Whirlpool and flameout hop question

[SnailAle]

First up apologies for asking what's probably already here, it's just become one of those things that the more I read the more confused I am.

I'm still very new to brewing and there's just a couple of things that I'm confused by.

Firstly, I've been seeing whirlpool come up a lot in recipes. My question is do I need to do it and if so how.
I brew on a guten, at flame out I connect an immersion chiller and at the moment chuck in a tablet of Irish moss to clear things up 10 minutes before the end of the boil. I use hop pellets in a hop spider too. I thought this was ok, but now I'm wondering whether I need to be whirlpooling as well and if so how when I've got a hop spider and immersion chiller in the mash tun at the same time.

Secondly regarding flameout hops, while reading about whirlpool I came across something I hadn't thought of. I took the term flameout hops at face value, when I cut the power I've been chucking them in and hooking up the immersion chiller. I've since read that I should be dropping my temperature to around 60 deg, putting in flameout hops, holding at that temp for a period then continuing to draw it down with an immersion chiller again.

Any clarification on these questions would be great. I'm thick skinned so cal me an ***** if these are dumb questions [emoji106]

 

[homebrewnewb]

you got a few options here, i assume you have a pump to move the wort to the chiller.

-assuming to DON'T want to chill in your kettle. you could so this but you would need two pumps maybe.

Get a copper pipe make a hook that goes to the bottom (ish) of your boil kettle, connect to the out on your pump.
connect the intake to the out on your kettle.
pump wort through out port in kettle to pump back into the copper into your kettle, which will be easily direct able so get a nice vortex going... simples.

you can use the hook as pick up arm in reverse too..

alternative, use a big spoon.

is w/pooling important, there are way more critical things in the process than w/p it is nice to get all the traub and **** in the middle away from the pick up so there's is value there.
$000.002

 

[SnailAle]

I've been doing everything in the guten. Mash in it, boil in it, then just drop the chiller in it until the wort cools enough and run it into the fermenter through the tap. I lose about two litres ish at the bottom of the tun under the tap which seems to have a fair concentration of the trub.

It does have a recirculation pump but as per instructions I haven't used it to pump wort in case it clogs up.

 

[homebrewnewb]

fair enough, not to sure on the guten set up, sounds like it might be getting a bit crowded in there for a w/p.
i am not sure if you are going to get much value out of a w/p so long as the traub is under control.

you might be better served by dry hopping i feel, i am sure others will have a bit more to add.

just so i don't sound to crazy i am in the process of getting a dedicated w/p pump in my system, just not in a guten.
more to get the traub concentrated than anything

 

[2cranky]

Hi Snail,
I would put the chiller in when you do the Irish moss, it needs to be sterilized. Put some hot water in it so the kettle doesn't take too long to get back to boil, but don't connect to fresh flowing water yet.
At flame out add your steep/whirlpool hops and steep for the required time.
once that's done you can start chilling, during the chilling I remove the hop sock and sit it on top of the chiller to drain.
when the wort has cooled enough you can remove the chill coil and whirlpool with a big spoon, mash paddle, paint mixer - whatever you like really. important to make sure whatever you use is sterilized. Just get the whole wort rotating enough to dip in the middle then leave it to settle before transferring to FV. If done correctly the solids will all collect in the middle giving you a much clearer wort to ferment.

 

[SnailAle]

Hi Snail,
I would put the chiller in when you do the Irish moss, it needs to be sterilized. Put some hot water in it so the kettle doesn't take too long to get back to boil, but don't connect to fresh flowing water yet.
At flame out add your steep/whirlpool hops and steep for the required time.
once that's done you can start chilling, during the chilling I remove the hop sock and sit it on top of the chiller to drain.
when the wort has cooled enough you can remove the chill coil and whirlpool with a big spoon, mash paddle, paint mixer - whatever you like really. important to make sure whatever you use is sterilized. Just get the whole wort rotating enough to dip in the middle then leave it to settle before transferring to FV. If done correctly the solids will all collect in the middle giving you a much clearer wort to ferment.

Thanks mate,

Sorry should have mentioned I sterilize the chiller then drop it in for the last ten mins of boil for good measure.

Thanks for the help re. Wp, I'll do it that way this weekend.

Regarding the hopping, I've never seen mention of how long to steep flameout hops before chilling, is that just an intuitive thing that comes with experience? So I don't need to drop the temp for flameout hops either?

 

[Gloveski]

Many ways to skin a cat mate , just to come up with a process that suits your taste . I lower my temp to 70 degrees and then add whirlpool hops and leave for 30 minutes . Any other hop additions beforehand I have in a hopsock . While I am lowering temp I remove hop sock , once at desired temp will add whirlpool hops straight in kettle and put hopsock back in . For me this gives desired flavour profile I like without added bitterness from leaving hops in while I come down to 70 . Just experiment until you get the taste you want .

 

[homebrewnewb]

think about what you are trying to do here, you're just steeping for aroma you can't get any bitterness in there right? steeping is about 2-5 minutes, but it is pretty subjective.
then again, some recipes will stipulate a 30min steep... so depends.

 

[goatchop41]

Secondly regarding flameout hops, while reading about whirlpool I came across something I hadn't thought of. I took the term flameout hops at face value, when I cut the power I've been chucking them in and hooking up the immersion chiller. I've since read that I should be dropping my temperature to around 60 deg, putting in flameout hops, holding at that temp for a period then continuing to draw it down with an immersion chiller again.

Flameout hops are exactly as you describe - added at flameout. The other method that you've described is referred to by a couple of terms - mostly as whirlpool hops or more likely a 'hop stand'. Which of these methods you use depends on exactly what your trying to achieve (bitterness vs flavour vs aroma, etc.).
You don't need to drop to 60o for a hop stand/whirlpool hops. Alpha acid isomerisation stops at 71-72o, so dropping the temp to 70o is enough.

To confuse matters further, 'whirlpooling' can simply refer to making a whirlpool get a nice cone of trub in the centre of the kettle, allowing draining of more clean wort. Whereas 'whirlpool hops' refers to the dropped temp adding of hops (I think they're called that because they're added during the whirlpool, when the temp is naturally dropping)

 

[2cranky]

yeah it depends on the recipe. some add at flame out for 5 or 10 minutes. I've done one recipe that added at flameout and let cool naturally to 75c then another addition for 30 minutes. Well it was a nice beer but added an hour after flameout so i haven't brewed that one again.
there is no real hard and fast rule.

• first wort addition is great for bittering and is supposed to set up the rest of the additions for better extraction.
• 60 minutes for bittering.
• then the later the additions is less bittering and more flavour/aroma.
• additions after flameout are not supposed to add much if any bittering only flavour and aroma.
• dry hop is supposed to be mostly aroma.

So within that you can do what you like, if you use an app like Beersmith it keeps a fairly good tally of the bitterness - IBUs.

 

[homebrewnewb]

I'd just add to that second to last point, a little clarification; unless the wort is boiling, it is not extracting the bittering compound from the hop.
I am sure someone will correct me if this is untrue.

 

[2cranky]

I'd just add to that second to last point, a little clarification; unless the wort is boiling, it is not extracting the bittering compound from the hop.
I am sure someone will correct me if this is untrue.

yes apparantly - but Beersmith adds a small amount to IBUs.
One of my recipes has Ahtanum at 40 min - 6.6 IBUs, at 10 min - 2.7 IBUs and steep 5 min - 0.7 IBUs. If there was a scale for flavour it would go in the opposite direction.
Not sure if I agree with the IBUs in steeping so my latest batch of this I subtracted all the IBUs (almost 7 IBUs) from steeping (BS2 calculation) and added more earlier additions to get the bitterness I wanted (40 IBUs total). I did this because the first batch didnt taste like 40 IBUs

 

[Gloveski]

I think above 80 and your still drawing some bitterness from your hops ...... I'm sure I read that somewhere

 

[Matplat]

@Lyrebird_Cycles once said (and I trust that he has his **** together most of time ) that at 80° you're extracting bitterness at 1% of the rate at which it is extracted at 100°, so 80° is the temperature at which most calculators assume that no further bitterness is added to the brew. Or words similiar to that effect.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

To be precise, at 53 oC you will have 1% of the isomerisation rate of the alpha acids.

Extraction of alpha acids and flavour compounds from hops is more difficult to model. Neither AAs nor the common terpene flavour compounds are readily soluble in water but isoAAs are moderately soluble, so it seems that the alpha acids are isomerised in situ and the isoAAs then dissolve into the wort.

Where this becomes practically important is when your hop material has settled into the trub post flame out (or if it is tightly compacted in a hop sock and thus has limited contact with wort). In this case it seems logical that even though the AAs will continue to isomerise they will have little chance of being extracted into the wort.

I believe this contributes to the difference seen between adding whirlpool hops and a static hop stand.

EDIT: corrected rate the first sentence. I forgot to check MatPlat's quote, the temperature was 53 oC not 80.

 

[goatchop41]

For those of you who need a TL;DR of some of LC's post - there is a difference between extracting hop oils, and isomerisation.
Isomerisation of the AAs occurs at temps >72oC, which is generally what adds bitterness to the beer.
Extracting hop oils gives flavour, aroma, and can give some bitterness. Hop oil extraction doesn't require high temps.

Also, just a note that dry hopping can increase or decrease bitterness (depending on the IBU of the dry hopped beer), and can also change the perceived bitterness of the beer
http://scottjanish.com/increasing-bitterness-dry-hopping/
http://scottjanish.com/dry-hopping-effect-bitterness-ibu-testing/

 

[2cranky]

So Snail, I hope it is all clear now?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

For those of you who need a TL;DR of some of LC's post - there is a difference between extracting hop oils, and isomerisation.
Isomerisation of the AAs occurs at temps >72oC,

That's not correct.

There is no simple cutoff temp for isomerisation, it follows classic Arrhenius kinetics so the rate reduces as the temperature drops. The error introduced by not considering the degree of isomerisation thus also reduces as the temperature drops so depending on your error tolerance you can decide to ignore it.

There is no temeprature above absolute zero at which the reaction stops compleletely.

 

[SnailAle]

That's not correct.

There is no simple cutoff temp for isomerisation, it follows classic Arrhenius kinetics so the rate reduces as the temperature drops. The error introduced by not considering the degree of isomerisation thus also reduces as the temperature drops so depending on your error tolerance you can decide to ignore it.

There is no temeprature above absolute zero at which the reaction stops compleletely.

In the same way that water turns to gas at 100 deg but during the heating process it will also be doing the same but at a lesser rate?

 

[goatchop41]

That's not correct.

There is no simple cutoff temp for isomerisation, it follows classic Arrhenius kinetics so the rate reduces as the temperature drops. The error introduced by not considering the degree of isomerisation thus also reduces as the temperature drops so depending on your error tolerance you can decide to ignore it.

There is no temeprature above absolute zero at which the reaction stops compleletely.

Yes, you are correct. Just remember though, we are not talking to a bunch of scientists who insist upon absolute 100% precision in these things on here (yes, I know there are users who are the exception). The majority of users on here are looking for a general rule that they can use. So in your words, we can essentially "ignore it" at those lower temps. That makes it fairly easy for most of us.
If we were nitpicking, we could really talk about how theoretical IBUs, measured IBUs and perceived bitterness can be completely inconsistent or varying between batches of beer, and therefore we may just be shooting in the dark and all of this doesn't really matter as much as we think that it does.......