First Wort Hopping Question

Oh yeah? 100% of "How to Brew" Web Editions say that it does. And 100% of old, language barrier ridden german FWH taste test reports say FWH beers taste "unobtrusive" and "harmonious". That's 200% right there!

I do find Peter Wolfe's technical explanation interesting though. I don't doubt that these reactions happen, but I do wonder how much they happen during the pre-boil steep, and whether the flavor/aroma impact has been studied in a statistically valid way.

 

I agree... AND sense an aura around my brew kettle when I FWH : )

 

The theories and evidence behind FWH make no sense because they are based on one single experiment from a gazillion years ago that has not been independently verified by scientific methodology. Recent experiments by Brulosophy and discussed on Basic Brewing Radio proved you get more IBUs with FWH (not less!) but really cannot detect a flavor difference.

 

The Germans are obsessed with "smooth" and "harmonious" bitterness. A lot of the old accepted dogma about how to achieve such bitterness (high cohumulone = bad, oxidized beta acids = bad, kraeusen foam = bad, etc. etc.) is slowly being disproven by the new research coming out of the OSU brewing science labs; they test these supposedly bad bittering compounds in beer on sensory panels with hundreds of tasters and find either no difference or a preference for what was thought to be the "bad bitterness". Suffice it to say, I don't think FWH has any affect one way or another on bitterness quality - it's the same as a start of boil hop in that regard.

As far as the aroma impact, I think you would only really pick out the difference in a beer that isn't dry hopped and doesn't otherwise have a tremendous amount of hop aroma going on. The problem is that these oils don't form in large amounts - oxygen is insoluble in hot water, so the hop compounds have to interact with oxygen at the liquid/air interface to become oxdized. That's not a problem in and of itself, since they're lipids they'd be at the surface anyways - the problem is that at the surface it's a toss up whether they oxidize or volatize first. You just don't create that much (although there is a enough that it's quantifiable and reproducible).

If you really want that sort of flavor (and a lot of old brewers did!), the easiest way to do it is to age your hops before you use them. You lose alpha acids, but you gain that terpene epoxide flavor. A lot of old beers, especially from German and Belgium, had that flavor fraction in high amounts. It was very common to age the whole cone hops they used for a year or longer at room temperature in large burlap style bags. The hops would drop from 4-5% alpha to 2-3%, but the aroma profile would completely change. I have done some molecular work on aged hops, and I do see an order of magnitude increase in the epoxide aroma compounds.

 

@Peter_Wolfe stated: “As far as the aroma impact, I think you would only really pick out the difference in a beer that isn't dry hopped and doesn't otherwise have a tremendous amount of hop aroma going on.”

I think that this sentence is critical! Folks who perform a FWH while brewing a hoppy beer like an IPA will likely not detect a difference in hop aroma since the aroma provided by the FWH is ‘masked’ by the aromas provided by the end of boil additions and dry hopping.

The ‘old’ study on FWH that has been alluded to in this thread was performed on German Pilsners. In that style of beer, the affects from First Wort Hopping would be perceptible.

Preis,F and W. Mitter, “The re-discovery of first wort hoping,” Brauwelt International (Brauwelt/Verlag, Nuremburg, Germany, 1995) No. 4, 1995.

Cheers!

P.S. http://www.hbd.org/brewery/library/FWHsummaryDD0396.html

 

Something tells me old school German brewers don't use "new world" hops in most of their lagers. I'm sticking with fresh, dank, and bold hops in my IPAs. : )

 

Without getting pulled into the mumbo jumbo...
I have switched from adding at the beginning of the boil to FWH exclusively as I find the beers I was brewing were aggressively bitter vs the same beer utilizing the same bittering charge in a FWH addition. I'm all about hoppiness, but I don't like palate fatigue from the bitterness and FWH seems to ride that line for me.

 

So, let me get that straight - you find that FWH gives a less aggressive bitterness?

 

In the last year my main bittering has been with hop extract. Would First Wort Hop Extract produce "sesquiterpene epoxides"? Does the humulene and caryophylene oils survive the extract process and will they still oxidize at the surface? Pretty sure there would be little increase in epoxide aroma compounds in "aged" hop extract . . . or is there?

My experience is hop extract trumps all . . . more efficient and easier to use. Not sure the bitterness is more rounded, er, harmonious . . . but it certainly shows up.

For the OP: Looks like "rounded bitterness" loses way to "harmonious hoppiness", or Harmonische Hopfen (H²) for our Bavarian friends.

 

That is correct.

 

I was on a sensory panel for a Weihenstephan beer that they sent to the US, and they included a paper ballot to be filled out. I'm not kidding, "Harmonische Hopfen" was an actual category.

Regarding the extract question, the answer is (as it almost always is in brewing): it depends. Some extracts have a hop oil fraction and some do not. They can certainly survive the extraction process if that is the intent of the processor; they just tweak the pressure of the CO2 to change its solvent characteristics. If you're trying to extract alpha to make an isomerized or reduced iso extract, it's less efficient to also take the oils. There is a market for alpha + oil extract though; we use it in Brazil. I think it provides a much nicer bitterness than a pre-isomerized alpha extract.

 

My favorite bittering technique is to use a hop that has a good flavor and use it at 45 or 30 minutes. This is why Magnum never touches my beer.

 

FWH - I like it!

 

This is also my perception of FWH vs traditional bittering additions. I have not done any experiments designed to confirm this, however.

 

I just bitter (FWH) with Chinook or any other high alpha usually to ~ 10-100 IBUs and then add my late style dependent additions for shits and giggles : )

 

@SFACRKnight and @utahbeerdude when you say FWH is less aggressive or smoother bitterness, what exactly are you doing? Is this shifting aroma hops to FWH or shifting bittering hops to FWH? As @JackHorzempa points out above, FWH from the German side of things was with the aroma hops. What styles are you finding more "smoothness"? Just curious since I thought most people thought the whole thing was theoretically possible but not likely to impact beer in normal conditions.

 

When I FWH I shift the bittering hop addition to the FWH addition.

My experience is in line with that described by Gordon Strong in Brewing Better Beer (pp. 68 - 69), in that FW hopping provides a "very smooth and clean bitterness." That is, the bitterness is less harsh than the bitterness from a traditional bittering addition.

As Gordon points out, the measured BUs from a FWH are indeed higher than a traditional addition, but the perceived bitterness is more akin to a 20 minute addition. This is (likely) why some BU calculators out there treat a FWH addition as a 20 minute addition for purposes of calculating IBUs.

As Gordon is the Grand Pubah of beer judges, I think there probably is something to the smooth bitterness claim. Gordon also claims FW hopping provides lots of flavor, and so he like to FWH with hops that have flavors he likes.

I cannot recall at the moment exactly what beers I have FW hopped, just my overall impression regarding the quality of the bitterness in beers where I have used the technique.

 

I tend to shift my bittering addition to FWH as well, but it is more to minimize problems (forgetting) than to change the beer. I may have to try some tiny experiments to see what happens.

 

Whether you subscribe to the idea or not, the qualitative difference some propose is that, to some degree, it is like the difference between an acoustic and an electric guitar. An amplifier can make both the same volume, but one is more abrasive than the other.

 

I don't brew many beers that are hop heavy. For the past year or so, I've taken to adding no hops at all until the 45 minute point at which I add a moderate amount of high alpha hops that I like the flavor of, too – like Columbus, Nugget, etc. Make similar or larger additions of the same hop or a lower alpha flavoring hop at 50, 55, and F.O. Simple, and it works for me.