Separate Hop Boil (no Chill)

[dreadhead]

Recently I've been reading a lot of discussion regarding hop isomerisation post wort boil in the no chill cube, and whether or not it adds unwanted extra bitterness from hop flavour and aroma additions. It got me thinking about trying out another hopping method ( I have no idea if this has done a million times before, as I don't know what I'd actually type in the search function), which involves:

-Prior to the boil draw off a small portion of wort (1L or so?) which will be used for your flavour and aroma hop additions. (I believe extraction and isomerisation of certain hop components is pH dependent, making water unusuitable)

-Boil the major part of your wort in the kettle with your regular bittering additions, add to no chill cube. (maybe aim a little lower on the IBUs)

-In a separate pot boil the small wort portion and add hops at your normal flavour and aroma intervals, then rapidly chill down and place in a small airtight, sanitised container, and chuck in the fridge.

-The following day when you're ready to pitch just combine your bittered wort and flavour/aroma wort in the fermenter and add your yeast.

Let me know your opinions, and if I have just nicked someone else's idea and regurgitated it :wacko:

 

[Sammus]

there could be issues with the solubility of the desired hop compounds in such a small amount of wort... if that is no issue then I reckon give it a crack.

 

[Scruffy]

No Chill, No Hopback...

What next, no keg kegging?

 

[Kai]

Why complicate things with a second boil & chill? Just make any potential "unwanted" IBUs from no chill "wanted" by dropping your kettle additions. IBU calculations are an inexact science anyway, so a few points here or there is no real biggie.

 

[QldKev]

It would work but since your not doing a full boil your hop utilisation would be crap. There is a formula somewhere around that you could calculate it on; but basically you would need to add heaps more hops to get the same outcome as a full boil. At a guess I think you would need something like 50% more hops...


QldKev

 

[dreadhead]

Thanks for the quick replies.

Qldkev: Since I am only using the smaller pot for flavour/aroma additions, the hop utilisation isn't important to me as all the bitterness will be coming from the hops in the kettle. The reason I would be doing the separate boil is to remove the unknown variable of how many extra IBUs would be derived from these hops in the cube.

Kai: It's not really much extra work, just a pot on the stove for 15mins, chucking it in the sink to cool and putting it in a container, something to do while your main boil is going on.
While it is not exact, it saves adjusting hop amounts or boil times to compensate. You can basically follow standard hop schedules and whatever figures your brewing software pumps out.

Does anyone actually know how many extra IBUs are produced while in the no chill cube? I've read somewhere that Alpha Acid isomerisation continues down to about 70deg. If you've got a full cube of almost boiling wort with late high alpha hops in it, I'm sure there'd be a noticeable bitterness difference by the time it has cooled to pitching temp.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Spartan 117]

there could be issues with the solubility of the desired hop compounds in such a small amount of wort... if that is no issue then I reckon give it a crack.

+1. It would need some looking into before you give it a go, my understaning is that the alpha acid in hops are a very weak non polar lewis acid. so yeah like benzoic acid and aliek they would be ery insoluble in water, 1L might not be enough.

Aaron

 

[buttersd70]

Does anyone actually know how many extra IBUs are produced while in the no chill cube?

depends on your opinion.....some say "LOTS!!!, LOTS!!!", and are rather vocal about it.....

others (who don't like heavily bitter beers) just keep relatively schtum and make no changes, cos they think that anyone that has sensible end hop additions (instead of just throwing tons and tons of hops at their beer) won't notice any difference, anyway......

 

[Kai]

In my experience, a "sensible" addition of a high alpha hop like simcoe late in the boil is going to result in a noticeable increase in bitterness.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

you dont even need to boil and store the "hoppy" wort.

No chill you beer minus the late addition hops
Put it in the fermenter with yeast
When you are about 2/3rds of the way to final gravity, tap off 500ml of the beer/wort, take your late addition hops, shove em in a coffee plunger and pour boiling wort on them, stir em up, let it sit for a few minute, plunge, pour into fermenter.

You will get a great big burst of aroma, even more than you would from the equivalent amount of hops added late in the boil in a chilled wort. The later you put the hops into the fermenter, the less aroma gets scrubbed out by C02 action - But I think that the action of fermentation smooths out the aromas and makes them less grassy, so you dont want to put it in right at the end when the yeast are all finished.

Done this stacks of times and it works very well. You method is pretty much te same thing and I am sure it would work too.

TB

 

[dreadhead]

you dont even need to boil and store the "hoppy" wort.

No chill you beer minus the late addition hops
Put it in the fermenter with yeast
When you are about 2/3rds of the way to final gravity, tap off 500ml of the beer/wort, take your late addition hops, shove em in a coffee plunger and pour boiling wort on them, stir em up, let it sit for a few minute, plunge, pour into fermenter.

You will get a great big burst of aroma, even more than you would from the equivalent amount of hops added late in the boil in a chilled wort. The later you put the hops into the fermenter, the less aroma gets scrubbed out by C02 action - But I think that the action of fermentation smooths out the aromas and makes them less grassy, so you dont want to put it in right at the end when the yeast are all finished.

Done this stacks of times and it works very well. You method is pretty much te same thing and I am sure it would work too.

TB

TB, I'm sure your method would work really well in the big, hoppy styles like and APA or IPA.... but in styles where you want a big whack of malt aroma to shine through as well, like a Pils or ESB, the really late hopping might overwhelm it all. But definitely another technique to add the repertoire :icon_cheers:

 

[buttersd70]

but in styles where you want a big whack of malt aroma to shine through as well, like a Pils or ESB, the really late hopping might overwhelm it all. But definitely another technique to add the repertoire :icon_cheers:

These styles are more likely (generally, but not exclusively) to have smaller end additions anyway, with lower alpha hops....

imo, anything with <1(ish) g/L in the flavour and/or aroma addition, of a hop with <6(ish) % AA isn't going to need adjustment. 2c, based on my own hopping rates and chill vs nochill of the same recipe, using these hopping rates. (in bitters, milds, and best bitters).

 

[Thirsty Boy]

TB, I'm sure your method would work really well in the big, hoppy styles like and APA or IPA.... but in styles where you want a big whack of malt aroma to shine through as well, like a Pils or ESB, the really late hopping might overwhelm it all. But definitely another technique to add the repertoire :icon_cheers:

I agree, this is the technique I use when I want to emulate the aroma of aggressive late hopping or hopback beers. For a less hoppy finish I would add any late hop additions directly to the cube and adjust my bittering addition.

Although I do do this on my ordinary bitter - where I want a bit of hopback character. It gets cube hops, Ultra Late hops and dry hops... but very modest amounts of all three.

Or as Butters said, just hop normally - Lagers normally have quite modest late additions of quite low AA% hops. I personally find I get less than satisfactory aroma from kettle additions when I am no-chilling - which is why I cube hop, but otherwise I would probably just kettle hop normally for those sorts of beers.

All that said though - I adjusted a vienna lager that had too little bitterness and too little hop aroma by using the coffee plunger - it got best of show at last years Vicbrew... so if you do it carefully and apply a little thought, this technique can work in any style you want.

 

[buttersd70]

Just in relation to low end hop rates, with low-medium alpha hops, I'd lake to make an observation based on one of my English Mild recipes...
Recently, two other brewers brewed one of my mild recipes (one that I've brewed probably 20+ times). They both chill

The first one followed my recipe to the letter, with the exception of water; I use Eau d'Adelaide, and he made additions....

his hop flavour, and aroma, were identical to mine. His level of bitterness (as percieved) appeared to be roughly the same, but the malt flavour seemed somewhat subdued, and it was mineraly. (too high in the sulphates, I think).

The second was brewed with Adelaide tap, but with minor changes to the recipe. The OG/FG, and IBU calculations were the same, as was the weight to volume of his late additions...but he used JW pils instead of JW TA (which comprised half the base), and swapped out the late hopped fuggle/styrian combo for EKG (but each of these hops is ~5%AA anyway, so no big deal), and swapped his 60min for Northern Brewer from the Fuggle that I normally use (although I've swapped out the 60 for NB myself on at least 3 occasions). His version appeared to have more aroma (but it might just be that I'm more sensetive to the aroma of EKG, cos I don't like it very much, and can smell it a mile away), and appeared to be slightly more bitter than my version. Only slightly, but noticable. Minor varience in the bittering (and it was minor) can easily be atributed to various factors...no two brewers will produce exactly the same beer, even if the recipe is followed to the letter...just ask DrS. The amount of Golden Ales he gets given to try, and no 2 alike. :lol: ....but what I found interesting in this second one is, if the convention that No Chill leads to more bitter beer is to be believed, then this (rapid chill) beer should have been slightly less bitter than my (no chill) versions, rather than slightly more......and the first one I mentioned, which did have the same hops as mine, should have had noticebly more hop flavour and aroma than mine did, but it didn't, the smell I took to start with was identical....

(btw, we're talking 0.5g /L @20, and 0.5g/L at flameout. 1036OG, 18IBU.)

Oh, this was all recent - long after I formed the belief that small additions of low/ medium-low alpha hops don't make a lot of difference in NC.

Now I can't comment directly on the effect of high alpha hops (even in moderate amounts) used late in the boil, because I've never made a beer (NC, or otherwise) that uses high alpha hops late in the boil......I think the highest I've used for late additions would be around 8.9...amarillo from a couple of crops back. Not high alpha, more medium, I guess. I didn't compare it to anything similar at the time, anyway, so can't draw comparisons. (but muckeys first ever AG was a DrS, done to the absolute letter, and no chilled....sample bottle came back with the comment 'one of the closest to mine I've tasted'...and DrS is a rapid chiller. Make of that what you will. :lol: ).

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Just in relation to low end hop rates, with low-medium alpha hops, I'd lake to make an observation based on one of my English Mild recipes...
Recently, two other brewers brewed one of my mild recipes (one that I've brewed probably 20+ times). They both chill

The first one followed my recipe to the letter, with the exception of water; I use Eau d'Adelaide, and he made additions....

his hop flavour, and aroma, were identical to mine. His level of bitterness (as percieved) appeared to be roughly the same, but the malt flavour seemed somewhat subdued, and it was mineraly. (too high in the sulphates, I think).

The second was brewed with Adelaide tap, but with minor changes to the recipe. The OG/FG, and IBU calculations were the same, as was the weight to volume of his late additions...but he used JW pils instead of JW TA (which comprised half the base), and swapped out the late hopped fuggle/styrian combo for EKG (but each of these hops is ~5%AA anyway, so no big deal), and swapped his 60min for Northern Brewer from the Fuggle that I normally use (although I've swapped out the 60 for NB myself on at least 3 occasions). His version appeared to have more aroma (but it might just be that I'm more sensetive to the aroma of EKG, cos I don't like it very much, and can smell it a mile away), and appeared to be slightly more bitter than my version. Only slightly, but noticable. Minor varience in the bittering (and it was minor) can easily be atributed to various factors...no two brewers will produce exactly the same beer, even if the recipe is followed to the letter...just ask DrS. The amount of Golden Ales he gets given to try, and no 2 alike. :lol: ....but what I found interesting in this second one is, if the convention that No Chill leads to more bitter beer is to be believed, then this (rapid chill) beer should have been slightly less bitter than my (no chill) versions, rather than slightly more......and the first one I mentioned, which did have the same hops as mine, should have had noticebly more hop flavour and aroma than mine did, but it didn't, the smell I took to start with was identical....

(btw, we're talking 0.5g /L @20, and 0.5g/L at flameout. 1036OG, 18IBU.)

Oh, this was all recent - long after I formed the belief that small additions of low/ medium-low alpha hops don't make a lot of difference in NC.

Now I can't comment directly on the effect of high alpha hops (even in moderate amounts) used late in the boil, because I've never made a beer (NC, or otherwise) that uses high alpha hops late in the boil......I think the highest I've used for late additions would be around 8.9...amarillo from a couple of crops back. Not high alpha, more medium, I guess. I didn't compare it to anything similar at the time, anyway, so can't draw comparisons. (but muckeys first ever AG was a DrS, done to the absolute letter, and no chilled....sample bottle came back with the comment 'one of the closest to mine I've tasted'...and DrS is a rapid chiller. Make of that what you will. :lol: ).

Butters - people are talking about reasonably minor increases in bitterness from late additions. Limiting ourselves to additions where hop matter doesn't make it into the cube, people are usually talking about an increase in bitterness equivalent to boiling the hops for 10-20 mins longer than you actually do.

At the hopping rates you are talking about 0.5g/L @ 20mins and 0.5g/L at flameout 5% AA hops - well I just punched the numbers into pro-mash using rager.

If you have an 18IBU beers with the late hop additions you quote - and you change the late hop additions time to ten minutes longer in the boil ... it increases the IBUs to 21 - if you change it to 20 mins longer it changes the IBUs to 24

So thats an increase of 3-6 IBUs ... its commonly bandied about that the vast majority of tasters are unable to distinguish a change in bitterness of less than 5 IBUs. So at anything but the highest end of that range, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference - at the upper end of it you would notice it as being a "slightly more bitter" - which tallies with your experience.

Change those late hop additions to say a 14.5% Galaxy (the last batch I used was at this AA%) - and it gets more interesting

add a change = to 10mins extra in the boil .... 8 extra IBU
add a change = to 20mins extra in the boil .... 16.5 extra IBU

So somewhere between 45 & 93% increase in bitterness in that beer ... which you are probably going to notice. And thats with 0.5g/L ... imagine the difference it would make in an aggressively late hopped American style with 3 or four times as many late hops.

Now, I'm not willing to say with late hop additions that it is equal to X minutes extra in the boil - but in my experience, anecdotally in others experience, and theoretically .. it should and does add "some" bitterness. At the least it could add some bitterness, and I think its worth warning prospective no-chill brewers that this is a phenomenon they might like to keep an eye out for.

I have an experiment on the pipeline which will add a minor layer of evidence one way or the other - and if it pans out to be true, might help give us a better idea of the degree to which it happens and how much we should compensate. It just needs me to pull my finger out and suck up to the lab tech at work a bit.

Thirsty