Late Hops and Myrcene Evaporation

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Tony1951

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I've been REALLY enjoying my American Pales with those fruity hops and I did a bit of reading around the hop oils that give those flavours and aromas. From what I can gather the flavour oil I prize so much is Mycene. We all know those flavours and aromas evaporate with too much boiling, and I noticed a big increase in 'hoppy - fruity' burst in the mouth flavour when I added my flame out hops after cooling the wort to below 80C before adding them.

While I was reading about this elusive Myrcene oil, I discovered that it is an aromatic hydrocarbon, I noticed that it evaporates at above 64C. This suggests to me that putting in sixty grammes of expensive American hops at ten or fifteen minutes before turning off and cooling the wort is a waste of time, because you are boiling the oil away for at least twenty minutes..... Have I got this right?

What I am thinking is that on my next APA brew, I will cool my wort down to about 65C, draw off ten litres of wort into a big pot, and then put in ALL of the late and flame out hops at BELOW the evaporation temperature of the Myrcene and let them stew there, gently cooling while I drop the temperature of the rest of the wort down to pitching temperature. When the late hops are cool, I will add the lot back to the FV part of the batch, leaving in the hops. I WANT those flavours so why wave the hops over the wort and then chuck them away?

I have written before about leaving my late hops in the brew while it fermented and I got really great results from that. Myqul tried that and he wrote about it and thought he liked it, albeit that at first he thought it had a slightly soapy flavour until it matured when he thought it was a surprisingly good beer.

I'd welcome any comments from people experienced in this kind of thing. Thanks.

Cheers
 
A question from someone who has no experience in this kind of thing at all, what's the difference between your suggestion and dry hopping?
 
A question from someone who has no experience in this kind of thing at all, what's the difference between your suggestion and dry hopping?

I suppose that with dry hopping we have usually already spent money putting a volatile compound into the boil and boiling it for ten or fifteen minutes thereby evaporating what we probably paid about £4 off into the air. The 15 minute hops are vigorously boiled so I reckon that unless we want the other compounds in those hops, they probably go out of the brew house window.

I know that brewers are factoring some bitterness from the utilisation of alpha oils from the ten or fifteen minute boil of the late hops, but bittering hops are cheap and can be added at the start. My APA flavours as far as I know are all volatile and probably mostly gone when the citra, and centennial and so on are boiled. These are not cheap hops and I want those flavours - hence my idea.....

I'm asking here not telling. I am not a long experienced brewer, so I am wondering what the old hands think. Myqul has been experimenting around this kind of thing with his brewing.
 
80c is often bandied round as the magic number, above that a lot of the oils will boil away, so many people including me, cool to 80c at flame out then add your flame out / 0minute hops.

Haven't scientifically done comparisons of the same beer but generally that seems to be the accepted wisdom.
 
A question from someone who has no experience in this kind of thing at all, what's the difference between your suggestion and dry hopping?

I guess temperature plays a part too, it's not as effective as when the wort is hot. Like putting a tea bag in cold water.
 
I suppose that with dry hopping we have usually already spent money putting a volatile compound into the boil and boiling it for ten or fifteen minutes thereby evaporating what we probably paid about ��£4 off into the air. The 15 minute hops are vigorously boiled so I reckon that unless we want the other compounds in those hops, they probably go out of the brew house window.

I know that brewers are factoring some bitterness from the utilisation of alpha oils from the ten or fifteen minute boil of the late hops, but bittering hops are cheap and can be added at the start. My APA flavours as far as I know are all volatile and probably mostly gone when the citra, and centennial and so on are boiled. These are not cheap hops and I want those flavours - hence my idea.....

I'm asking here not telling. I am not a long experienced brewer, so I am wondering what the old hands think. Myqul has been experimenting around this kind of thing with his brewing.

Only been here a year and a half or so with about 20 brews (mostly hoppy done) if you can smell lovely hoppy aromas during brewing and fermenting that is because they are evaporating and leave your beer :-o

I agree with the cheap bittering hops for 60 or 30 min boils - the expensive hops with the flavour and aroma you want are kinda wasted during an extended boil. I just brought the extract based wort to the boil, then chucked the hops in and sealed the lot up. Then when cooler tipped in the fv. downside of this is that to avoid grassy/veggie notes to your beer you need to remove the hops as in my case they'd be in the fv for 14-21 days.

note that an AG with a 60 min boil has different challenges, and if you did a rapid chill then you'd still have some flavour/aroma hop character from hops going into your wort at the lower boil times or flameout.

try cheap bittering hops as usual for the full boil but at flame out chuck & flavour aroma in a bag in fv port wort on top and seal it. no-chill or external chill. when at pitching temp add the yeast stir. remove hop bag in 5 days or so. then you can dry hop as usual. i've seen figures of 10-20% bitterness added for no-chill, but it does depend how long it takes to down to below the isomerization temperature of the alpha acids in the hops. :doh:
 
Am I wrong in thinking that the hops that have the mycene you like, will also have other compounds that DON'T evaporate at those temperatures? So that would be why you add some at 15, some at 5, some at FO etc? Also, I had missed the 80° thing for FO additions, so I could be missing out on some hop hit in my brews. Will try cooling a touch before adding in my next brew.
 
Don't know the answer, but what temp does it start to become ideal ground for bacteria growth? Is it in the 50s? That's the only thing I'd be wary of.
 
I just found this article here -> http://buffalobeerbiochemist.com/beer-science-essential-oils/

It is a good 'un I think - worth the reading.

And yes - there are certainly other essential oils and flavours being extracted and of course it's true that making tea with luke warm water doesn't extract the flavour.... I suppose there is some perfect compromise temperature. I need to do this experiment and report back.

It would probably not be that great if we all ran off and did this and found some horrible flaw in the idea and then all had to sit around moaning about how bad the idea was... :)

I am posing the question really, not suggesting the idea is going to be a huge success.

I kind of think that sixty ish centigrade might be a compromise on not losing the myrcene, humulene and Caryophyllene (You have no idea how I struggled with the spelling of those words) and also incorporating whatever other components there are in the hops that we need for flavour.

I am tending to think though that flavours and aromas are in those oils rather than the woody plant materials and that flavour compounds are volatile. Think about the way when making a good curry you want the coriander leaves in right at the end or the flavour just vanishes in the cooking.
 
Am I wrong in thinking that the hops that have the mycene you like, will also have other compounds that DON'T evaporate at those temperatures? So that would be why you add some at 15, some at 5, some at FO etc? Also, I had missed the 80° thing for FO additions, so I could be missing out on some hop hit in my brews. Will try cooling a touch before adding in my next brew.

I'm not at all sure about this (which is a poncy way of saying 'haven't a clue mate :) ).
 
Don't know the answer, but what temp does it start to become ideal ground for bacteria growth? Is it in the 50s? That's the only thing I'd be wary of.

I think this can be over worried about. If adding hops brought bacterial problems there would be no dry hopping at all because the beer would be ruined. Having said that, I might be a bit cocky about my lack of worry about bacteria. I clean my gear, I store it in a clean place and I rinse it again before use under a strong running tap. I slosh a bit of oxy what not around my FV and bottles before I use them, and then I rinse them in clean tap water which has chlorine in it at low levels to keep bacteria at bay. I never had a bacterial problem yet. (fingers crossed).
 
note that an AG with a 60 min boil has different challenges, and if you did a rapid chill then you'd still have some flavour/aroma hop character from hops going into your wort at the lower boil times or flameout.

try cheap bittering hops as usual for the full boil but at flame out chuck & flavour aroma in a bag in fv port wort on top and seal it. no-chill or external chill. when at pitching temp add the yeast stir. remove hop bag in 5 days or so. then you can dry hop as usual. i've seen figures of 10-20% bitterness added for no-chill, but it does depend how long it takes to down to below the isomerization temperature of the alpha acids in the hops. :doh:

There is plenty here to think about Dadof jon . One thing though - no chill and I have some bad history. I don't know what it was but I got some horrible brews while I was trying that. I know other people make a success of it, but I had gallons of 'orrible muck which I struggled to drink. I certainly didn't offer it to anyone else. Because I don't know why those brews went wrong, and because I have the cooler now, I'm not going back there. I'm like a half poisoned rat - I NEVER try again what made me ill, if you get my meaning.
 
I put my whirlpool hops in at 60c in my last batch and although it's still early days, the increase in the hop aroma has been dramatic.

I asked a few weeks back why we don't all just have a 60 minute bittering addition then just dry hop so you're not losing any hop aroma during fermentation.

Can anybody think why this isn't a good idea?
 
An interesting discussion, and we should all be thinking about getting the best value out of the more expensive hops as some of the brewdog recipes are quite heavy on them.

Bittering hops not a problem, but if you want the oils you have to extract them-using heat, but not let them escape. Putting them in while still warm and putting the lid on seems the easiest option.
I see breweries use a hopback where they pump the wort through a small container with the hops in, so is a bit like a type of coffee maker. If this was designed to pump in hot wort through the hops, then through a cooling coil then I think this would be the ideal because it is an enclosed system until the temperature drops.
Anyone with a counterflow wort chiller could try this using something like an oil catch can to hold the hops in(with filter), and from there through the chiller into the FV.

As an example of how much flavour you loose, I accidentally discovered how much better a cup of tea tastes if you cover the top with foil while it brews in the mug. This is the true reason why tea in a teapot tastes better than one brewed in the cup. - Try it. :)
 
Myrcene is used in the fragrance and food industries, this may tell you something of it's volatility.

After almost 10 years of hombrewing and adding layers of hops I came to teh conclusion that the flavour disappears and so I now add bittering hops at start only and late hops , say 5 minutes and the rest <80°C.

Even dry hopping can have variable results and I have tried adding hop tea made just before bottling by steeping in water at 70°C ish for 15 minutes and adding to priming sugar. Hard to tell without a direct comparison but it certainly gave a fruity hop flavour in that beer. Probably also depends on the type of hops used for dry hopping/hop tea, some may work better than others
 
"As an example of how much flavour you loose, I accidentally discovered how much better a cup of tea tastes if you cover the top with foil while it brews in the mug. This is the true reason why tea in a teapot tastes better than one brewed in the cup. - Try it."


I gave up using teabags for this reason years ago and only ever use leaf tea as you can really taste the tea when it's made in a pot.

PS. I also drink beer!
 
I just found this article here -> http://buffalobeerbiochemist.com/beer-science-essential-oils/

It is a good 'un I think - worth the reading.

Tony, this is a really interesting article. If you look at the structure of Myrcene it is an 8 carbon chain and is in fact an octane molecule with the addition of 3 double bonds.
You know how volatile octane is and thank goodness for those extra bonds otherwise our beer would smell like petrol!
 
I asked a few weeks back why we don't all just have a 60 minute bittering addition then just dry hop so you're not losing any hop aroma during fermentation.
Can anybody think why this isn't a good idea?

Hi!
I read somewhere that, during fermentation, yeast will munch away at a lot of the essential oils in the FV, so dry hopping late in fermentation is preferable.
I'm coming around to thinking that, as with so many long-held axioms of home brewing, the need for late boil additions is being challenged successfully by practical example.
I'm still a kit brewer, but aim to begin maxi BIAB in the summer. I'll certainly be adjusting recipes to include only bittering hops in the boil.
Colin
 

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