No Chill 0 Min Hop Additions

[Margwar]

Hey there,

I have looked and found many articles on adding bittering hops 10 - 20 min later in the boil to compensate for using the no-chill method for cooling your wort. What I cannot find is when a recipe calls for a 0min addition, when I should be adding this to my wort....?
Until I can build a chiller the no-chill option works fine but I am finding that I am not getting good hop aroma in my beers. I have made a Amber Ale and added Amarillo hops at the end of the boil. They were nice a fresh from our G&G friends but the final beer, whilst being nicely bittered and tasty, was really lacking in aroma...
How do you all get good aroma from your no-chill beers?

Thanks again...

 

[MeLoveBeer]

I tend to add 0 minute hop additions as dry hops (so into the fermenter after the brew hits about 80% of FG); having said that, my hopping methods are far from perfect and still being refined.

 

[WarmBeer]

There are generally 2 "late hop" addition methods considered for no-chill.

1) Cube hops. Add the 0 min hops dry into the cube. Your wort goes in straight on top of them after whirlpooling, so you would be adding non-boiling (~90 deg C) wort, but for a longer contact time. My understanding is there is a fairly exponential relationship between wort temperature and AA utilisation, so even though your hops will be in contact with hot wort for a much longer period of time, the temperature is lower as well.

2) Tea hops. Using a Bodum-style coffee plunger, steep your 0 min hops in boiling water for a couple of minutes, press down the plunger, and add the liquid into the fermenter full of wort. This is best done at about Day 3 or 4 of fermentation, after the majority of activity has slowed down.

I've tried both methods, but not in a controlled experiment, so can't tell you which one is better. Both methods definitely leave a great hop "aroma" that would otherwise be missing.

In my opinion, the convenience, time-saving and water-saving advantages of no-chill far outweigh the possibility of lost aroma hops using traditional chilling methods. YMMV.

 

[hazard]

Hey there,

I have looked and found many articles on adding bittering hops 10 - 20 min later in the boil to compensate for using the no-chill method for cooling your wort. What I cannot find is when a recipe calls for a 0min addition, when I should be adding this to my wort....?
Until I can build a chiller the no-chill option works fine but I am finding that I am not getting good hop aroma in my beers. I have made a Amber Ale and added Amarillo hops at the end of the boil. They were nice a fresh from our G&G friends but the final beer, whilst being nicely bittered and tasty, was really lacking in aroma...
How do you all get good aroma from your no-chill beers?

Thanks again...

I once posted on this site a table I got from HomeBrewTalk that converted hop times for no chill - in general it took about 10 min off every addition eg 10min addition became 0 min addition. For a conventional 0 min addition, the recommendation was to add these as FWH if no-chilling. Unfortunately I can't find a copy of this on my hard drive, but it will be here somewher if you use the search function.

I don't no-chill, but i have used FWH - and in my opinion it does add to the hop flavour and aroma, which is counter-intuitive, but is obviously why you can 0 min hops to FWH. Never done any A-B tersting mind, so it may all be purely imagined.

Actually, while i don't have cubes for no-chilling, when I am feeling lazy i have left the wort in the kettle (with lid on!) to cool down once or twice. But I have only done this when there are no late hop additions.

But dry hopping, and tea hops, as suggested by other replies also work. I recently dry-hopped an ESB and it has a lovely hop bouquet.

 

[Screwtop]

Hey there,

I have looked and found many articles on adding bittering hops 10 - 20 min later in the boil to compensate for using the no-chill method for cooling your wort. What I cannot find is when a recipe calls for a 0min addition, when I should be adding this to my wort....?
Until I can build a chiller the no-chill option works fine but I am finding that I am not getting good hop aroma in my beers. I have made a Amber Ale and added Amarillo hops at the end of the boil. They were nice a fresh from our G&G friends but the final beer, whilst being nicely bittered and tasty, was really lacking in aroma...
How do you all get good aroma from your no-chill beers?

Thanks again...

Bittering hops are added early, flavour mid way and aroma late, three different uses and three reasons to choose hops suitable for the purpose. Late additions in no chilling is a bit of a waste IMO. I chill and still find that zero min hop additions and dry hopping add a different aspect, with dry hopping adding a "real hop" character if that is what you are after from the hop you have chosen to use. Adding the same hop at 0 min provides a slightly less real hop aroma if you get my drift. To better explain, if you smell a hop variety and love the smell as it is in the green, then use it for dry hopping. If it smells too vegetal, green or some other aroma that you don't find so pleasant then use it late or at 0 min. I can smell an onion aroma in columbus and prefer to use it late rather than for dry hopping. Tos some hops (start with 1g/l of a hop chosen to suit the style) into the fermenter for the second week and see if you like the effect.

Screwy

 

[MarkBastard]

I find cube hopping to be more like a 10 minute addition. If you want aroma you HAVE to do more than just cube hopping, so a hop tea, or dry hopping is the way to go depending on what you want.

 

[Bribie G]

When using aroma type hops such as Hallertau or Tettnang, or 'dual purpose' hops like Challenger I make a strong hot tea in a coffee press then store the tea in a sanitised bottle in the fridge. I use the pressings in the hopsock as part of the bittering addition as there are still alpha acids hiding in there. I no chill, and this reserves much of the hop aroma which would otherwise be nuked in the cube. Then I add the hop tea at the same time as pitching the yeast. This also works well with Styrian Goldings and EKG.

 

[argon]

Bittering hops are added early, flavour mid way and aroma late, three different uses and three reasons to choose hops suitable for the purpose. Late additions in no chilling is a bit of a waste IMO. I chill and still find that zero min hop additions and dry hopping add a different aspect, with dry hopping adding a "real hop" character if that is what you are after from the hop you have chosen to use. Adding the same hop at 0 min provides a slightly less real hop aroma if you get my drift. To better explain, if you smell a hop variety and love the smell as it is in the green, then use it for dry hopping. If it smells too vegetal, green or some other aroma that you don't find so pleasant then use it late or at 0 min. I can smell an onion aroma in columbus and prefer to use it late rather than for dry hopping. Tos some hops (start with 1g/l of a hop chosen to suit the style) into the fermenter for the second week and see if you like the effect.

Screwy

Interesting method for determining what's appropriate for dry hopping vs late addition... Screwy. Have to give this method a shot determining what goes when.

Always No chilled and never really done a proper "0min" addition always 5mins or so in the French press then added to fermenter or directly to keg after filtering.

Have been a bit hit and miss on this.... and reading the above from Screwy and looking at some notes, it was the hop varieties i really like that were the hits, and the unfamiliar ones that were misses. Eg French Pressed and dry hopped cascade, amarillo, chinook came out nicely. But recently dry hopped centennial and wasn't a fan. Maybe could have been better as a 0-5min addition. Even Styrian... i've done 15min additions and came out lovely. But when i dry hopped it was a little harsh...then again maybe too much can be a problem too.

I'll have to go home and take a big whiff of the various varieties i've got on hand and note which would be good for dryhopping or not. Great advice....ta. Curious how i've never thought to smell the hops fresh before thinking, "i'll add these as dry hops for aroma" make perfect sense <insert slap forehead icon>

 

[Margwar]

Awesome advice, yet again!!
Thanks heaps, I reckon my next batch of Amber will have excellent hop aroma.... mmmmmmmmm hops.....

 

[kevo]

Slight hi-jack, so apologies...

But,

Found this ages ago.



Am I right reading this as a 10 or 15 minute no chill addition would be replaced by a First Wort Hop??

That doesn't seem right to me - can anyone shed some light?

cheers

kev

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Awesome Kev... I've been looking for a chart like that for some time. Thanks for sharing :icon_cheers:

 

[felten]

I wouldn't take it as gospel, but its a good base to work off of and see how your recipes turn out, though I've never done a FWH, not sure if its all that is made out to be.

I'm going to be putting down a BIAB brew tomorrow morning, I might give FWH a go after pulling the bag, see if my Columbus bittering charge makes it through to the FV.

 

[kevo]

Sorry if this is opening a new can of worms, but would a FWH sub for flavour? or a 10/15 min charge?

Kev

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Depending on who you talk to, FWH is for two different things.

Some people think of it as a way to "smooth out" some of the harsher bittering hops... Not an effect that I personally have noticed.

others look at as a different way of introducing a stable hop aroma into their beer. The theory is that if you add hops to hot, but not boiling wort, some of the volatile aroma compounds will be changed by the heat into more stable versions, that will hang around during the boil. Thus you get a more profound aroma effect from hops that you are primarily using to bitter with. This effect I have noticed to a minor degree.

There are also two schools of though about what it does to your bitterness.... One says you will get less bitterness from a hop added as FWH than from the same hop added at start of boil... One says you will get more.

My opinion is that it's a little of both... I think that a FWH give you a little less bittering than the same hop immersed on boiling wort for the same time..... But when you consider that most people add their hops at 60 mins and a FWH is going to be in theree for a fair while longer.... That gives you back a lot of the difference. I think that FWH gives you slightly less bittering than a 90 min hop, but slightly more than a 60 min hop. Where that table posted earlier in the thread equates them to a late addition... I think it is totally wrong from a bitterness added perspective.

I do think that FWH is a way to help a little if you are having difficulty with hop aroma in NC beers...but it's going to give you a similar aroma to say a 10min addition, rather than a 0 min addition or hop back etc style aroma. With a contribution to your flavor as well.

I tend to use roughly the figures in that table, up until it gets past the 20 min addition.... After that I think it's rubbish. You cannot substitute dry hops for 5 min hops, the aroma character is entirely different. Sure you will get aroma, but it isn'the same. and while FWH will give you a kettle hop style aroma to a certain extent, it's also going to add to your bitterness far more than that table suggests. I tend to cube hop.... And get great flavor and aroma out of it.... But for the equivalent of really late kettle hops, whirlpool hops or hopsack hops - I think you need to go with a hop tea, the other methods just don't give the same character of aroma.

TB

 

[sim]

Ive been doing some mucking around with using large amounts
of late additions to make up bittering units with big dirty American pale
styles, ie small bittering charge, and extremely large aroma, and flavour
charge. Ive been aquating 2min additions and hops going into the cube as 10min
worth boiling (in terms of IBUs), and it seems pretty inline with what ive
tasted, bittering wise, in beers brewed with a more traditional bittering
schedule. Its all a bit foggy though really

On another note, anyone want to talk hot wort into soft
plastic? Im thinking of moving to using stainless kegs for no chill rather than
cubes

 

[dr K]

FWH
There is some really old data out there, which is both subjective and inconclusive regarding the softening or otherwise of bittering in with FWH, my (subjective) observations over many years agree wiith Thirsty Boy's. None the less I generally FWH. I do this because I believe that the beer is improved by doing so, I think its got something to do with colloidal stability.
If its a high Alpha hop I am mean with my FWH, say just a few IBU, if its a Noble Hop I am generous as my experience indicates that high alpha hops used in FWH generally add an imbalance to the bittering.
SS Corny Fermentor/ NoChill Holding Cell
I ferment in SS Cornies at a ratio of 3 :2 (fermentors to serving tanks), now I do not NoChill but if you were keeping your wort for later fermentation I would imagine that as the hot wort cooled it would suck air in (fine if the air is sterile and you have excellent wort stability).
Of course you could spend $30 (or less) on a coil of copper, wind it around something to fit inside your boiler and whack a cuouple of hose clamps on, use the waste (I prefer to say grey) water as a final hot rinse for your fermentor then use it on your vegie patch/lawn. That way you can use all the published information regarding hop additions/IBU/Flavour and so on in your own chill system without having to guess..fine use of < $50 to me !
Green as hops.

K

 

[Thirsty Boy]

The good Dr K does raise a salient point... the obvious way to avoid any complications arising from no-chill and hopping, is to chill. Conversations around this sort of stuff tend to either focus in so closely on one method they forget there are others... or turn into flaming arguments about which is better (sigh).

I'm a no-chiller myself - it suits my system and process so well that for me its worth the bit of extra trouble I have to go to in order to get the hop character I am after. But if you make a lot of hoppy beers and NC is giving you trouble, its certainly worth remembering that rapidly cooling the wort will solve all those problems, and as K points out, allow you to be guided by all the published information abut how hops work. NC is still a bit of guesswork. The push might equal the shove when it comes down to effort for reward? I know that there are a few brewers out there who generally no-chill, but swap back to rapid wort cooling for beers where they are looking for a strong late hop aroma.

Sim - there have been a number of discussions about the merits and detriments of using plastic as a no-chill container. The notion of using a corny keg has also been quite thoroughly discussed. Some people do indeed use them. If you have a decent search around you should turn up those threads.

Cheers

TB

 

[mje1980]

I like FWHing a lot, but when i started, the "general rule" was to calc it as a 20 min addition. i still do it this way, and still like the results, and beers i have calc'd this way, using ONLY FWH hops ( one addition ), certainly werent overly bitter, in fact it works quite well if you have a big bag of hops.

Also, with No chill, i havent changed my hop times etc at all compared to when i chilled, and again, still like the results, i dont see/taste/percieve a difference.

 

[Murdoch]

Can I can broaden the subject to extract brewing
I have had problems getting my head around 0 minute or flame out additions in the extract style
What I generally do is boil the hops in a large hops/grain bag that fits over the pot & at 0 minutes I remove the bag & squeeze out the liquor catching most of the hops material in the bag then discarding.
Sometimes I`ll free boil the hops but then strain through some voil into the fermenter at 0 minutes
To me it seems any 0 minute additions would be completely lost as I`d throw them in & then immediately strain them out
Surely it wouldn't do much for that very short exposure ?

 

[big78sam]

I couldn't find the answer to the following questions so rather than starting a new thread...

I have an NC IPA in the fermentor now and want to try the french press method I've left it a bit late though and fermentation is complete. The rule of thumb seems to be to add when fermentation is 3/4 complete. Why is this? Will it matter if I add now (I plan to bottle on the weekend)? Would it be better if I added at the with the priming sugar when I bulk prime and bottle? Do I need to do anything to make sure the 1 litre of highly hopped liquid gets adequately mixed with the other 20 litres in the fermentor?