Flame Out Hop Additions Or Hop Tea For Nochill Method

[Pumpy]

If we No Chill our wort

Should we NOT be adding the flame out aroma hops at Zero minutes

But when we are ready to Ferment the Wort by say making a hop tea (as suggested by Crundle)

so we dont loose the aroma at the No Chill method ?

Whats your opinion

Pumpy :unsure:

 

[clean brewer]

Hey Pumpy,

Ive been working on my No-Chill hop additions for a little while now and depending on the Style, I now do my normal Bittering addition or FWH and then Flavour addition goes into the cube before draining wort and then I either dry hop or hop tea into fermenter after 7-10 days.....

:icon_cheers: CB

 

[raven19]

I have been adding my aroma hops to the primary fermenter after 7 days so the yeast does not strip too much aroma during the peak fermentation period.

 

[Fourstar]

Hey pumpy,

I take an outlandish approach, my 20-5min hops are added at flameout.
Flameout hops are added to the cube for cube hopping.
Whirlpool hops are added to the cube when its @ 70deg.

I find the uber late cube hop gives me the best aroma properties without the resinous/stickiness you can get from dryhopping.

 

[Pumpy]

Raven yes I use that method seven days into the fermenter .

CB do you actually leave the hops in the cube ?

Fourstar Perhaps I should try adding the hops to the cube at least aromas would be contained.

I am thinking should I let the cube cool and then wen ready toadd the O min addition make a hop tea!!

Pumpy

 

[raven19]

Hey pumpy,

I take an outlandish approach, my 20-5min hops are added at flameout.
Flameout hops are added to the cube for cube hopping.
Whirlpool hops are added to the cube when its @ 70deg.

I find the uber late cube hop gives me the best aroma properties without the resinous/stickiness you can get from dryhopping.

Not trying to pull this thread off topic but your thoughts on opening the cube at 70 deg to add whirlpool hops? I dare say minimal risk of infection at this stage, but I would be nervous about leaving the cube for a week or more prior to yeast pitching.

In saying that I may tweak my methods on upcoming brews to align with your methods above to see (taste!) the effects.

 

[crundle]

I make my bittering and flavour additions as normal, then cube the wort and ferment as normal. I then make my aroma addition using the French Press method and add it directly to the keg of cold beer to trap all of the aroma and cool the hop tea down very quickly. I normally gas up my beers over about 10 days, and don't seem to have any issues with the aroma.

Out of interest, what is the reason that others add the aroma addition during fermentation? I can only assume that it gives the yeast time to somehow interact with it, or that the action of fermentation may drive off some of the more volatile characteristics with the venting of CO2?

Might be a good opportunity for me to do a side by side fermentation of a DSGA and add the hop tea to the fermenter for one and the keg for the other to see what effect it might have, in profile, intensity and length of time the aroma lasts in the keg.

Crundle

 

[Fourstar]

Not trying to pull this thread off topic but your thoughts on opening the cube at 70 deg to add whirlpool hops? I dare say minimal risk of infection at this stage, but I would be nervous about leaving the cube for a week or more prior to yeast pitching.

In saying that I may tweak my methods on upcoming brews to align with your methods above to see (taste!) the effects.

40 odd batches and no infection in the cube yet. The longest ive had one in the cube was for around 6weeks~. Until i get a cube infection, im not planning on changing my ways anytime soon! If it aint broke, dont fix it!

The reading i take is from the exterior of the cube (sight thermo). So it may not be exactly correct, at that stage in the process i can't be arsed to sanitise my probe thermometer to check the temp. Who knows it may actually be 80 deg! I guess the other option is you whirlpool then wait until it gets to 70deg in the kettle before transferring to the cube.

Also take note i clean and sanitize my cubes and transfer line the same way i do with my fermenters. Thats rigourously! I consider it cold side like you do if you chill via a plate or coil.

Cheers! :beerbang:

 

[raven19]

Out of interest, what is the reason that others add the aroma addition during fermentation? I can only assume that it gives the yeast time to somehow interact with it, or that the action of fermentation may drive off some of the more volatile characteristics with the venting of CO2?

:icon_offtopic: Hand over the mill and I shall let you know....

Seriously though, I dont add hops until after peak fermentation, otherwise the yeast will strip a lot of goodies from the hops.

You could add the hops when pitching the yeast, but the hop effects on the beer would be a lot more subtle.

Any volatility would be reduced by the yeast surely as it cleans up the beer too...

I am thinking some side by side experiments may be required too!

 

[raven19]

Good to hear Fourstar. I knew you were on top of your game, just thought I'd ask! B)

 

[Bribie G]

For me it depends on the hop. I made a super malty ESB with Fuggles, Goldings the usual suspects. I note from various UK breweries' websites that they are now using a bit of US hops, particularly Cascade, in some of their new ales. So I made a hop tea with 20g of Cascade and tipped into cold conditioning about 3 days before bottling. The Cascade stomped all over the other hops - nice beer but I won't do that again. However I have no argument with using hop tea made from Styrian Goldings or EKG. My latest fake lager is all Green Bullet with a final burst of hop tea a couple of days before kegging and it's turned out with almost the same aroma / bitterness as Steinlager pure so I'll do that again.

I'm also going to try Fourstar's giant tea ball he sent me, with a couple of plugs of Styrian Goldings straight into the keg with a TTL style beer to see how that goes, and do a later brew with the same amount of Styrians made into hop tea and put into cold conditioning and see how that compares.

 

[Fourstar]

I'm also going to try Fourstar's giant tea ball he sent me, with a couple of plugs of Styrian Goldings straight into the keg with a TTL style beer to see how that goes, and do a later brew with the same amount of Styrians made into hop tea and put into cold conditioning and see how that compares.

Take note Bribie, those hop balls hold 1 plug comfortably with around 3/4 headspace left. i'd say 2 plugs would have it almost busting at the seams (doesnt hurt to give it a try though). I'd think you may have utilization problems if its that full too as the hops in the middle of the tea ball may not have sufficient contact with the beer.

Maybe try 1 1/2 plugs by pulling one apart and in 1/2 maybe?

Cheers.

 

[Barley Belly]

I'm only an AG newby and are a 2V, 60min Boil, No-Chiller

My last few brews I have been doing

45min Bittering hop
0min Flameout Pre-Whirlpool Flavour hop
(After 20min whirlpool rest) Aroma addition while it is draining into the cube

Been turning out quite nice

 

[Nick JD]

I've been known to add 20g of powdered hop pellets to my priming sugar. I just spoon the greeny sugar into the bottles as I'm priming. Works a treat for super aroma.

I'm not sure if it would get grassy after a month or two, but my beers almost never make it to that age.

 

[Cocko]

On a side note:

Does anyone know the temperature that hops continue to bitter down to? I have heard about 90 deg.

As in, if you did a 60 addition and then your cube takes 20 minutes to get below 90 deg, or what ever the figure is, isn't that like 80 minutes of bittering... and a 30 addition becomes 50 etc....

Or am I way off track here? Or is there a thread someone could direct me to on this already?

Cheers

 

[Fourstar]

Does anyone know the temperature that hops continue to bitter down to? I have heard about 90 deg.
Cheers

I think thirstyBoy had some figures about isomerisation temps. From memory i believe it was 60deg, hence the reason why i do my cube hopping at 70deg. Its also noted that pH can effect isomerisation. if you drop your pH low enough you may be able to add them hotter and curb bitterness of the acids whilst still keeping the aromatic volatiles. These may also break dwon with those hotter temperature exposure times however.

Would be interesting to know either way.

 

[MarkBastard]

That's a very good question Cocko, as it's the one variable that matters most for this discussion!

Are there any drawbacks to the 'hop tea into the keg' method? It sounds so good I don't know why it wouldn't be the default method for keggers, that is unless there are draw backs.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

The rate of isomerization drops off very quickly lower than 100.. but continues down to about 75 before it becomes basically insignificant. You have to remember though, that you have a long time at those sub boiling but still high temperatures. So what you miss out on in rate of change, you make up for in time for change to happen.

I have done a few experiments on this, both sensory and measuring IBUs in the lab; and my results suggest that adding Pellet hops loose into a cube (racked after whirlpool approx 90-95C) gives you a bitter quotient equivalent to adding the same amount of hops at 20-25 minutes from the end of the boil. Put em in a hop bag or tea ball, use flower hops or both... its going to be less, maybe significantly less. If you use a lot of IBUs worth of cube hops.. I suspect the utilization will also drop off. I have and know that others have tried; an all cube hop beer - calculated at 25mins equivalent... and the beer was under bitter. So if you were going to try that (it gives amazing flavour and aroma...) I would be thinking more along the lines of equal to 15mins in the boil.

I add pretty much any hop that isn't a straight bittering addition into the cube - this cuts the amount of bittering hop I need to use and gives really fantastic hop flavour plus a deep (although not intense) kettle hop aroma. IMO, you don't get the more volatile/resinous/perfumey aromas that you can get from a whirpool or hopback addition... the prolonged heat changes those compounds.

I don't think you can replicate kettle hopping with dry hopping - they are different. So when I want that hopback/whirlpool type aroma, I find that a hop tea, added at 2/3rds attenuation does the trick. I add the hops to a coffee plunger, give them 1 minute contact with 500ml of boiling water - plunge and tip the water into the fermenter - then I add another 500ml of boiling water and give them 3-5 mins contact, plunge and tip.

The reasons for this method are - To emulate a hopback via

Actual contact with hot liquid
But short contact followed very quickly by rapid cooling.

So the Terpene fractions of the hop oils have a chance to interact with the heat and oxidise a bit, but the hydrocarbons have minimal (but some) chance to volatilize.

I add at 2/3rds through fermentation so that neither contact with the yeast nor C02 stripping has too much of a chance to drive off the aroma I went to so much trouble to make... but so there is a little of both of those things during the last part of active fermentation... which tends to smooth out any harsh or grassy characteristics. You could add the tea at the very end of fermentation.. but I would go for a longer steep time on the hops to smooth it out a bit, this would mean more hops to get the same level of aroma compounds in the beer. Or just cold conditioning the beer for an extra week or two.

Thats how I do it anyway

TB

 

[Hutch]

Awesome detail there TB. Glad you could put all that expensive equipment to good use!

 

[brendo]

Awesome detail there TB. Glad you could put all that expensive equipment to good use!

instead of evil... h34r: