Hop Stands

[Clinton]

When designing my recipes, I usually never bothered with hop additions after 3 minutes or so, since I start cooling with my CFC as soon as the boil is over. I decided I should try a zero minute addition last brew and let it sit for 15 minutes after the boil finished, and after tasting a sample tonight, I will have to do it more. My brews have never had the 'slap in the face' hop aromas that a lot of craft beers do, and this last brew is already a lot better, even without dry hopping. I have heard that hop stands can give much more intense hop flavour and aroma, as the essential oils that would usually be driven off by a vigorous boil will stay in the non boiling wort.

So, does anyone do these? What are the results? I am definitely going to try one once I get a pump.

[Crusader-Rob]

Yeah a good flameout addition is great for some types of beers.

I was always under the impression that a hop stand is slightly different to a flameout addition, as it is added about 10-15 mins after the boil has finished, and left for an additional 15 mins, much like epic pale ale CYBI recipe does.

 I always leave for 15 mins before chilling, the Epic recipes, does this then adds another addition, and leaves for the additional 15 mins. (totalling 30mins)

[Grant R Baker]

I think Crusader-Rob summed it up well.

I've been wanting to compare this idea with First Wort Hopping to see the difference since both methods aren't meant to build the intensity of the hops used.

[Ralph]

If doing a hoppy beer I pretty much always do a "hop stand" except I call it a whirlpool addition. I will stand/whirlpool for up to 20 minutes and it really adds hop zing.

I even sometimes add one lot of hops at flame out and another 10 minutes later in a 20 min whirlpool...

Different hop oils are extracted/volitilised at different temperatures. After 10 mins my brew pot will have cooled to more like 90 deg. I have even tried cooling to 60 deg and then adding a hop addition and standing for 10 min. I was not so keen on the hop flavour of this temperature addition... but that may have just been the hops etc. There is a good podcast on Beersmith somewhere where Brad talks to the guy from Gorst Valley hops. Quite technical, but worth a listen. http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/05/13/hop-chemistry-and-beer-with-ja...

[Druid]

You don't need a pump to do a hop stand - just dump one or more additions of hops in the kettle after the boil. Maybe you are thinking of a hop back? That pumps the hot wort through a filter of hops immediately before cooling the wort to lock in the volatile oils.

As the others have mentioned, with flameout/whirlpool/hop stand additions you can do one or more at different times and lengths to get more layering in the hop flavor.

[David R]

Bumping this back up, I finally got around to buying beersmith (don't know why the heck I waited this long, it's great!) and when playing around with this IPA recipe I found, according to the software, that a 10 minute "whirlpool addition" rather than just a 0min addition followed by cooling adds about 24IBU, taking it from 78 to 102IBU. Do I trust the calculations and scale back my initial bittering addition to compensate? Has anyone done any sort of trial to see if steeping the 0min/whirlpool additions for 10-20minutes has a noticeable effect on the bitterness?

[Druid]

Yes, it does add IBU's. A classic example is the Epic Pale Ale recipe from CYBI. The IBU's reported in the recipe (before beersmith was updated to calculate steeping additions gave a much less bitter beer than the taste. The million dollar question though is how much more and I believe beersmith is just taking a punt at it.

[Ralph]

Yeh, I find with Beersmith I am much more likely to believe the IBUs before the whirlpool addition. Whirlpool adds to the IBU but it does not necessarily add much the the bitter bite you get at the end of a beer from boiling hops. Whirlpool definitely adds a lot more flavour compounds (many of which are bitter in their own right) and a little of the isomerised alpha acids that give the bitter bite at the end. 

[David R]

Cheers, I might dial the 60min addition back just a touch and aim for the happy middle ground between the before/after whirlpool numbers.