO levels.

I realise that I should really do a Batch C with nothing but a 27.3 IBU bittering addition as a control - and I might get enthusiastic enough to do that... but probably not.

Any suggestions to improve the design of the experiment??

Cheers

TB

PS - I will borrow Spills' 0.01g hop scales.. so accuracy levels should be fine


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## therook (15/5/08)

Great work Thirsty, i will eagerly wait for the outcome.

This is a very interesting topic.

Rook


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## lagers44 (15/5/08)

Hi Thirsty

I've had a re-read of the article I linked to & have taken this excerpt from it. Paragraph 2 is where I read that you need more late addition hops for bittering than for early additions ( i've hi-lighted in red ).

I can't get my head around the fact that you can use less hops later to forgo bittering additions early on. That is what you are saying isn't it ?

Maybe I'm just set in my ways , but your experiment will tell.


* "Calculating the Numbers*

To use this technique in your own beers, replace all or part of your traditional bittering hop additions with additions at 20 minutes or less left in the boil, increasing the amount of hops to get the same IBUs. Replace all of your bittering hops for an intense hop flavor. Replace a lesser amount to just enhance the hop flavor.

While isomerization is limited during a short boil, hop utilization isn't linear across the boil time. You don't need 6 times as much hops for a 10 minute boil as compared to a 60 minute boil. Assuming you're getting about 30% utilization at 60 minutes, you'll get around 17% at 20 minutes, 14% at 15 minutes, and around 10% at 10 minutes. So you'll need to approximately double or triple your hops to get an equivalent bitterness. If you're already calculating your bitterness with software or some other tool, use the same method to make this adjustment.

It is said that most formulas for calculating bitterness are not as reliable for very late hop additions, but don't let that stop you. It is quite difficult to detect a 5 IBU difference in most moderately bittered beers and impossible in a highly bittered beer. 

In beers with significant bitterness (50+ IBU), you might still want to add a charge of high alpha hops early in the boil. If you don't, the amount of hop flavor can completely overwhelm some beers. "


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## Kai (15/5/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> *Kai -* Cool, someone who does it regularly. Mate you are a man with brewing knowledge out the proverbial. You count the cube addition as equal to a 5-10min boil addition - what do you think the differences between an addition to a kettle and an addition to hot but not boiling wort in a cube are? My guesses would be temperature and agitation. The cube is going to be hot - but less than 100C - even if not a _lot_ less over a period of an hour or so. But I think the main difference is probably the agitation. Hops in a kettle are getting swished about the place fairly vigorously; and in the cube they are just sitting on the bottom. Kind of like comparing jiggling or dangling a teabag. (this is also a difference between a cube and a whirlpool addition) If the object of the game was to increase the utilisation of the hops in the cube - do you think that shaking the cube up every now and again while it was still nice and hot, might increase the bitterness extracted? And if so, do you think it could get up to the levels of a 25-30min addition?? That seems to be the point at which you would actually be able to use cube hopping as a "hop saving" method.
> 
> I'd be really interested in what you think
> 
> Thirsty



The teabag analogy is a good one, agitation is definitely an important factor but I'd be wary of shaking a cube up too much while it's got hot wort in it. Flipping it around several times in the first half hour or so might have an effect, and that's something I do anyway so all the surfaces get some hot wort contact. I reckon you'd definitely get more BUs if you did that but still less than you would in the kettle. To be honest though my 5-10 minute estimate is just a stab in the dark, though now I am tempted to brew up a side-by side and measure the IBUs at work.


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## Stuster (15/5/08)

Kai said:


> now I am tempted to brew up a side-by side and measure the IBUs at work.



Sounds like a great idea, Kai. What else important are you doing there?  h34r:


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## PostModern (15/5/08)

Kai said:


> now I am tempted to brew up a side-by side and measure the IBUs at work.



Science is NOTHING without measurement.


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## Kai (15/5/08)

Sensory evaluation is still a valid scientific method though!


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## Adamt (15/5/08)

Valid method yes, definitely not enough for a convincing argument though.


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## PostModern (15/5/08)

Kai said:


> Sensory evaluation is still a valid scientific method though!



Good enough for government work.


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## dig (15/5/08)

Adamt said:


> Valid method yes, definitely not enough for a convincing argument though.


Aah, but surely the genius is in the observation. Who do we remember, Darwin for his theory or Mendel for proving it?


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## dig (15/5/08)

Expanding on the tea bag analogy, you could get a bit of tannin pickup in the cube that may not complex with peptides the way it would in the kettle. Might lend a puckering astringent edge to the bitterness.


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## dr K (15/5/08)

I am not all together certain that mendels observations of sweet peas proved Darwins theory of evolution.
In many ways it could be argued that Mendels observations were more in tune with the Lamarckian view of the world, oddly enough this actually does have an indirect connection with brewing as there were a number of of theories about in the 1800's about fermentation which were polished off by Pasteur.
But that, in itself, is another story.

K


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## Thirsty Boy (16/5/08)

Adamt said:


> Valid method yes, definitely not enough for a convincing argument though.



Sensory evaluation is in this instance not only "good enough" it is the obvious choice.

This experiment isn't about numbers - its about impressions.

Does the beer taste as bitter?
Is there a comparable level of Hop flavour and/or aroma?
Are there any flavours off or otherwise that are present in one brew but not the other. Are they desirable or incidental?

I could (and might) have the actual levels of IBUs measured. But do they matter?? If a reasonable selection of brewers taste the beers and come up with conclusions - thats what counts. Beer is about drinking and tasting by people, not by gas chromatographs.

To make the "qualitative" analysis a little more acceptable to people with doubts - at least two of the tasters will be (if I can wrangle it anyway) formally trained in the sensory evaluation of beer, at least one of those with a set of quantitative flavour threshold levels to his name.

The rest will be homebrewers and my wife - and they are more important to me than the other tasters, because they are the target audience. Friends and family are the people who drink our beers. Its how _they_ interpret the flavours that is the most important result of this experiment.

TB


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## troydo (16/5/08)

need a proper blind 3 cup tasting


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## PostModern (16/5/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> Sensory evaluation is in this instance not only "good enough" it is the obvious choice.
> 
> This experiment isn't about numbers - its about impressions.
> 
> ...



I do agree with you to a very large extent but some of these factors may be swayed by uncontrolled variables. Pitching rates, fermentation temps, aeration levels, etc might differ even when the batches are brewed side by side. 

I think measured AA would be good just to validate what the trained palates pick up, although of course there's nothing like a trained palate to tell you how a beer tastes.


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## Thirsty Boy (16/5/08)

PostModern said:


> I do agree with you to a very large extent but some of these factors may be swayed by uncontrolled variables. Pitching rates, fermentation temps, aeration levels, etc might differ even when the batches are brewed side by side.
> 
> I think measured AA would be good just to validate what the trained palates pick up, although of course there's nothing like a trained palate to tell you how a beer tastes.



Hopefully you are only right on one count about the uncontrollable variables. Aeration. I don't really have any way to be sure about that. I will be fermenting in 1.25L PET bottles and I will shake them exactly the same number of times - but thats hardly a "controlled" method, its at best just not completely random.

As for pitching rates - exactly 10ml (drawn off via syringe from the same _stirred_ yeast slurry) will be inoculated into the wort, and I doubt if there is any way to be significantly more accurate than that.

Ferm temps - they will both be fermented in the same water bath with a pump recirculating the water to keep temp homogeneous.

This stuff is hard to control in full scale batches, but I only have a litre in each fermentor. Hell I've even gone to a bit of effort to get the same sort of 1.25L bottles so the fermentors have the same geometry.

I will try to get the ISO measured, but I will have to kiss up to the Lab people more than I like... damn white coaters  

Troydo - a blind triangle test is only really any good to determine if samples differ from each other - which might be useful if they end up close together in attributes, might start with a triangle. But to be perfectly honest, I expect them to be fairly different, so a triangle test wont tell us too much. I will consult with the trainer at my next sensory evaluation session and ask him what the most appropriate style of test is. Its his job to know, so I'll just do what he says.

TB

PS: Beers are brewed and just waiting for the NC version to cool down to pitching temps before I pitch both samples. Yeast is a re-cultured yeast from a bottle of Three Ravens Blonde. So its an Alt yeast.


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## Tony (16/5/08)

Gee your going to get thirsty brewing 1 liter at a time.

did i miss the point :blink: 

I recon you will get some aroma but less bitterrness in the no chill bottle.

I read here once that once the wort cools to 90 deg...... the hop utilization drops to 10%.

I dont know that as a fact though........... only what i read on here so it could be hogwash.

cheers and keep us updated on results.


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## pablo_h (28/6/08)

Any results TB?
I just started using the no chill cube method


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## Thirsty Boy (28/6/08)

Actually - only the other day I remembered this experiment. The two 1.25L coke bottles that contained teh brews have been sitting at the back of my fridge for a couple of weeks and I forgot about em.

So I revived teh experiment by launching another one.

I bought 6 of those sediment reducing things that were on the New Inventors - the ones that according to the "consensus" are pretty much pointless even if they can be made to work. Transferred the experiment beers to 2 x 800ml twist top bottles along with a scoop of priming sugar. And twisted on the sedex tops.

They are now carbing up and clearing out ready for a tasting session.

The sedex doovalackies are perfect for this - I used a miserable alt yeast that just wont stay out of suspension and the volume is so low that the notion of filtering is just silly. I really hope they work because they will be perfect for small batches of sparkling mead.

The samples I had of the hop experiment beer - they seemed to have roughly the same bitterness. The hop character/aroma/flavour etc, will have to wait for a carbonated sample though.

Updates in a week or two

Thirsty


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## Quintrex (25/8/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> Actually - only the other day I remembered this experiment. The two 1.25L coke bottles that contained teh brews have been sitting at the back of my fridge for a couple of weeks and I forgot about em.
> 
> So I revived teh experiment by launching another one.
> 
> ...



Oi thirsty, it's been a long few weeks  any updates?
I've been quite interested in this idea
Q


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## dr K (25/8/08)

Interesting
Hop or rather alpha acid utilisation is a function of time and temperature, we normally will say that 60 minutes at atm boiling will achieve maximum practicle utilisation, though at rolling boil some 90% of the final bitterness is achieved in 30 minutes. Lowering the temperature put the brakes on pretty quickly though, at 70C only 10% of "possible" final bitterness is achieved even after 90 minutes.
Hop aroma is greatly enhanced by fast cooling (doh!..sorry for the Kindy observation).
Result:
Adding hops to the NC might best be described as a sort of dry hopping, the bitterness value will be far below hops that have been boiled for maybe only 10 minutes, the aroma contribution will be minimal to none.
Of course subjective taste tests may well show me to be incorrect.

K


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## Vlad the Pale Aler (25/8/08)

...and lets not forget that adding hops directly to the cube may kill the rampant botulism.


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## Thirsty Boy (25/8/08)

dr K said:


> Interesting
> Hop or rather alpha acid utilisation is a function of time and temperature, we normally will say that 60 minutes at atm boiling will achieve maximum practicle utilisation, though at rolling boil some 90% of the final bitterness is achieved in 30 minutes. Lowering the temperature put the brakes on pretty quickly though, at 70C only 10% of "possible" final bitterness is achieved even after 90 minutes.
> Hop aroma is greatly enhanced by fast cooling (doh!..sorry for the Kindy observation).
> Result:
> ...



Ahh but you are assuming that those cubes cool down faster than I think they do DrK - they stay awfully hot for quite a long time. That was the point of proposing this experiment, so that I could get some sort of a reasonable comparison without having to _speculat_e that the bitterness "will be far below hops that have been boiled for maybe only ten minutes" I figured I'd actually find out, rather than assuming that I already knew what would happen.

My speculation, and thats what it is .. is that your speculation is some way off the mark. I have tasted several beers that were first wort hopped, at a point where the wort had yet to come to the boil, and they had already achieved a significant amount of their bitterness. The same applied to the beer that I brewed where I tried mash hopping. After an hour at merely 67 the wort had significant bitterness. Hard to relate wort bitterness to final beer bitterness I admit, but there was certainly a fair amount of utilisation that had gone on without the wort ever reaching a boil.

As for fast cooling enhancing hop aroma - why is that? you say its true, and I have heard and read that its true, I've even experienced it to be true; but that was always in beers that actually _were_ chilled. Then the speed makes a difference.... but mostly the reason ascribed to this is that the volatile aroma compounds will evaporate away. Thats something that cant possibly happen inside a sealed NC cube. So whats your reason? I'm not saying you are wrong mind you, its just that the "stock" explanation isn't possible in an NC cube, so if you are right, we are going to need a better explanation than the one people usually trot out.

But we'll find out soon enough I expect. Those beers are ready to drink (have been for a while) I have just been waiting for the sedex doovalackies to do their thing. ATM if they are effective at all, they aren't up to the rigours of a poorly flocculent kolsch/Alt yeast, so I am just going to call it quits and do the taste test. Probably waited to long for a hell of a lot of info about aroma... but the comparison will still be there. The beers are the same age, so bitterness levels and aroma may have dropped off in both, but if there are differences the realtivities should still be the same.

Quintrex- we'll have to organize to get together for a drink one of these days and you can help me to analyse the damn things. I'm sure we can arrange for 3 or 4 brewers to get together for a tasting session

Thirsty


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## Kai (26/8/08)

dr K said:


> Interesting
> Hop or rather alpha acid utilisation is a function of time and temperature, we normally will say that 60 minutes at atm boiling will achieve maximum practicle utilisation, though at rolling boil some 90% of the final bitterness is achieved in 30 minutes. Lowering the temperature put the brakes on pretty quickly though, at 70C only 10% of "possible" final bitterness is achieved even after 90 minutes.
> Hop aroma is greatly enhanced by fast cooling (doh!..sorry for the Kindy observation).
> Result:
> ...



A few things to think about here,

Assuming a cube of hot wort would stay above 70C for 90 minutes (and I'm not saying it does), you're still looking at an additional 5-6 IBU. Not much in a DIPA I'll grant, but a big difference in a low IBU beer. And just imagine if you put 50-60g of chinook or simcoe in there instead... suddenly that's over 20 IBU.

Secondly, as thirsty boy has mentioned, where does that aroma go if it can't evaporate? Sure, some compounds may be altered purely from the heat, so perhaps one could say that the length of time a cube of wort takes to cool will result in a different balance of hop flavour (faster cooling) and bitterness (slower cooling). Regardless, in my experience no-chill hopping does give good aroma.


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## Darren (26/8/08)

I would say there will be hardly any difference. In my experience 80% of the hop oil is released within minutes of hitting boiling temps. Leaving a cube for an hour should extract all (or at least most) the oils.

cheers

Darren


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## Thirsty Boy (17/12/08)

OK, so I just made a typically long post to another thread about No chill hopping, and it reminded me that I have to update this thread with the results of the experiment. So heres an even longer post.

To update - I wanted to compare two beers. One chilled and one no-chilled, with the chilled beer having a fairly normal hopping schedule and the No-Chilled brew having no hops at all added to the boil and getting all its hop attributes from an addition to the NC cube.

*Heres what I did:*

2 batches made up to 1.050 from DME only - I worked in 2L erlenmyer flasks and was aiming for 2 1L batches and for 2 x 750ml of finished beer.

First beer was hopped to 27.3IBU (rager in pro-mash) with a 60 minute a 10 minute and a FO addition - I used cascade pellet hops @ about 8% AA. This wort was chilled in an ice bath immediately following the boil.

The second beer got no kettle hops at all, the hops were placed loose in the NC vessel at the end of the boil. This addition was calculated to give me the same number of IBUs - assuming that I would get a bitterness from the cube hops equivalent to that which would have been gotten by adding them with 25 mins to go in a "normal" boil. The amount of hops needed to do this was *approximately 60%* of that needed for the original beer.

The NC beer was placed in a temperature controlled bath and cooled down slowly from 100C to 70-75 over two hours and just let cool naturally after that. This is actually a bit faster than it would go in a 25L cube

The beers were then pitched to a 1.25L coke bottle fermentor with 10ml of slurry from the Alt starter I was growing - the bottles were taped together and fermented in a water bath with an aquarium heater taped exactly in the middle of them.

After fermentation was complete, the resulting beers were bottled into 750ml glass bottles, primed with a regulation dose of sugar, shoved in my beer cupboard and forgotten about for quite a number of months.

Till Sunday.....

On Sunday I was at a beer tasting with AHB member JJefferys and 5 of his friends. I imposed on JJeffreys and his mate and fellow homebrewer Nat to help me evaluate the results of the experiment.

*The observations were - *

The chilled beer was moderately bitter and possessed of fairly strong but slightly raw hop aroma - typically cascade in nature. Moderate hop flavour.

The no-chill beer was compared to the chilled beer and all three tasters found it to be more strongly bitter (distinctly so) more full and rounded in its hop flavour and with an aroma that was perhaps slightly less intense, but more complex and somehow smoother.

All three tasters preferred the NC beer - describing it as more complex and full in its flavours.

The NC beer was also noticeably darker than the chilled beer - perfectly reasonable if you think about the length of time for melanoidin development.

Conclusions ---

Well, if you can really draw all that many from a single experiment; the NC hopping produced a beer that was acceptable in Hop flavour, Hop aroma and bitterness & not only compared favorable to a beer that was hopped "normally" but was in fact preferred by the tasters. The NC beer used less than 2/3rds of the hops used in the chilled beer.

The bitterness level of the NC beer actually exceeded the level anticipated by the experiment and if I were to repeat the exercise, would calculate the bitterness of hops added to a NC cube as equivalent to that of hops added with 30 mins to go in the boil. I added these hops loose in the NC vessel I used, so I assume that you would get a bit less from hops ina hop bag in the cube, so perhaps back to the 25 minute guesstimate, or even 20mins.

Therefore my original contention is supported and you could save money on hops by forgoing all kettle additions and substituting a large NC cube addition.

maybe........

TB


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## Swinging Beef (17/12/08)

An excellent experiment.
Do ten more and then draw some conclusions.
This is excellent beer science at its best.


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## Quintrex (17/12/08)

Nice work thirsty, been looking forward to hearing the results from this.

I'll do a follow up experiment for you  in the next few weeks if I can.

It'd kinda be good to get the ibu's tested so we can come up with a reasonable idea for the bitterness.

Catchya soon

Q



Thirsty Boy said:


> OK, so I just made a typically long post to another thread about No chill hopping, and it reminded me that I have to update this thread with the results of the experiment. So heres an even longer post.
> 
> To update - I wanted to compare two beers. One chilled and one no-chilled, with the chilled beer having a fairly normal hopping schedule and the No-Chilled brew having no hops at all added to the boil and getting all its hop attributes from an addition to the NC cube.
> 
> ...


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## Thirsty Boy (18/12/08)

Swinging Beef said:


> An excellent experiment.
> Do ten more and then draw some conclusions.
> This is excellent beer science at its best.



Don't need to - experiments need to be repeatable, not repeated to be valid. My results are perfectly valid until such times as someone repeats the experiment and contradicts them. Till then I get the "I have experimental results and you don't" bragging rights

Statistics _would_ make for a better experiment though.

It would be great to get another result to either confirm or counteract though - sounds like Q might be coming to the rescue.

Let me know if/whn you do it Q - I left the beers at JJeffrey's place and forget to bring home samples to take to work for IBU analysis. I could do it with your experiment though.

TB


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## Cortez The Killer (18/12/08)

That's great work thirsty boy!

Cheers


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## crundle (18/12/08)

Regarding the discussion about agitation being a factor in hop extraction while on the boil, maybe try using a stirring magnet in the cube while it cools?

I have no idea if this would be possible, but if agitation is a significant factor in hop extraction, then this would assist one would think.

Crundle


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## Quintrex (18/12/08)

crundle said:


> Regarding the discussion about agitation being a factor in hop extraction while on the boil, maybe try using a stirring magnet in the cube while it cools?
> 
> I have no idea if this would be possible, but if agitation is a significant factor in hop extraction, then this would assist one would think.
> 
> Crundle



Don't think so. I think it'll play a moderate role over the first 5 minutes, especially with flowers/plugs however as soon as the oil is extracted, which I'd imagine would be reasonably quick, especially with pellets, it becomes reliant on the kinetics of isomerisation ie in regard to heat/time.

Q


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## Polar Beer (18/12/08)

That's awesome TB. 

I've always been an NC'er and I've been frustrated by higher then expected bitterness. It's always been suggested it could be the NC method, but I've been cautious and only scaled back hop additions marginally (haven't done enough AG to make big changes). Certainly dropping all kettle additions wasn't on the radar. 

But based on this, it's clear cut. NC + standard hopping schedule = more bitter then chill. If you NC, adjust accordingly.

Can't wait to try it.


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## Thirsty Boy (19/12/08)

P & L Brazil said:


> That's awesome TB.
> 
> I've always been an NC'er and I've been frustrated by higher then expected bitterness. It's always been suggested it could be the NC method, but I've been cautious and only scaled back hop additions marginally (haven't done enough AG to make big changes). Certainly dropping all kettle additions wasn't on the radar.
> 
> ...



P & L - 

There has been another recent thread with a lively discussion of the very topic you are referring to. It was called No-Chill Hopping - http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=28155

Lots of opinions about increased cube bitterness. Mine, partially informed by this experiment, was that its primarily the late hop additions that are responsible for increased bitterness in NC brews. But I wont go into detail because I went into far too many in the other thread anyway (as usual)

TB

oh - and I think its far from clear cut, other people have different experiences. This is just a bit more data in the pool, I was simply trying to cut away a bit of the fuzz introduced by anecdotal "evidence" and maybe save a few people some dollars on hops. Hell I dont even care about hops... I get most of mine for free.


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## Polar Beer (19/12/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> oh - and I think its far from clear cut, other people have different experiences. This is just a bit more data in the pool, I was simply trying to cut away a bit of the fuzz introduced by anecdotal "evidence" and maybe save a few people some dollars on hops.



Thanks TB, have been following the other thread. Good info. If your results are not clear cut, they certainly provide the most compelling argument. Tally's with my experience and at this stage you seem to be the only contributer prepared to put your theory to the test. Mainly the rest is as you put it, "Fuzz".



Thirsty Boy said:


> Hell I dont even care about hops... I get most of mine for free.



How do i get into that bulk buy?  

Cheers


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## Quintrex (3/1/09)

Ok did the followup experiment thirsty
Here is what I thought would provide the most meaningful data, but I could be wrong and there could be a better way to test these things.

Here are the aims of this experiment I guess.

1) to find out roughly how much bitterness cube hoping gives?
2) to find out how much hop flavour/aroma is given by the same amount of hops added in cube-hopping as compared to the same amount of aroma/flavour hops added late in a traditional(rapidly chilled) brew

So I made up 30L worth of rye pale ale wort, split 10L worth into one saucepan, kept the other 20L worth in the main saucepan.
although the promash recipes below show split grain bills both came from one mash.

Below is the stats for the cube hopped one, I used the 30 minute guess by thirstboy as an estimation of the bitterness the cube hopping would give, as this would allow me to bitter the rapidly chilled one to a similar amount(with a neutral hop), and then use the equivalent amount of aroma hops added at 10 minutes and compare the hop flavour of both the beers. 


Hop Experiment - Cube

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 20.00 Wort Size (L): 20.00
Total Grain (kg): 4.35
Anticipated OG: 1.048 Plato: 12.02
Anticipated SRM: 4.2
Anticipated IBU: 36.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 77 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
76.6 3.33 kg. BB Pale Malt  Australia 75.96 2
12.3 0.53 kg. BB Wheat Australia 78.75 2
3.8 0.17 kg. Weyermann Carahell Germany 70.67 13
7.4 0.32 kg. Rye Malt America 60.88 4

Potential represented as % Yield, Coarse Grind As Is.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.00 g. Cascade Whole 5.75 8.8 30 min.
16.67 g. Simcoe Pellet 12.80 17.9 30 min.
16.67 g. Saaz B Pellet 6.80 9.5 30 min.



Hop Experiment - Crash Chill

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 10.00 Wort Size (L): 10.00
Total Grain (kg): 2.18
Anticipated OG: 1.048 Plato: 12.02
Anticipated SRM: 4.2
Anticipated IBU: 39.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 77 %
Wort Boil Time: 80 Minutes

Formulas Used
-------------

Brewhouse Efficiency and Predicted Gravity based on Method #1, Potential Used.
Final Gravity Calculation Based on Points.
Hard Value of Sucrose applied. Value for recipe: 46.2100 ppppg
% Yield Type used in Gravity Prediction: Coarse Grind As Is.

Color Formula Used: Morey
Hop IBU Formula Used: Rager

Additional Utilization Used For Plug Hops: 2 %
Additional Utilization Used For Pellet Hops: 10 %


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
76.6 1.67 kg. BB Pale Malt Australia 75.96 2
12.3 0.27 kg. BB Wheat Australia 78.75 2
3.8 0.08 kg. Weyermann Carahell Germany 70.67 13
7.4 0.16 kg. Rye Malt America 60.88 4

Potential represented as % Yield, Coarse Grind As Is.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.00 g. Cascade Whole 5.75 3.4 10 min.
8.33 g. Simcoe Pellet 12.80 7.0 10 min.
8.33 g. Saaz B Pellet 6.80 3.7 10 min.
5.01 g. Millenium Pellet 14.40 25.3 80 min.


Extras

Amount Name Type Time
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.25 Tsp Koppafloc Fining 10 Min.(boil) 


Yeast
-----
Rogue Pacman



What I hope to see is if there is any difference in hop flavour/aroma between the two brews, remember both have the same amount of flavour hops per litre.

The second thing I hope to find out with the help of thirstyboy is how much bitterness does cubehopping give?


Wish me luck 
Q

BTW hops were measured to two decimal places, rapidly chilled wort, chilled as fast as I could with an icebath.


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## Thirsty Boy (4/1/09)

Sounds cool Q,

I can take a sample of both beers to work and see if I can talk the lab guys into analyzing for ISO. Should give us a nice comparison of the bitterness, and incidentally a comparison of how "calculated" IBUs stack up to measured IBUs into the bargain.

With your experiment and mine, we are going to start building a little pool of more concrete data about how no chill effects hop falvour/aroma/bitterness - hopefully we can get a few more people to run a nice tight experiment, then we can start to draw a few more solid conclusions.

Thirsty


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## Tony (4/1/09)

What hop shortage?????

 

Great work folks! Good to see some stepping outside the square!

cheers


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## Polar Beer (4/1/09)

Well I haven't been as cautious (perhaps sensible) as you blokes. With all the time off, I've put down 3 brews in the last week and 'No Kettle Hopped' (?) them all. Put hops into the cube equal to 25 minute additions. Shook them up every 20 or so minutes for 2 hours.

Beers in the cubes are all from the recipe DB

1 x Easy down GP
1 x Ross's summer ale
1 x Pillar of stout

The pillar of stout actually needed more hops in the cube then if I added to the kettle. I guess it's because it goes light on the late hops. I No kettle hopped anyway.

All 3 had detectable bitterness in the hydrometer sample, with levels seemingly proportionate to the volume of hops added to the cube. 

I've brewed the Summer ale before and I'm a heavy weight stout drinker. So I wont have any side by side comparison, but I'll be able to tell you if the beer is any good. Especially after all 60L has gone down. 

At least for now, I'm No Chilling, No Sparging and No Kettle Hopping. 

Will return with results at end of Jan

BTW - I'd be very interested to see any results you get from your lab TB. 

Cheers


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## Thirsty Boy (5/1/09)

way to take a concept and run mate - jeez, I was only willing to risk a couple of litres of extract brew on the idea, you've banged down 60L of your finest...

choo da man


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## Quintrex (16/1/09)

Ok in regards to my experiment
There is a marked difference between the two beers as you may expect.

Some Crude un-carbed observations

No-Chill Hopped
The flavour of hops is higher than the other,
Bitterness is way too low, I'd hazard a guess that the hop additions have equated to a bittering time of about 15 minutes(the actual IBU's will hopefully be confirmed later).

Quick Chilled
Bitterness is spot on for what I would expect it to be based on promashes calculations, but doesn't have as strong hop character.

I'll probably just carb a couple of bottles of each up for taste tests and blend the rest together.

Cheers
Q


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## Ross (16/1/09)

Quintrex,

Rather than mixing - Maybe get some Isohop & add until the beers come into balance (bitterness wise) - You should then be able to fairly accurately calculate the achieved IBU's from the quantity added.

Edit: I'll happily donate the Isohop if you can't obtain locally.


cheers Ross


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## Quintrex (16/1/09)

Ross said:


> Quintrex,
> 
> Rather than mixing - Maybe get some Isohop & add until the beers come into balance (bitterness wise) - You should then be able to fairly accurately calculate the achieved IBU's from the quantity added.
> 
> ...



Mhhh Good Idea, I had thought of getting some to use it to balance it but I hadn't thought of using it to calculate the ibu's. So a set amount = a certain number of bittering units, cool.
Thanks for the idea and also for the offer, if for some chance I can't get some tomorrow, I'll give you a bell.

Cheers
Q


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## Thirsty Boy (17/1/09)

Interesting - unfortunately, this bodes poorly for P & L Brazil's 60L of beer...

OK.. so now we have a (possible) clash between the two experiments done so far ... have to do a few more and start to look at stats

Both experiment seem to agree that you get good, and maybe better, hop flavour from a cube addition, so lets stop looking at that and just look at bitterness.

I'll do an experiment where I add an amount of bittering hops to a brew, at 90min so they are as utilised as they are going to get. Then I will split the wort and no-chill both halves, one with an amount of cube hops, one without.

That way we can analyse for bitterness and directly compare the bitterness contributed by the boil hops and that by the cube hops. Should enable us to tell exactly the boil time a cube hop addition equates to.

B = ibu from cube addition (this will be calculated)
A = ibu from 90 min addition only (this will be measured)
Y = ibu from the 90min addition + the ibu from the cube addition (this will be measured)

Y = A + B therefore B = Y - A.

Now the measured IBUs wont equate to the formulated IBUs in pro-mash or beersmith... but we can get the relativities. eg: if B = 0.2 x A then we just plug the figures back into promash and see what "time" we have to put the hops in to have the B ibus equate to 0.2 times the A ibus - then we know how to calculate for them in the future.

Out of interest, I may repeat the experiment with "late" additions of hops that don't actually go into the cube - to see if the dissolved alpha acids keep on isomerising and contribute bitterness.

Because I am going to try to get these things analysed for ISO rather than rely on taste, I will most likely use plain water rather than wort.. it wont give the same results, but hopefully the ratios will be the same so it will end up giving valuable data (and will take shedloads less time)

I'm not doing anything till I ask the lab guys if they will play... otherwise big waste of time. Next week.

Thirsty


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## beers (18/1/09)

Thirsty, one thing that I think you will have to take into account is the time that it takes for the NC wort to cool. You would think that a longer contact time with hot wort will increase your utilization? 

I did an Amber Ale awhile back & hopped it soley in the cube. I used my normal method of cooling - 30mins with the cube on its side, & then cooled (down to around 30c) over an hour. IMO I got an IBU equiv to a 15min addition.


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## Thirsty Boy (18/1/09)

Yep, should and will.

My cubes cool down over at least an 8 hour period, usually a bit longer to get all the way to pitching temps. Thats the method I will be using for the experiment.. cooling down slowly over the same period of time as a full cube

Interesting that you are getting a bitterness that to you, roughly equates to the 15 min addition that Q estimated. Kind of says that the vast majority of whats happening, is happening in the first hour or so - which makes sense, thats when things are the hottest, and we have all seen the isomerisation/degredation of alpha acids charts... not a hell of a lot going on under 75C anyway.

I will be immersing the smaller NC containers in a 20L bucket of 96 water - thats pretty much the temp my wort is when I transfer to the cube. So I will float the smaller containers in the large bucket and seal it up.. then they will all cool together at roughly the same rate a big cube would.

TB


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## Polar Beer (18/1/09)

Right, good to see some developments here. I've got 2 of the 3 brews into kegs and conditioning. Drank the sample and I'm really quite pleased with the results so far.  

As found in some of the tests, the flavour is more pronounced. The Ross summer Ale for for example, has stacks of it. As for bitterness, I think it's around the mark. Im not an expert here and I'll admit Im still learning the finer points of appreciation. But they all seem balanced at this stage. 
Definitely the ones I have brewed before are less bitter then I am used to. Which is what I was aiming for as prior to this they have been far too bitter. 

I did allow a little extra with the hops I guess, so perhaps that has made the difference compared to the other test here. I also shook the shite out of them every 15 minutes or so for 2 hours. Remember that in your test steps. 

All up, results are tracking well. Will have all of these on tap for a party coming up at end of Jan. So I'll plenty of feedback! 

Cheers
Paul


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## Tony (18/1/09)

I still want to know "what hop shortage?"


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## Thirsty Boy (19/1/09)

I'm with you Tony... no hop shortage for me either. Plenty of em and they are free.

Pure altruism on my part this whole exercise......

Actually, at the moment I am mainly interested in compensating for what I see as a loss in aroma and maybe flavour in NC brews, if you follow a traditional hopping schedule. Cube hopping seems to have potential for just that... but looks like it will add bitterness that needs to be planned for. I want to know what plans to make.


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## KingPython (19/1/09)

The thing is for me and other partial, kits and bits brewers it will save me an hour or so hovering around the burner waiting for hop additions.


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## Polar Beer (27/1/09)

Update time

Have been out in the garage tonight, toiling underneath my four tap font. It's a new addition and a massive upgrade to my formally one tap bar. But right now it's more of a PITA then anything else. Too much foam, not enough bubbles. Perhaps not enough line, over carbed, taps too hot, I don't know. Too many foamy beers consumed now to care. Anyway, that's another thread's topic. 

Earlier on in the thread I posted that I had brewed up 3 batches with no kettle hops at all. So compelled was I with Thirsty Boy's long and detailed posts. It seemed a fantastically lateral idea. Pushing the still relatively immature No Chill method a little further beyond the norm, but somehow closer to common sense.

So with the beer now on tap, I can report my 3 batches of beer are bloody great. In fact, I would say the best AG I have brewed. 
It needs to be pointed out that all my AG brews have been NC (and always too bitter) and these 3 make up batches 12-14 of my AG life. At this stage, Im sure I can only be getting better through practice. Never the less, these rock. 

I am not a beer expert. I just like to drink tasty beer. Ergo; some uneducated tasting notes:

Ross's Nelson Sauvin Summer Ale: The bitterness is significantly reduced from previous attempts, a good thing as all others were far too bitter. Flavour much (much) more apparent. Delicious. SWMBO pleasing even. Will brew another for the Vic off season swap as it's a good example with only one hop.

Pillar of Stout: Put all 80g of hops into this and can definitely taste it. Nice balance though. Lovely stout. This wont last long. 

Easy down GP: My first lager. Also the most trouble on the tap. Jury out at this stage but flavour is apparent while bitterness is low (as expected). Can't really call this one yet. Certainly goes down easy as the recipe suggests. Will leave a while and drink the other two. 

In short, this was well and truly worth while. I would encourage further discussion and others to experiment on this topic. Especially keen to hear about how any lab ISO tests work out. 
Hopefully others get the same positive results as me. The thought process is encouraging. Like NC-ing, it's a real 20-60L home brewer idea that doesn't just shrink an idea from larger scale brewing. Good one Thirsty. 

Cheers
Paul


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## reviled (16/2/09)

I brewed this in the weekend, now the plan is, to count the each addition as an extra 15 mins and get a fair whack of my IBU's out of the FO addition... Way I figure it, if this beer comes out at about 50ish IBU's, the FO will be working like a 15 min addition, if it comes out sweet, ill know that it doesnt... Ill update when I keg this B) 

3.5kg NZ Pale
800g Rye
250g Med Crystal

60 : 12g Nelson Sauvin 11.4%
15 : 10g Northern Brewer 8.5%
FO : 15g Fuggles 5.3%, 13g Nugget 11.6%, 11g Williamette 7.5% 
Dry hop : 15g Fuggles
Nottingham


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