![]() ![]() ![]() Whirlpool and No Chill Features in BeerSmith 2.3īeerSmith 2.3 expanded whirlpool hop handling in an important way. This made the feature not suitable for no-chill. However BeerSmith 2.3 only applied this utilization to hops specifically marked as steep or whirlpool hops, so it did not carry over hops that may be left from the boil. It turns out that hop utilization does drop off pretty quickly below the boiling point – so this is not a bad approximation for whirlpool above roughly 85 C. You can use this option simply by adding a hop ingredient to your recipe and setting the “ Use” for the hop to “ Steep/Whirlpool”. In version 2.2 a whirlpool utilization option was added which uses a roughly 50% utilization factor (50% of equivalent boil utilization – which you can set under Options->Bitterness) based on a whirlpool or hop stand temperature of 90 C. The early versions of BeerSmith did not attempt to calculate whirlpool hop utilization (bitterness) and assumed it was zero. No Chill and Whirlpool Features in BeerSmith However this is not a precise number as various hop additions may have different portions of remaining not yet isomerized alpha acids. To compensate many brewers use a rule of thumb adjustment such as “add 10%” to the IBU number to compensate. In some ways this is equivalent to a long hop stand, as some bitterness is created while the wort is still hot in the cube. In this method, the beer is mashed and boiled normally, but instead of chilling and immediately fermenting the beer, the beer is instead added boiling hot to a sterile plastic cube or other container and left overnight to cool naturally before the yeast is pitched (or transferred to a fermenter and then pitched) for fermentation. Recently brewers looking to save time have moved to a method called “no chill” brewing. It turns out that these hops still add some bitterness as well, though the utilization is much lower than boiling. So over the last 10 years, hop stands or whirlpool hops (adding hops after flameout while the wort is hot) has become a popular technique (along with traditional dry hopping). To preserve the aroma oils in your hops you need to dry hop or add them after flameout. Boiling your hops is simply not an efficient way to preserve desirable hop oils. Others such as geraniol, caryophellene, and humulene last a bit longer but are still cut in half in less than 15 minutes of boiling. Myrcene is cut in half in less than 10 minutes in the boil. ![]() Even worse, these flavor additions boil off most of the critical aroma oils rather quickly. While these flavor additions certainly do add additional bitterness as alpha acids are isomerized by boiling, they arguably do so inefficiently since longer boil periods yield higher utilization (more IBUs) using less hops. Only recently have we come to understand that short boil “flavor” additions are largely a myth. Instead of hops at flame out, short “flavor” additions were wildly popular with people adding hops at 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes before the end of the boil to increase the flavor and aroma of the beer. Only boiling hops were thought to add significant bitterness to the beer. The Evolution of Whirlpool Hops and Hop StandsĪs little as ten years ago, hop stands and whirlpool hops were largely ignored in home brewing and even by most professional brewers. Today we’re going to look at some of the new features available. These features give home brewers more flexibility than ever for handling whirlpool hops and extended chill periods for your wort. Follow of the many features introduced in BeerSmith 2.3 is improved handling for whirlpool/hop stand handling as well as support for the “no chill” brewing method. ![]()
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