Cube Hopping

[Crusty]

I've decided on my last brew to merge back to Beer Tools Pro from BrewMate as I just like the programme better.
BrewMate has the option of the no chill tick box which is the main reason I have been using it & is a great feature but BTP, like BeerSmith, has no option for no chill.
I decided to treat my additions as an extra 20mins for the extra contact time, 60, I left as is, 30min becomes 10, 10mins is cube hopped & the 0 addition will be dry hopped for 3 days at the end of cold crashing for a week.
How do you guys find cube hopping?
I'm hoping there's no traces of grassiness & assume the fermentation will filter it out if any. Never cube hopped before so we'll see how it goes.

 

[GuyQLD]

Can't help you much mate, I've only done it a handful of times. Never found it grassy, but I did find trying to guess the IBU's almost impossible. Made a pretty reasonable Fat Yak once that was 100% cube hopped, nelson and cascade and didn't end up with any of the off flavours those hops sometimes have attributed to them.

I treated them as 20 minutes as well.

 

[pist]

I find cube hopping to be useful for boosting flavour...particularly handy if youre chasing this for an apa or ipa. Ive done both no hopping in the cube and hopped the cube and have found flavour and aroma to be stronger with my cube hopped batches. To date ive had no grassiness and regularly do this with my ipas/apas. I guess the only way you would do this is if you went crazyily overboard with your hop schedule Got nothing to lose give it a go

 

[pist]

You will get some that say yes and some that will disagree. Its another one of those things of personal preference...you neither have to do it or not do it. Up to you what works here

 

[Crusty]

Can't help you much mate, I've only done it a handful of times. Never found it grassy, but I did find trying to guess the IBU's almost impossible. Made a pretty reasonable Fat Yak once that was 100% cube hopped, nelson and cascade and didn't end up with any of the off flavours those hops sometimes have attributed to them.

I treated them as 20 minutes as well.

Cheers mate.
It seems grassiness won't be an issue. I have had grassiness before when dry hopping for 7 days & find 3 days max for me suits my tastes.
How would you treat a 15 & 10min addition, followd by a 0 min? Would you just dry hop the 0min & cube hop the 15 & 10 together, remembering the extra 20min of utilisation because of the no chill.
With Beer Tools Pro, I set up the recipe stats with 0.60 absorption, 4L loss to trub & chiller & 4L boil off. 20lt batch = 20lt into the cube & came in @73% Brewhouse efficiency.........

I find cube hopping to be useful for boosting flavour...particularly handy if youre chasing this for an apa or ipa. Ive done both no hopping in the cube and hopped the cube and have found flavour and aroma to be stronger with my cube hopped batches. To date ive had no grassiness and regularly do this with my ipas/apas. I guess the only way you would do this is if you went crazyily overboard with your hop schedule Got nothing to lose give it a go

Thanks for the advice. It was only 25g of Cascade & it should turn out quite allright. I've heard a bit about cube hopping adding flavour & aroma so we'll see how it turns out in a few weeks.

 

[pist]

Cascade is a great hop. I love using it with citra and some galaxy. They play really well together in an apa

 

[GuyQLD]

If the original recipe calls for chilling I dry hop anything under 15, reduce my 60 min addition to almost nothing and put most of my 20-30 min additions as either 5min or flameout (or cube)

I have pretty much moved away from AIPA/APA's as a result though; just find no chilling to be sub optimal for this style and while I'm still fairly young in my brewing career I'm finding it easier to do single hop addition styles that are malt forward. Eventually I'll get some sort of chiller then go back into the APA's.

Note, I'm not saying it's impossible; I've just never been happy with it.

 

[sp0rk]

I've been cube hopping for the last few months, haven't noticed any grassy notes

 

[yum beer]

I have only cube hopped once. I did it on a Ipa recipe, Sam Smith India Ale clone that I played around on.
I have brewed it 3 times with small differneces but 1 batch was given about 25gms of Fuggles in the cube( extra to the other 2 recipes).
Certainly had a lot more flavour and aroma and was by far the best of the three.
Only limited experience but was a positive one.....will probably vary with hop type.

 

[Byran]

I did cube hop many moons ago, but seemed to have harsh bitterness so I stopped. But I have adopted the same methods of adding 15 to 20 mins to all hop additions except for the 60 min. It works great for adjusting for no chill but I have found that adding your flameouts to the whirlpool then draining to the cube you dont have the hops sitting in hot wort for as long and I believe this leads to a cleaner flavour. But thats just my opinion. I liken it to leaving a tea bag in a cup of hot tea... for like 10 hours. Possibly just draws out astringency. Adding a hop tea to the fermenter before pitching will give you the same results as the 5min, 1min and flamout additions and doeasnt make it anymore difficult to add the yeast.

 

[breakbeer]

I follow the recipe & add hops at the required times, then throw the 'dry hops' into the cube, but then I also dry hop with the same amount after 4 days of cc'ing & leave for another 3.

then smash the keg in a week

edit: I should mention that I only do this with IPA type recipes & have never had a glass full of lawn mower clippings

 

[damoninja]

I wouldn't have thought the effects of cube hopping would be all that mad? I saw this thread earlier and thought why not... I'll give it a shot.
I threw my 0 min addition in to the cube before I dropped the hot wort on to it. Whirlcube?

The times I've dumped the hops right into the FV instead of discarding in hop bags have been the most flavoursome and best of my brews, not overpowering or too bitter...
I would have thought cubing would have been much the same, 2 weeks in an FV is going to suck all the hoppy goodness out of them all the same as X weeks in a cube... Right?

 

[Midnight Brew]

Still experimenting with hopping schedules I've too found that treating a cube hop as a flavour addition (of say 20 mins) does go a long way in terms of flavour. I've done the whole bittering addition and then cubing to bring a small portion of the wort to a boil later to do 10 mins and 5 mins but now I'm more settled on a schedule like this

FWH or bittering as per normal
Cube hop (Calculate as a 20min addition)
Boil up a small amount of wort before pitching yeast (about 2 litres) (actually looking at omitting this)
Dry hop as per normal.

I've been finding that the 5 or 10 minute mini boil not to be adding enough in terms of flavour or aroma to justify the time in doing it. To compensate I'm experimenting more to just take it out and add more flavour hops (cube addition) and then a bigger hit of dry hops. Chilling would make everything easier again but I like having a spare cube on hand to ferment at my own choosing.

 

[einnebcj]

So, I'm a bit confused. What's the difference between 0 min hop addition, dry hopping and cube hopping? Naively thought they were kind of one in the same?


Sent from my iPad using Aussie Home Brewer

 

[fcmcg]

0 hop addition is done at flame out in a boil....
Dry hopping is done in your fermentor , usually after day 5...
Cube hopping is putting the hops in your "no chill" cube , ( that is into hot wort) before you put the lid on...

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

0 hop addition is done at flame out in a boil....
Dry hopping is done in your fermentor , usually after day 5...
Cube hopping is putting the hops in your "no chill" cube , ( that is into hot wort) before you put the lid on...

So really for the No Chillers out there, the 0min and cube hop is almost the same dependent on the minutes you take between flameout for whirlpooling and siphoning into the cube. I'd suggest that the time it takes to No Chill on your garage floor is going to have a larger impact on whether you decide to 0min add or cube hop? Unless you want to 0min, hop stand and whirlpool to leave some of those 0min hops to fall out with the trub?

To maximise hop flavour/aroma (taking into account the added bitterness of No Chilling), it seems that for No Chillers, cube hopping is the ideal over 0min, am I correct in my thinking?

 

[RelaxedBrewer]

I have been cube hopping and treating it as a 15 min addition. Maybe I should be upping to to 20 min... hard to know really.

I have been reading a lot about hop stands and whirl-pooling. Interesting to find out that most of the big breweries do it and some pretty famous AIPAs are made without dry hopping (getting all their aroma from the whirlpool). It is reported that the temperature that you add the hops in during whirl pool can make a big difference as well. Some breweries are making multiple additions as the wort cools.

My next attempt at an cube hopped APA I am going to put almost all my bittering hops in the cube and then wait for it to cool to 80C. Then add another charge of hops. Hopefully this will emulate what some try to achieve with the hop stand before chilling.

 

[Yob]

Your brew of course... but I'd only do this if pitching the next day... and in that instance, I'd just leave it in the kettle and save the washing and sanitising the cube

Done this a number of times now without incident. Nervous as hell the first few times :lol:

 

[OzPaleAle]

I've gone straight into fermenter from kettle to cool, and pitched next morning without incident so far, only thing I notice is you need to shake the fermenter full of liquid the next day before pitching to aerate the wort as you don't get the incidental aeration from pouring from cube into fermenter.

I have a hell of a time getting the IBUs right and any sort of aroma hop levels right no chilling so have tried adding those hop additions to a separate 4L boil so I can cool it quickly, hopefully that goes alright....

 

[damoninja]

:icon_offtopic: Side note of cubing.

When transferring out of cubes, do you ditch the trub that's settled in the bottom or swish it around to mix it up and dump it all into the FV?