I'm brewing a columbus hopped pale ale tomorrow, with a 2oz dose at flameout. My typical routine for FO hops is shut off flame, turn on IC water, run for a minute or two, before adding my hops. I was contemplating doing a hopstand addition as my flameout and was curious if anyone has tried this method and their thoughts. Thanks, Nate
From my understanding the best option would be turn on IC to 30 seconds or so to get temps down to like 190F then start your hopstand. My most common procedue for a hop forward beer is add my FO hops just after FO and just as I turn on my pump to begin whirlpool and let whirlpool for like 15mins then 5 min spin down before chilling. I will extend the hopstand to up to 30mins+ for bigger hopped IPAs. I'm a big fan, but I've made quite a few tweaks in my techniques over the past two years or so that have greatly improved my hop forward beers...this is one of those i greatly attribute to the improvements.
I've been doing a 20 minute hopstand/whirlpool for my last hoppy couple beers. I use the Mr. Malty setup: I open up my kettle ball valve, re-circ through my pump and back into the L fitting on my immersion chiller. After about 20 minutes with no water flowing through the system, my temp is around 170-180. One big thing I've noticed is that I get a huge amount of hop flavor from the hop stand, but less aroma when compared to turning on the water immediately following flame out. I've smelled the hops in the trub pile after racking beer into the fermenter and they have literally no aroma left in them after the hopstand. This is in contrast to immediately chilling the beer; the hops in the trub pile seem to have a ton of aroma left in them. My solution has been to do the 20 min whirlpool/hopstand, then add 1-2 oz of hops after the stand and then immediately turn on my chilling water. Its been giving me big flavor and more aroma... double dry hopping doesn't hurt either
I guess only thing that I do different is I don't whirlpool during the hot stand. I do of course run the pump with flame on to sanitize the pump and all. The whirlpooling might aid in oil extraction, or it might aid in helping the oils adhere to available surfaces. But since whirlpooling makes a hops pile at the bottom I'd rather let the hops free float. As far as the temperature it seems to fall fast enough on it's own. I actually will turn the flame on low maintain 190-200. Then after the hot stand I toss in more hops and chill. The 15-20 minute chill/whirlpool and then about a half hour cold stand seems to be enough for everything to drop. But all in all any method should be a big help.
Thanks guys. I think I'll try a 20 minute stand and see how that goes. My next brewery upgrade will be a pump to use Jamil's whirlpool chilling method as I'm damn tired of stirring my chilling wort. So I'll have to adjust my technique after that, as well.
Jamil's whirlpool is one of my personal top few changes I've made to my system. it's amazing how much you can get done during the time you otherwise would have been stirring. And you're less likely to stop too soon because your arm is tired and it's 'close enough' to the desired temp.
