Whirlpool only APA

[paulyman]

Hi guys,

Now that I have my brew rig dialled in and have caught up on supply after the mayhem of chrissy and new years I am in the mood to experiment.

I can fit two fermenters in my chest freezer, maybe 3 at a squeeze. So am planning a double brew weekend in the near future. The first will be a Smoked Porter recipe I found online from Stone Brewery. I then listened to Mike Steele on the Beersmith podcast mentioning that Stone only do a 90 minute bittering addition and then all whirlpool hops for their IPA's.

So I've been thinking along the SMASH lines, what do whirlpool hops bring to the table? Using Beersmith I can add a hop as a steeped/whirlpool hop for say 30 minutes and then adjust the bitterness to suit. Is this idea similar to the cube additions no chillers make? If so I could save a lot of electricity by just cubing.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

 

[mxd]

r u chilling ?

Matt B (super US A brewer Firestone Walker) does about 5 IBU early then basically the rest in the whirlpool (pre-chilling), he has mentioned he get about 20% utlisation for his 45 min whirlpool (obviously bigger volume so holds temp longer)

if you chill in a counter flow you could try "100 g" of simcoc/mosiac/citra (some high alpha) and then put into 5 lt "fermenters" after 20 minutes whirlpool then 25, 30, 35 and let us know the results

 

[paulyman]

Cheers mxd,

Yeah I use an immersion chiller. I have a Mathos controller so I can maintain 90 degrees for the whirlpool no probs.

Might give it a crack and see how it goes. Will take a sh@t load of hops so that's the draw back I suppose. Should give me a good idea what whirlpooling brings to the table.

 

[indica86]

Whirlpool hops bring heaps.
I love a good IPA.
Mine are all now bittering addition + 20 minute whirlpool + dry hop. Easy and fabulous everytime.
I no chill too. Everyone that drinks my beers like them. Have a play you'll love it.

 

[Fat Bastard]

Yep. I do a few different beers with very minor bittering additions @ 60 followed up by bulk hops @ 10, flame out and a 10 minute steep after a 10 minute whirlpool depending on what I want to achieve. You can set your steep temperature in beersmith according to whatever your system drops after flame out so the bitterness calcation works out close to what the actual bitterness is. I normally hit 96ish after a 10 min whirlpool after flame out, so I set mine to 95, which seems right to my taste buds. My standard procedure is flame out, whirlpool 10, rest for 10 and into the fermenter.

 

[Fat Bastard]

Oh yeah, another top tip for super hop aroma beer is to leave the lid on the kettle for as long as you possibly can. The volatile oils are miscible in steam, which basically means if you can see steam coming out of the kettle, you're also losing aroma. One of the main reSons I went for a pump driven whirlpool system on my rig rather than buggering around with spoons.

 

[RobB]

On the american forums they refer to this step (0 min with heat off for a period before chilling) as a hop stand. Do a search and you'll see a lot of discussion on sites like Home Brew Talk.

The discussions follow a similar path to the cube-hopping threads here on AHB - agreement that it delivers big hop flavour, then discussions on how to calculate the additional bitterness.

I use the technique for hoppy beers with my whirlpool pump running the whole time. 30 minutes (by which time it's down to 85 degrees) then chill. To my palate, it gives much more hop flavour than chilling immediately after the 0 minute addition. Aroma goes the other way, but we're talking about styles which suit dry hopping, so there's an easy fix. I used to find the same thing with cube hopping.

I calculate the whirlpool bitterness as a ten minute addition and it's in the ballpark.

 

[danestead]

With the help and mathematics of another forum member (his name slips my memory), I came up with percentages of isomerisation for temperatures other than 100degs (boiling). It is actually quite easy to work out if you have brew software.

100 100%
95 66%
90 43%
85 28%
80 18%
75 11%
70 7%

Example.

I want to make a 1.050 OG, 35 IBU APA and the only hops I want to add are at flameout. I would like to hopstand these for 20 mins and then I will be using my immersion chiller to drop the temperature as quickly as possible to stop any further isomerisation (extraction of IBU's).

I know that my system drops to 90 degrees over a 20 minute hop stand. Therefore, the average temperature over that time is roughly 95 degrees and by looking at the chart above you will see that isomerisation is 66% at 95 degrees.

I type up my recipe in Beersmith/Promash etc. Enter a 20 minute addition of the hop/s you will be using. I want 35 IBU's however at 95 degrees, only 66% of the normal rolling boil isomerisation occurs so do the maths 35 / 0.66 = 53. You need to make that 20 minute addition equal 53 IBU's. In my example with 9.9 AA Centennial it is 78g. Obviously you add those hops at flameout, not at 20 mins.

Thats it.

 

[RobB]

Thanks danestead, that's good info. I find it easier to think in "equivalent minutes" but I used your figures and the Tinseth utilisation formula to check my guesstimate. For my rate of cooling, your figures give me 12 minutes, so my guess of 10 wasn't too bad.