Flameout hops

[HeavensBrew]

I know that flameout hops means a hop addition added when you take the wort off the boil. You leave the hops in the wort until you have cooled the wort enough to add your yeast.

However.......what if you do not use a wort chiller? Some people also have better wort chillers than others and so the time varies.

Is there a rule for how long flameout hops should be in the wort?

 

[Cwrw666]

I leave mine in for half an hour then drain the boiler into the FV. You do get a bit of bitterness though so might have to slightly reduce the bittering hop addition a bit.

 

[jMac]

There seems to be two (or possibly more as this thread might show) schools of thought when it comes to flameout/aroma hop.

The traditional way of doing it is to add them as soon as you turn your boiler off and commence cooling. They then stay in the wort for as long as it takes to cool it (so no set time) and are filtered out when you transfer to the FV. Doing it this way, there will be a small additional bittering charge, which may or may not be discernible to you in the finished beer.

A more modern approach is to do a hopstand. This involves starting cooling before you add your aroma hops until the wort is under 80°C and then adding your aroma hops. You then stand your slightly cooled wort for 30mins before continuing cooling to pitching temp. The supposed benefit of this is that the wort is cooled enough to extract the aroma from the hop without extracting as much bitterness.

Personally, I use the traditional flameout method for traditional less hop forward styles and do hopstands for hop forward new world styles. I don’t think I’m a good enough brewer that it probably makes much difference, but it feels right .

jx

 

[Galena]

Indeed and temperature is quite critical, I have seen some suggest 70 degrees, others 75, many 80 degrees, and in the book The New IPA a scientific guide to hop aroma and flavour by Scott Janish which I have yet to read he suggests 85 or even 90 degrees for the best flavour and aroma.
I think though it depends on the style of beer and how hop forward you want it.
I have just today done 20 mins @ 80 deg.
There is a more in depth thread on this subject HERE

 

[lancon]

Put some numbers into Beersmith, steeping 15 mins at 80C 14.9 IBU and at 90C 30.6 IBU, quite a difference.

 

[Cwrw666]

I'm a bit dubious about all this hop aroma/taste stuff. My favourite beer to make at the moment is Victorian style pale ales (usually the 1864 Lovibond XB from the Pattinson book). These have hop additions at 90, 60 and 30 minutes but I find them to be full of hop aromas. I've tried shifting the additions to 90, 15 and 0 minutes and can honestly say I can determine absolutely no difference at all.