Whirlpool additions a waste of time?

[dan125]

I was listening to the latest Brulosophy Q&A podcast episode yesterday and at one point they suggested that whirlpool hop additions are just a waste of time on a HB scale.

Their reasoning is that on a commercial scale brewers need to add large flavour additions in the whirlpool to avoid extracting too much bitterness, as it takes them so long to chill the large volume of wort.
On a HB scale they were saying we can just add the hops in the boil at 2min and chill straight down after FO for the same effect.

I've been adding large whirlpool additions at 70-75C for 30 mins in my hoppy pales, but it would be good to save half an hour on the brewday by avoiding this.

What do you all think? Has anyone abandoned whirlpool additions for a very late kettle addition?
Interestingly Beersmith predicts fewer IBUs from a 2min kettle addition than a 30min steep at 75C of the same hops

 

[John Holgreaves]

I have never whirlpooled for aroma and flavour, but I have a home made hopback which gives great results. I can put up to 400 grams in. I fill the hopback with hot wort 98 C for ten minutes then let it flow through the hopback and the cooler, then I jug into FV for primery oxygenation. This is for a 46 lt. brew. By controlling the flow the hopback always remains full of wort and crystal clear. It is difficult to asses the number of IBU'S I get from this but I put a figure of 5% when using Brewer's Friend calculator. Hope this helps a little.

 

[stz]

Whirlpool all the time, make beer I'm happy with. It is tempting, especially in the search of perfection, but sometimes unhelpful to complicate it beyond this. Certain beers will benefit massively from a whirlpool, others hardly at all, it depends on the hops and schedule. Certain equipment and processes make a whirlpool more or less useful.

When we talk about a commercial whirlpool we are primarily looking at a method to separate wort from hops and trub with the additional option to chill and add more hops. When we talk about home brew whirlpool it usually seems focused on chilling wort prior to hop stands. The rational given on the pod cast makes a lot of sense because it can easily take a couple of hours to collect wort from kettle to fermenter, pumps don't tend to scale more than small, medium, large, largest with each category having to make do with a range. I use the same pump on 1,000L as 4,000L. You can't easily change the plant, so you change the variable you can easily impact upon.

You need to do something a lot and then adjust from there. You might feel that it takes 15m to chill and collect and thus a knockout addition is really like a 15m addition and a 15m addition is more like a 30m addition and your bittering charge is actually a 75m boil, but all the theoretical pondering in the world evaporates when confronted with a beer that is more or less bitter than anticipated. You just do the same things again, but change one thing to get you more in the ball park. Reduce the bittering hop? Move a 30m addition to 15m? Move a 15m addition to knockout? Move your knockout addition to just prior to transfer? Make that addition a low temperature hop stand? What is best? What makes the best beer, it isn't a one size fits all.

Home brewing has massive advantages, it is usually quite cheap and easy to adjust the equipment. You have much lower expectations of economy. Commercial brewing has a major advantage in that you do so much brewing, so often the same thing again and again you get really good at making the best of what you've got to work with.

Also why do I whirlpool when home brewing? My kit takes approx 20m to chill and collect 50L (plate chiller). I set it up anyway because I like to run boiling wort through the chiller prior to collection for a few minutes. I don't always whirlpool with the chilling on, but certain beers I will get a bazillion IBU's otherwise, 500g hop stands in 50L.

Lots of copper hops are a funny thing. We want them for bitterness, but also flavour and aroma. But we don't want to drive off the volatile aromatics so we do low temperature steeps. We worry about co2 evolution driving off delicate aroma from dry hopping, but no worry about the aroma we've been so careful to impart from copper hops.

 

[dan125]

I have never whirlpooled for aroma and flavour, but I have a home made hopback which gives great results. I can put up to 400 grams in. I fill the hopback with hot wort 98 C for ten minutes then let it flow through the hopback and the cooler, then I jug into FV for primery oxygenation. This is for a 46 lt. brew. By controlling the flow the hopback always remains full of wort and crystal clear. It is difficult to asses the number of IBU'S I get from this but I put a figure of 5% when using Brewer's Friend calculator. Hope this helps a little.

The home made hopback sounds pretty good. Not sure if I could incorporate into my current set-up but I'd be really interested to know how you made it - any chance of a piccie? Are you pumping the beer through it?
Out of interest do you mind me asking what set-up you use to brew 46L batches? I'm thinking of scaling up to approx 50L and struggling a bit with how to acheive it. Are you heating with gas or electric? What are you using for a mashtun?

 

[Duxuk]

I find that if I cool to 80C I get a bigger, fresher hop hit than if I add any earlier. I also find that doing it this way even pellet hops add little extra bitterness. I give it a 10 minute steep. I've tried longer but thought it made no discernible difference. My chiller is a bit slow, needing at least 30 mins after the hop stand to reach 25C or less.

 

[Ghillie]

I just completed a DIY whirlpool arm yesterday actually.

My reasoning for the whirlpool arm is to help speed up the cooling process, keep the wort moving round the immersion chiller. Nothing more really.

I do think whirlpool hop additions on the HB scale is a bit of a gimmick. Yet again something that home brewers "think" is right because the big boys do it. As because home brewers are so head strong and opinionated, they are convincing - and a lot of guys buy it...

 

[dan125]

Well I've tried a big 2min addition instead of my ususal whirlpool addition in the AIPA I'm currently brewing. Its a recipe I know quite well so will be interesting to see if there's any noticable difference. I was certainly grateful for the time saving brewing outdoors on a cold day.

One of the things that got me wondering about this is that I've been questioning the flavour impact of whirlpool additions recently - I've tried a couple of brews with a big whirlpool addition (10g/L) but no dry hops and the hop character was very dissappointing. Starting to think I'd be better saving the hops for an extra/bigger dry hop addition??

 

[JonBrew]

One of the things that got me wondering about this is that I've been questioning the flavour impact of whirlpool additions recently - I've tried a couple of brews with a big whirlpool addition (10g/L) but no dry hops and the hop character was very dissappointing. Starting to think I'd be better saving the hops for an extra/bigger dry hop addition??

I've never done a side-by-side myself but I've heard a lot of anecdotal stuff about your hops offering far more in dry hopping than in a 'whirpool' capacity. The Brulosophy guys have discussed it more than once too (as you say). I rarely brew hoppy beers anymore but if I were to I'd go with one or two chunky flavour/aroma additions in the last 20 mins of the boil and a massive dry hop. Although I do see it as a bit of a fad, I'd even place more value on doing a double dry hop over a whirlpool addition.

 

[Tunabeast]

Well I've tried a big 2min addition instead of my ususal whirlpool addition in the AIPA I'm currently brewing. Its a recipe I know quite well so will be interesting to see if there's any noticable difference. I was certainly grateful for the time saving brewing outdoors on a cold day.

One of the things that got me wondering about this is that I've been questioning the flavour impact of whirlpool additions recently - I've tried a couple of brews with a big whirlpool addition (10g/L) but no dry hops and the hop character was very dissappointing. Starting to think I'd be better saving the hops for an extra/bigger dry hop addition??

I've also been doubting the positive flavour/aroma impact of large whirlpool additions. This is a good experiment although doesn't compare whirlpool + dryhop vs. dryhop

http://brulosophy.com/2016/02/29/hop-stand-vs-dry-hop-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Sadfield]

I certainly won't be changing my process based on a Brulosophy experiment. Do any of their experiments return a result that show a noticeable difference between processes? Surely all our beers would taste the same, if nothing appears to make a difference.

 

[JonBrew]

I certainly won't be changing my process based on a Brulosophy experiment. Do any of their experiments return a result that show a noticeable difference between processes? Surely all our beers would taste the same, if nothing appears to make a difference.

I really like the Brulosophy blog but I don't take their output as gospel and they don't expect us to either - they are quite forthright about this in their articles and podcasts. I like to think of their stuff more as 'food for thought'.

They've done many experiments that have produced statistically significant results - one that jumps to mind was around mineral additions. I think a lot of the controversy around the Brulosophy stuff comes from the fact that often when they investigate aspects of brewing that are generally believed to be fundamental must-dos their experiments have returned non-significant results, such as mash/boil length and some fermentation temp experiments. some people will naturally find that hard to swallow and I can understand why

I wouldn't change any aspect of my brewing based purely on the outcome of a Brulosophy experiment. However, I have changed they way I do certain things where their articles have inspired me to put various processes to the test for myself and I've been happy with the results etc.

 

[beertrap]

I completely agree. Their posts are sort of interesting, but they are not the be all end all for me. I have found better advise on home brew forems!!!

One should remember that many sites like theirs and others do it for money, equiptment and other reasons, not just for making some home brew.

 

[MyQul]

Im currently drinkiing a fairly simple EKG blonde ale, where I did a 20min hop stand at 100C for the first time. It definately has a markedly imcreased hop flavour

 

[Duxuk]

I used to add hops at flameout ie. 100C and leave for 10 minutes before cooling. When I tried this with pellets it added a lot of extra bitterness so I tried cooling to 75-80C before addition, still steeping for 10 minutes.
This seemed to work. No significant bitterness added and some good aromatic properties came through.
I tried the same with leaf hops and found a good improvement in my beers compared to adding at 100C, so this is what I continued to do. Giving the hops a squeeze with a spoon during steeping seems to get more flavour/aroma out I find.

 

[LeeH]

Well I've tried a big 2min addition instead of my ususal whirlpool addition in the AIPA I'm currently brewing. Its a recipe I know quite well so will be interesting to see if there's any noticable difference. I was certainly grateful for the time saving brewing outdoors on a cold day.

One of the things that got me wondering about this is that I've been questioning the flavour impact of whirlpool additions recently - I've tried a couple of brews with a big whirlpool addition (10g/L) but no dry hops and the hop character was very dissappointing. Starting to think I'd be better saving the hops for an extra/bigger dry hop addition??

Interested regarding the results Dan if you can update the thread.

 

[The Baron]

First do not take everything that Brulosophy suggest as gospel, they do some good things that you can take forward but I have yet to be fully convinced.
I always whirlpool large hop additions at 65c to 75c and then let the temp freefall for whatever time I have calculated. The reason I have never done what they suggest is that I do No Chill and let the wort cool naturally and it would extract too many IBU's/perceived bitterness.
By all means try yourself and see if that works for you is the only true way but for me I have got a system that works for me