Adding hops at flameout... how long till you chill your wort?

This forum post may interest you.

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=76188&sid=3ae7fb1d34a8460f04fce4bc1229e20e

 

No hops added at 0 min. left in the boil. Quick cool with wort chiller down to 160-ish then whirlpool with the intended flameout hops. Remove wort chiller and slow cool down to low 60's over the course of 20-30 minutes. Proceed with dryhop 2-3 weeks later.

 

Usually I add my flame out hops and whirlpool for 20-30 minutes, 210 -> 180 F wort at end of whirlpool, then chill to 130, add a second dose if I feel like it or chill straight to pitching going through the hop back (Hopback then chiller).

IIRC Stone whirlpools with their flameout hops for 90 minutes, and I hear they make some decent beer.

 

I have an Immersion chiller with an extra piece of copper welded on to generate a whirlpool. The kettle ball valve is opened, it goes to a march pump, the pump then pumps the wort back into the chiller piece that is positioned tangential to the kettle ball valve, generating a whirlpool. You can do this by stirring as well.

I just got a plate chiller for Christmas, so my whirlpools are soon going to re-enter my kettle via a fitting in the kettle lid or a tangential port I drill and fit with pipe fittings in my kettle wall (Going to try option 1 first).

 

Yes indeed.

I pump the 212F wort through my plate chiller and back into my boil kettle with a ball valve that is fully opened for maximum flow (cuts down on the plate chillers cooling but speeds up how much wort flows through the chiller) and find that the chilled wort comes out at roughly 80F (at that maximum flow rate). Doing this gets 12 gallons of boiling wort down to say 120F in about 5 minutes with ground water that is in the 60-65F range.

I add my flameout hops at that temperature. Then I hop stand for only about 10 minutes (might increase that in the future) and then run the wort through the plate chiller one more time (directly into carboys this time) at a slower flow rate that cuts the temp straight down to pitching temperature.

 

If your using a spoon you don't need to whirlpool/stir for 90 minutes.

There's a lot of things that pro-brewers do that we try to replicate. But sometimes what they do has more to do with their equipment than a process to improve the beer. Whirpool hops probably came about because someone wanted to test adding hops post-boil. So instead of just throwing them in the kettle and waiting they took advantage of a process that they were already using. It takes a good while to transfer the hot wort, so why not just throw them into the whirlpool? It's possible that the 90 minutes in just how long the total process of transfer and whirlpooling takes. 90 minutes is a long time. I think that 20 minutes of non-boil time would be a good start. Just give the kettle a stir ever so often.

But back to the pump, once I start mine (with about 5 minutes left in the boil) I don't turn it off. Especially with many many ounces of hops in there. It's best to keep all that stuff in motion.

 

90 is the time it takes to empty their whirpool kettle through the heat exchanger, so it is definitely a function of their equipment... I just mentioned it as a reference point.

20-30 min is the sweet spot I've found on my system (a little longer for bigger beers)... 20 min would be a good jump off point.

 

I have always added hops at flameout, then just started cooling with my immersion chiller (usually takes 10-20 minutes depending on batch size and the time of year.) I may attempt a hop stand in the near future though.

 

it is my new standard IF my goal is to get hop flavour vs a yeast/cleaner flavour vs bittering

my one attempt with an IPA was:

1 oz hop addition at 15 min.
8 oz various hops at FO.
whirlpool with the lid off. temp hit 175 and the flame went back on (low) to hold temp at 175. whirlpooled for another 5-10 min.
wort chiller added and rapid chilled.
1 oz dry hopped for 14 days, 1 oz dry hopped for 4-5 days.

not sure if i have the patience to whirlpool at 175 for anything more than 10 min. that was, in total, 30 min of whirlpooling. i'd assume that it is a pretty decent hop flavour extraction. even with my behemoth, you're talking about 0.5 lbs of hops in 6 gallons of wort. whirlpooling will result in a shift in the concentration gradient of the solvent that surrounds the hops, thereby increasing the extraction rate. we're not talking about a sprinkling of oregano in a pasta sauce, where you want it to simmer for 20 minutes. so i would need to see some solid data that shows that whirlpooling at 175 F 90 minutes has 4 times greater extraction then whirlpooling at 175 F for 15 minutes does.

i'd argue (based on logic, not science or experiment) that most of the hop flavour extraction would come after 5-10 minutes at the desired temperature. the key, though, is the desired temp. Essential are apparently best extracted at 175 F (approx), hence me holding it there for a bit.