No Chill bitterness effects?

[Dan Pratt]

how did you measure 1.026? Refractometer or hydrometer

 

[fdsaasdf]

^ with your pool chilling method;

How long in the cube before it goes into the pool?

How long does it take for the temp to drop to pool water temp?

Do you think it would be the same affect with water in a 44Gal drum?

I usually leave the cube on its side for at least 10 minutes before putting it in the pool.

Not sure of exact timing but overnight would be enough to drop to pool temp - I usually pull out once temps are in the 60s or 70s, usually just before I go to bed.

I imagine immersion in a 44 gallon drum of water would work well enough to drop below isomerisation temps in a few hours - with a vessel that size it should be pretty straightforward to approximately work out how long it would take 20L of 100degC wort to drop to a target temperature while immersed in 100 or 150L of ambient temp water. Of course there are many slightly complicating factors bout you should be able to do a rough calculation.

 

[Rocker1986]

I reckon it would drop a lot sooner than a few hours. Last brew day the wort was at 92 after its 20 minutes stand in the urn, and 88 by the time the transfer to the cube was done. I'd guess it probably dropped below 80 in under an hour after that.

Sent from my Agora 4G+ using Aussie Home Brewer mobile app

 

[Edd]

how did you measure 1.026? Refractometer or hydrometer

Hydrometer, I’ve checked it to 20c water and it’s pretty much on the nose.

 

[laxation]

Gordon Strong has done a few Beer Smith podcast's he does a beer with just flame out additions.

it seems to be a big thing now, especially with the NEIPAs.... but just all late/dry hops and 15min "bittering" addition

 

[Hez]

what if you remove the hops before the chilling / no-chilling part? :/

 

[Rocker1986]

what if you remove the hops before the chilling / no-chilling part? :/

Nothing. The hops are already removed in no chilling because they get left behind in the kettle.

In any case though, it's isomerisation of the alpha acids, they'll be in the wort regardless of the hops being removed or not.

 

[Hez]

Nothing. The hops are already removed in no chilling because they get left behind in the kettle.

In any case though, it's isomerisation of the alpha acids, they'll be in the wort regardless of the hops being removed or not.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf0481296?journalCode=jafcau
"The rate of isomerization of alpha acids to iso-alpha acids (the compounds contributing bitter taste to beer) was determined across a range of temperatures (90−130 °C) to characterize the rate at which iso-alpha acids are formed during kettle boiling."

mmmm I thought it had to do with other chemicals, I'm not sure if I understand why this is happening then... so the problem is from boiling to 90º??

In my last brew I did a 0' addition (@80º for 30'). As soon as the boil was over I chilled to 80ºC quite fast with the immersion chiller, did the 0' hop steep for 30' and then I continued to chill with the immesion chiller, ice and the pond pump. When it was around 40º I removed the hop socks (this time I used several small hop socks instead of the big hop spider) and I squeezed them into the kettle (sanitized hands). Then I chilled to 27ºC, moved to the fermentation fridge and went to the cinema. After the cinema and a beer in a cool pub (~4h), when I came back, it was already at 18ºC so I pitched the yeast and went to sleep happy with my brewday.
When I do a 0' hop addition (@80ºC for 30') I input 1' into the calculator to account for some approximation of the IBUs added (someone told me to do that in this forum, I don't remember who...)

What have I done wrong? What would you change? Will I have extra-non-accounted-bitterness because of this or not? :S

 

[Rocker1986]

If you're happy with how your beers are turning out, no need to change anything. If they're a bit too bitter then I'd be looking at reducing the hop amounts used in early boil additions or later boil additions if no early additions are made. I doubt you'll get much increase in IBU from an 80°C addition to make it over bittered.

 

[laxation]

Nothing. The hops are already removed in no chilling because they get left behind in the kettle.

In any case though, it's isomerisation of the alpha acids, they'll be in the wort regardless of the hops being removed or not.

except for cube hops!
i don't get crazy bitterness though.

Hez, to test your IBUs for cube hops, you can use beersmith and calculate them as 15/20min steep additions. I think the idea is they are at above 80 degrees for about 15-20min.

I use very liberal amounts of cube hops and don't get too much bitterness for my liking. Very tasty beers though with the hop flavour coming through strong.

 

[Edd]

If you mashed at 75 and have plastic tastes, you have a world of things to work out before worrying about shifting hop additions.

For new cubes, you can fill with boiling water, let cool, then taste the water. If it tastes like plastic, repeat the process until it doesn't.
Make sure all hoses are food grade silicon, not pvc or similar.

For mash temp, invest in a good thermometer and a couple of spares. Check all in boiling, near freezing and somewhere in mash temp range and see if there's any discrepancy.

Silicon hose purchased, my other was making boiled water taste foul, much worse than any water I tried out of the rinsed cube. The cube just tasted very very faintly of hops from last batch. I’m thinking I might have found the culprit of the highly plastic taste. As for the temp I have purchased a decent digital thermometer this time, one that allows calibration too. See how this goes.

Many thanks to all for interesting replies to the thread btw, some good ideas to try. Looking forward to it. Cheers.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

In any case though, it's isomerisation of the alpha acids, they'll be in the wort regardless of the hops being removed or not.

Research suggests that is not the mechanism involved as raw alpha acids (before isomerisation) are even less soluble than iso alpha acids. Since the alpha acids are largely contained in the lupulin glands which are dominated by their wax / oil content, it follows that the majority of isomerisation will occur before extraction.

Another complication is that raw alpha acids are 10,000 to 100,000 times more soluble in HDPE than in wort* and have been shown to be strongly surface active, so a large (but very hard to predict) proportion of the alpha extracted from the hops will not end up in the wort at all.

mmmm I thought it had to do with other chemicals, I'm not sure if I understand why this is happening then... so the problem is from boiling to 90º??

No.

The rate of isomerisation reduces with temperature but it never reaches zero**. Once you are below about 70 degreees it is slow enough that you have to do something unusual for it to affect the isomerisation rate: like, for instance, filling your wort into a large plastic container at high temperature without cooling.


Footnotes:

* The rate of migration into the HDPE is very slow, so it is likely that the surface effect dominates in short time scales. I am unaware of any research that quantifies this, it is unlikely have been done since the part of the industry that funds research doesn't use plastic containers for wort.

** We've been through this many times before. The rate drops by a bit more than half for each 10 oC reduction in temperature. If you like maths, SQRT 6 is a good approximation of the reduction rate per 10oC. Another way of thinking of this is that the rate reduces by a factor of 10 when the temperature drops by ~26 degrees ( ln10 / ln 6 = 1.28).

 

[Hez]

Research suggests that is not the mechanism involved as raw alpha acids (before isomerisation) are even less soluble than iso alpha acids. Since the alpha acids are largely contained in the lupulin glands which are dominated by their wax / oil content, it follows that the majority of isomerisation will occur before extraction.

Another complication is that raw alpha acids are 10,000 to 100,000 times more soluble in HDPE than in wort* and have been shown to be strongly surface active, so a large (but very hard to predict) proportion of the alpha extracted from the hops will not end up in the wort at all.



No.

The rate of isomerisation reduces with temperature but it never reaches zero**. Once you are below about 70 degreees it is slow enough that you have to do something unusual for it to affect the isomerisation rate: like, for instance, filling your wort into a large plastic container at high temperature without cooling.


Footnotes:

* The rate of migration into the HDPE is very slow, so it is likely that the surface effect dominates in short time scales. I am unaware of any research that quantifies this, it is unlikely have been done since the part of the industry that funds research doesn't use plastic containers for wort.

** We've been through this many times before. The rate drops by a bit more than half for each 10 oC reduction in temperature. If you like maths, SQRT 6 is a good approximation of the reduction rate. Another way of thinking of this is that the rate reduces by a factor of 10 when the temperature drops by ~26 degrees ( ln10 / ln 6 = 1.28).

Rocker1986 said that it doesn't matter if you remove or not the hops from the kettle/fermenter after boiling because the alpha acids are already dissolved and they keep the isomerization process, you confirm the formula is not linear or stops at one temperature but it is continuous and logarithmic so that means with time and temp they will continue to "create bitterness" but probably at an insignificant rate when they are down a particular threshold.. the point is to find which is the temperature to chill the wort without getting too crazy with the chilling procedure, when is it "safe" to stop "fast chilling" and leave it into the fridge or cooling "slowly"? What is this "sweetspot"? 60, 50, 40, 30? Or maybe the question is not to find a perfect value but the one that makes you happy, so maybe it would be more interesting to make a poll...
At which temperature do you stop chilling fast and you go to the fridge or leave it cool down by its own?

(I'm fairly cooked right now... Some pints after work for Christmas, bla bla... Maybe I don't make any sense jejeje )

 

[Rocker1986]

I'd defer to LC on this one Hez, he is far more knowledgeable in the science of it than I am. However if you are actively chilling wort, it's better to get it to pitching temp as quickly as possible and pitch the yeast rather than cool it halfway and let it sit unpitched for hours. That's just making it easier for infections to take hold.

In any case, there are methods that can be used with no chill brewing to make sure the bitterness isn't too high in beers with lots of late hop additions. In beers without late hops it's a non issue though.

 

[Edd]

As a footnote to this thread, I did find that my fridge temp controller was about 3C too high. I calibrated my didgital thermometer to boiling water and then stuck that next to the probe for a few minutes. Did this 3 times with consistent high readings from the fridge probe.

 

[Edd]

Also I’ve knocked back the hopping on latest batch. I’ve gone for my usual 60min addition but then no more in the boil. I’ve cube hopped half the remaining kettle additions and will heave the rest in as dry hopping. See what I get.

 

[sotally tober]

My advice after doing NC brewing for 10 years is...…..
As mentioned add 20mins to any boiling hop addition including flame out.

In short if you add your hops to the sanitised cube and run your hot wort @ 80c into the cube you would account for a 10min whirpool addition.
If you are using Beersmith they recently added this option.

There was an article in a recent Beer and Brewer Magazine about this.
The B n B article suggested to add the cube hops as a 60 min addition,​

and calculate 18% of that addition for accuracy (if the wort is run into the cube @ 80c) as even at this temp you will still extract some bitterness.


I've done this multiple times and cross referenced the methods and they are both very precise.


Try it out, I'm confident you will be stoked

 

[Rocker1986]

Everyone has different ways and means. I don't "add" any time to any hop additions, I simply create hop schedules to work with the no-chill process that give me what I want in the glass.

 

[MHB]

Personally I think the biggest problem is people cant tell the difference between Hop Taste and Bitterness.
I know some will say that if it tastes bitterer it must be, but not really the case. Bittiness (IBU's) is a measure of the amount of dissolved Iso-Alpha in the beer, to say that it tastes bitter with more hop taste components is a bit like measuring the bitterness of Tonic Water (=0 IBU's) it bitter but not hop bitter if that makes sense.
You can learn the difference, get some pre-isomerised hop product, dilute it down to about 25-30 IBU. Make up some hop tea (stay under 80oC), the tea will have very little IBU type bitterness (under the taste threshold) but plenty of hop taste. Taste the two and you can tell the difference, with a bit of practice you can pick out the difference even when the two are mixed together as is in a beer.
Mark

 

[Edd]

This BeerSmith whirlpool addition timing has me a bit stumped as I am cube hopping and technically not whirlpool hopping. Same/same but different...!
I’m thinking that I should enter the time from adding cube hops, to the time the wort drops below 85C in the cube to get an estimate of utilisation?
I have canned all kettle additions bar the 60min bittering - which is adjusted to get my IBU’s up there. I have halved the remaining kettle additions and added 50% as a cube hop, the rest will be dry hopped with remaining hops.
I’m hoping this might work as I was finding even knocking 20 mins off kettle adds was creating a beer that was far too bitter, and not a clean bitterness either.
It’s an open ended query I suppose as what’s good for me is not to everyone else’s taste!