Late Hops and Myrcene Evaporation

[Tony1951]

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 and 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 fifteen or 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?

By the way, I've had noticeably good results in retaining fruity flavours by transferring my late hops to the fermentation vessel. I've done this a few times and been well pleased with the results.

I'd welcome any comments from you experienced brewers. Thanks.

Cheers

[Tony1951]

I just found this article here ->

http://buffalobeerbiochemist.com/beer-s ... tial-oils/

Interesting I thought.

[Hogarth]

Why not just add the late hops to the boiler when you've cooled it down to 65C?

[Tony1951]

Why not just add the late hops to the boiler when you've cooled it down to 65C?

Yes Hogarth. That would work the same, except that I want them in my FV to get the most out of them. It would be simpler though. I got a surprising boost to the hop flavours by putting my late hops into the FV. It happened by accident that I did this when my boiler filter clogged up in the middle of winter and really chuffed off in my brew shed at six thirty on a freezing night, I just upended the whole boiler into my FV and dragged it down to the house and fermented the lot. I got my BEST ever hoppy APA. Here is a picture of the FV around day six of the fermentation. You wouldn't believe the hop hit I got from that.



Other people tried this and found the same result. Once matured it was a peach of a brew. A bit harsh early on but by a the time a month had passed in the bottle it was great.

[Clibit]

There are people who do add all their late hops after the boil and below 80C, I've had this discussion before. In my experience, beers I've done this with have been different to beers that have had hops late in the boil plus sub 80 steep hops, so I think the boil hops have an effect, but maybe aren't required in large quantities. I believe late boil hops add a different dimension/depth of flavour than steep hops but I don't know why. And I could be wrong.

[Hogarth]

Ah, I get it. So you want them steeped at 65C and also in the FV?

Just to keep it simple, you could maybe put the late hops into the fermenter while it's empty, cool the boiler to 65C and run off enough wort to steep the hops in, then chill the remainder and add it. Perhaps that's just me looking for ways to avoid extra sanitizing/washing-up.

[soupdragon]

Why not just add the late hops to the boiler when you've cooled it down to 65C?

Yes Hogarth. That would work the same, except that I want them in my FV to get the most out of them. It would be simpler though. I got a surprising boost to the hop flavours by putting my late hops into the FV. It happened by accident that I did this when my boiler filter clogged up in the middle of winter and really chuffed off in my brew shed at six thirty on a freezing night, I just upended the whole boiler into my FV and dragged it down to the house and fermented the lot. I got my BEST ever hoppy APA. Here is a picture of the FV around day six of the fermentation. You wouldn't believe the hop hit I got from that.



Other people tried this and found the same result. Once matured it was a peach of a brew. A bit harsh early on but by a the time a month had passed in the bottle it was great.

What sort of wort loss do you have from that method?

Cheers Tom

[Tony1951]

Thanks for your thoughts chaps.

As to wort loss Tom, a day or two before I bottled that beer, I swept out the hops with a sanitised sieve and squeezed the flowers out so the free liquid was returned to the FV. I didn't measure closely, but I got the usual amount of around 22 and a bit litres into my beer. Thinking about it, it probably doesn't make a lot of difference to the end volume whether those hops come out as you empty the brew kettle through a filter or at the end as you strain them out. They were in there and absorbed wort and then were drained off so I think it is a matter of six and two threes as we used to say.

Taking up Clibit's point, I suppose the only way is to try it and see how the beer comes out, but of course taste tests unless done side by side are subjective anyway. Can anybody really remember what a beer they tasted a month ago was like? I can't. I'd be pushed to really remember one I had yesterday for comparison purposes.

Hogarth's suggestion of adding the hops to a drawing off of 64C wort in the FV would work fine. I might do it that way. Thanks for the idea. It is certainly simpler. I had been thinking of cooling the 12litre steel pot in the sink like with simple, small scale AG brewing, but emptying the cooled wort from the boiler onto the 63c 'hoppy' wort would have much the same effect if the volumes were like 10 litres hot, 13 litres cold. The 'hoppy' wort doesn't need to be ten litres either I don't suppose. It just needs to be enough to infuse the hops with warmish wort to help extract the oils from the flowers. Probably five litres would be more than enough and that would help with cooling in the way Hogarth suggests doing it.

[stevej383]

I have a better idea send me several samples of the finished product done in several ways and i will tell you what i think

[soupdragon]

As to wort loss Tom, a day or two before I bottled that beer, I swept out the hops with a sanitised sieve and squeezed the flowers out so the free liquid was returned to the FV. I didn't measure closely, but I got the usual amount of around 22 and a bit litres into my beer. Thinking about it, it probably doesn't make a lot of difference to the end volume whether those hops come out as you empty the brew kettle through a filter or at the end as you strain them out. They were in there and absorbed wort and then were drained off so I think it is a matter of six and two threes as we used to say

Thanks for that, I'll give this a go myself next brew day

Cheers Tom