The Effects of Hops

[Journeyman]

I've been looking around for a description of what hops does and when it does it. Not so much what each type of hops brings to the table but in brewing timing. I figure I can get the flavours etc in the descriptions but nowhere can I find how the flavours vary depending on the time they are added.

I've seen recipes where the same type of hops is added at 60 mins, then 15 mins and in a couple, even then added as dry hops. What I can't find is WHY they do that. What are the different effects they are trying for?

Any links or even videos talking about it would be handy.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Journeyman

[MitchellScott]

When people say they are adding hops @60mins or @20mins etc they are talking about adding the hops into a boil. For example, if I am doing a 60min boil and want 20g of hops in for the whole 60mins, that would be written as 20g of hop X @ 60min.

The reason people add hops to a boil is to achieve bitterness. When hops are boiled, the alpha acids go through a process called isomerization. Isomerized acids are bitter to taste and therefore the bitterness of the brew is increased.

Flameout hop additions are generally added when the wort is below 80C (isomerization generally doesn't occur below 80C). Therefore, the acids are extracted into the wort and the flavour of the hops along with the aroma of the hops is extracted into the wort.

Dry hopping increases both flavour and aroma however is generally used to create aroma more so than flavour.

There are also different hops that are better for bittering, not aroma or flavour. An example of this is Pride of Ringwood. This hop is generally a bittering hop (used in a boil) and very rarely used to add flavour or aroma in a flameout or dry hop addition. Then there are hops like Galaxy, that is often used for its aroma and flavours rather then bittering. This hop can still be used as a bittering hop, however, many say it creates an un-desirable bitterness.

So basically:

1. Hops used in boils create SOME aroma/flavour but are used to create bitterness in the brew.
2. Hops used in flameouts are generally used to increase hop flavour and give some hop aroma.
3. Hops used in dry hops are generally used to increase hop aroma and give some hop flavour.

Mitch.

Edited October 30, 2019 by MitchellScott

[Journeyman]

Lots of Thanks!!!

So, given I am kit based for now, could I boil some hops & add the liquid to my brew prior to yeast pitch to get extra bitter? 

Or maybe make a tea at (say) 75° and add that to increase the hop flavour above that achieved by dry hopping?

[MitchellScott]

3 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

Lots of Thanks!!!

So, given I am kit based for now, could I boil some hops & add the liquid to my brew prior to yeast pitch to get extra bitter? 

Or maybe make a tea at (say) 75° and add that to increase the hop flavour above that achieved by dry hopping?

Absolutely.... That's the best thing about brewing. The possibilities are endless.

One thing to remember though, when you are doing hop boils, you want to have a mixture of unhopped malt extract (either liquid or dry malt) in the water. Otherwise the bitterness that is extracted from the hops is very harsh.

The easiest way to remember this is for every liter of water in your boil, you want 100g of dry malt. So for example, if your boil is 5L, you want to mix in 500g of dry malt before adding the hops.

Making hop tea's is also fine and can be done in plain water. If you are going to be doing some hop boils I'd recommend just doing some flameout additions instead of hop teas. let the boil cool to 80C and add hops in then. Then leave it for 20-30mins to steep before cooling and straining. If you want the best hop flavour/aroma you are best to do both a flameout addition and dry hop.

Have fun! Mitch.

[The Captain!!]

To add, isomerisation only happens above 80c. So if you want to make things more bitter, best to add near boiling

Flavour is great at 75, 

Dry hopping a lot will add more perceived bitterness too

Edited October 30, 2019 by The Captain!!

[Otto Von Blotto]

Flameout additions are added literally at flameout, not after the wort drops below 80 degrees. That is a hop stand. 

[Beerlust]

Hi Journeyman.

Starting out, the following chart is a good one to work off during the boil phase.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

[Journeyman]

13 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Starting out, the following chart is a good one to work off during the boil phase.

Hi Lusty, thanks for the chart.

So if I like the aroma of (say) Citra but I don't want the bitterness that high I could boil (say) Cascade for 50 minutes then add the citra twice, 1 lot at 20 minutes and another at 7 minutes and I would have the flavours and aroma from Citra with the lower AA of Cascade?

[Journeyman]

Further to this, and following from thinking about the chart...

The chart is for boiling times, so this is effects gained from the boil, but not from flameout or dry hopping? So I could boil for 60 mins to get my bitterness and then dry hop for flavour and aroma? Or do I get stronger effects from late boil additions than from dry hopping?

[MitchellScott]

1 hour ago, Journeyman said:

Further to this, and following from thinking about the chart...

The chart is for boiling times, so this is effects gained from the boil, but not from flameout or dry hopping? So I could boil for 60 mins to get my bitterness and then dry hop for flavour and aroma? Or do I get stronger effects from late boil additions than from dry hopping?

I would recommend getting your hands on the IanH spreadsheet which is a extract beer calculator/designer. It will help you a lot with your boils and bitterness calculations.

You can get it here: https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/kit-and-extract-beer-spreadsheet.29655/

I treat boil additions as bitterness additions. Each time you add hops to boiling water you are increasing the bitterness, so you need to watch you don't go overboard and end up with too much bitterness. Especially if you are using extract tins that are pre-bittered.

I have attached below one of my previous brews that I used the speadsheet to design. You can see in the hop section you can enter your hop amounts, alpha acid % of the hops and the boil time and it will give you an estimated bitterness level. Keep in mind though they do recommend using the HCF function if you boils are less then 10L in volume.

 

In the example above I used a 30min boil time to get majority of my bitterness with two later additions to add more bitterness and also give some flavour/aroma. I then used a hop stand (under 80C) for flavour and a dry hop for some aroma. Keep in mind this brew was an XPA (Extra Pale Ale) so it is a hop forward beer.

Cheers, Mitch.

[Journeyman]

Just curious - there's no kit in there - are you using only the 3 kg of Coopers & .7 kg of Wheat malts?

Here's what I am planning, hopefully ready in time for Xmas.  I want to use both cans as they are both so old the Use By was a couple of months back. I'm presuming the yeast will be kaput or close to so I have some US-05 to use as well.

 

[MitchellScott]

26 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

Just curious - there's no kit in there - are you using only the 3 kg of Coopers & .7 kg of Wheat malts?

Here's what I am planning, hopefully ready in time for Xmas.  I want to use both cans as they are both so old the Use By was a couple of months back. I'm presuming the yeast will be kaput or close to so I have some US-05 to use as well.

 

Yes, I made that recipe so used extract only (no pre hopped or bittered tins). Hence I had to get my bitterness from hop boils.

As you can see in your example above your pre hopped tins will give you approx 52IBU's of bitterness by themselves which is quite a lot. I would not be doing any hop boils with those two tins or your brew will be extremely bitter.

Mitch.

[Journeyman]

2 minutes ago, MitchellScott said:

Yes, I made that recipe so used extract only (no pre hopped or bittered tins). Hence I had to get my bitterness from hop boils.
As you can see in your example above your pre hopped tins will give you approx 52IBU's of bitterness by themselves which is quite a lot. I would not be doing any hop boils with those two tins or your brew will be extremely bitter.

See, that's why these forums are so good - I didn't even know you could make beer without either a grain boil or kit tin.

Yes, I saw the bitterness when I played with doing a boil, so I figured dry hop only for flavour and aroma. Having seen the chart I was thinking maybe a short boil or hops tea to get the flavours to counter the bitter. The brown sugar is also in there to hopefully add some flavour. The dextrose is just the content from the BE2 pack. The maltodextrin and brown sugar had similar info so I combined them as brown sugar. (220 md and 500 bs) I'm thinking of reducing the sugar back to maybe 300 gm.

[MitchellScott]

1 minute ago, Journeyman said:

See, that's why these forums are so good - I didn't even know you could make beer without either a grain boil or kit tin.

Yes, I saw the bitterness when I played with doing a boil, so I figured dry hop only for flavour and aroma. Having seen the chart I was thinking maybe a short boil or hops tea to get the flavours to counter the bitter. The brown sugar is also in there to hopefully add some flavour. The dextrose is just the content from the BE2 pack. The maltodextrin and brown sugar had similar info so I combined them as brown sugar. (220 md and 500 bs) I'm thinking of reducing the sugar back to maybe 300 gm.

The 3kg of liquid malt I used is essentially the same thing thats in the tins, its just not bittered or hopped at all. Its just the malt extract. This allows you to tweak the brew exactly how you want using specific hops and specific bitterness levels etc.

Mitch.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

I’m not fully across the yeast side, but 1.073 in 20l is fairly high for one pack of US-05. I’d probably be thinking of multiple, or a starter. Any thoughts on that @Otto Von Blotto as the reigning god of yeast?

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yes I'd be pitching two packs at that.

Also, be2 contains dry malt. You'd be better off listing it as the 500g Dex, 250g maltodextrin and 250g light dry malt. Brown sugar is almost as fermentable as dextrose, maltodextrin doesn't ferment at all and dry malt is about 75-80% fermentable, so brown sugar is not really an accurate substitution. 

Edited October 31, 2019 by Otto Von Blotto

[Journeyman]

13 minutes ago, NewBrews said:

I’m not fully across the yeast side, but 1.073 in 20l is fairly high for one pack of US-05. I’d probably be thinking of multiple, or a starter. Any thoughts on that @Otto Von Blotto as the reigning god of yeast?

@Otto Von Blotto's fav song...  

I was planning on both packs of the kit yeast plus the US-05. If that seems light I do have a 2nd US-05 to add - maybe I should just drop both in there anyway?

 

[Journeyman]

I did also get some Nottingham Ale yeast. Are there reasons to add or not add a different yeast? i.e. 1 pkt US-05 and 1 pkt NA yeast?

 

[MitchellScott]

18 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

I did also get some Nottingham Ale yeast. Are there reasons to add or not add a different yeast? i.e. 1 pkt US-05 and 1 pkt NA yeast?

 

I would use the one type. Different yeasts give different flavours and Nottingham vs US-05 are quite different yeasts. I have also heard of some stories where the two different yeasts did not want to work properly/well together.

Definitely 2 packs at that SG. I usually use two packs on anything over 1.060 OG.

Mitch.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

Different yeasts add different qualities to the finished beer. US05 is quite a clean finishing yeast. Nottingham is also and can be a monster and might be a better candidate for this one, but according to the pitch rate calculator on their website it suggests 3 packet for that brew. I don’t know if you would need that much but it would be up there. I don’t have one for US05 but I’d suggest it would be somewhat the same.

As for the two kit yeasts, I’d probably boil them in some water with some malt and then toss them in as yeast nutrient. If they are that far out of date they probably aren’t much chop by now.

[Thirsty Jim]

I hereby move a motion that Tony Orlando be banned from any further intrusions on the forum.

That song brought back memories of the 1970's and me feel physically ill. 

Disco pants and haircuts .... This place has got everything ...

[Journeyman]

1 hour ago, James of Bayswater said:

I hereby move a motion that Tony Orlando be banned from any further intrusions on the forum.

That song brought back memories of the 1970's and me feel physically ill. 

Disco pants and haircuts .... This place has got everything ...

And my work here is done...

 

[Journeyman]

1 hour ago, NewBrews said:

As for the two kit yeasts, I’d probably boil them in some water with some malt and then toss them in as yeast nutrient. If they are that far out of date they probably aren’t much chop by now.

That's a great suggestion - would adding them as nutrient help make up for only 2 yeast packs?

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

Not so much make up for as give them a head start. I’d probably go with two packs of Nottingham if you can get another.

[Beerlust]

9 hours ago, Journeyman said:

Hi Lusty, thanks for the chart.

So if I like the aroma of (say) Citra but I don't want the bitterness that high I could boil (say) Cascade for 50 minutes then add the citra twice, 1 lot at 20 minutes and another at 7 minutes and I would have the flavours and aroma from Citra with the lower AA of Cascade?

If you are planning to use an unhopped malt base not a pre-hopped kit, then yes. If you plan to use a pre-hopped kit then just use hop additions @ 20mins & below to create the flavours you are looking for. The closer to the end of the boil you add your additions the greater percentage of essential oils that will be retained & not isomerized by the boil. The more that is retained contributes to flavour & aroma.

If you don't wish to boil the hops, a very popular method of adding in extra hop flavour is to make up a "hop tea". Just steep the hop quantity in a saucepan with a couple of litres of 65-70°C water for 20-25 mins then strain directly into your fermenter with the rest of your ingredients before pitching the yeast, & Robert's your Aunty's husband!

For pure aroma, you can't beat dry hopping.

I hope that helps.

Lusty.