More Hop Flavor & Aroma in Your IPA: Lower Temp Whirlpool

[@alanpotter8680]

This is exactly what I've been doing for the past 10 years. I find no difference at all between this technique and dry hopping. In fact, this is much, much easier, time efficient and you WILL get just as much of the flavor and aroma from the hops as you would from an actual dry hopping. My method is pretty similar to this: After I'm done with my last boil addition, I whirlpool for 10 minutes, then rapidly cool the wort to 74C (165F) by circulating the wort through my plate chiller, stop cooling, add all the hops in my hop spider, let them sit for a minute to sterilize and then continue with the chilling until I hit my desired temperature. My batches are about 120 liters (32 gallons) so it takes a while, which is enough time to extract as much of the aroma and flavors as possible at a higher temperature than that in the fermentation chamber. Every home brewer I've given my beers to taste, is in disbelief. You can really get creative with this method because you can experiment with hops that are usually considered unsuitable for dry hopping because of undesirable off-flavors after prolonged exposure to the wort. Noble European hops like EKG, Fuggles, Hallertau, Saaz etc., suddenly can be used in a safe way that produce entirely different profiles of aroma. Voss + EKG + a dash of Magnum in cold whirlpool produced a very delicious sweet orange profile for me, without the excessive grapefruit tones of most US hops. One of my best pilsners with 100% Saaz is done in the same way, giving an extra lemony freshness to the beer on top of the herbal undertones.

[@tonylamartina6729]

Great video and awesome information for my home brewing.

[@adammakesbeer]

Thanks so much!

[@homebrewingtips6029]

Adam, you've become one of my favorites! Great job on all of your stuff. If I find my self in Cincinatti, I am definitely stopping in!! Thanks for your time and effort in putting together these videos. All the best. _DT

[@reyn66]

The world of mangos and their flavor profiles will be a big influence on my hazy beers

[@DKindel]

Another great video - a bit late to watch the whole thing but was doing some research on hop aroma/flavor and whirlpool, and this popped up! Question regarding hop survivables and fermentation - if I ferment with a voss kveik yeast at 90-100 degrees F, will that fermentation drive off all the flavor/aroma I worked to get in the whirlpool? Would it be better to just wait to dry hop with the whirlpool additions or still whirlpool?

[@rivrivrivera2916]

At what quantities do you whirlpool and dry hop , scale it down to homebrew level ? 5 to 6 gal batch

[@adammakesbeer]

answering on tonights livestream!

[@indiekiduk]

If you had a dedicated whirlpool tank, would you put the hops in before you pump in the wort? Or would you fill the tank, add the hops, the start the whirlpool? Basically I was wondering if the action of the whirlpool creating a hop cone would limit hop utilisation because of being tightly packed into a cone.

[@adammakesbeer]

answering on 8/1 livestream!

[@ozanyumrukaya]

It is a lovely video. Thank you for informations. I would like to ask amount of whirpool hopping. How much hops do you recommend for hazy ipas and west coast ipas at the whirpool addition? Thank you very much.

[@adammakesbeer]

Do you mind if I answer this in Fridays Livestream Q&A?

[@grantorgan6197]

Really enjoying the channel, found it from reddit. One suggestion for the future is maybe a graphic overlay when you mention a certain temp showing both f and c degrees to make it a little easier to comprehend all over th3 world

[@adammakesbeer]

That’s a really good idea. I will work on that. Thank you!

[@djlaznovsky6163]

Dude, great videos. I have a question with whirlpooling….. what speed or how “fast” are you getting the wort to move during the process? Thanks

[@adammakesbeer]

answering on the may 5 livestream

[@timrehak4048]

As a now a head brewer, when I was coming up and learning and still am... That whirlpooling through your HX can cause the HX to clog up. Now that I'm running the show I have often thought about this. However, I see this as no different from KO. My thought is to hit it with the two-step WP, when the WP is mostly done then run through your HX to cool, when the BK hits temp then hit it with hops, WP for additional time, then let it rest at 170*-180* then KO. I guess my thought is the first part of running the WP is to separate any solids from getting into the HX. would you suggest anything different? or would you care to share your SOP for this?

[@adammakesbeer]

Answering this on the livestream tonight!

[@OPB682]

Yes.... A hopback with leaf hops in it..works a treat

[@thomasfrank1227]

Thank man

[@adammakesbeer]

😃

[@DanielVanderveen-gc5nx]

Hey Adam, when you lower the temp on the whirlpool, how to you avoid DMS?

[@hatherlow]

Dms has been boiled off during the boil

[@enricoselvestrel5070]

hi, I'm Enrico an Italian professional brewer. I really like your videos and as you said in the presentation video there is always something to learn and share with colleagues. in this video you talk about the loss of aroma caused by oxidation, but how do you deal with the oxygenation of the must to allow the yeasts to reproduce?

[@enricoselvestrel5070]

sorry i mean the oxygenation of the wort

[@adammakesbeer]

Great question! The oxygen introduced prior to fermentation will be taken up by the yeast as it prepares to ferment the beer. Introducing oxygen to a beer that has already undergone fermentation will lead to premature staling, including degradation of hop flavor and aroma. Does that make sense?

[@enricoselvestrel5070]

@@adammakesbeer it makes perfect sense and I behave the same way you do. I was wondering if from your experience there were any oxidation risks even at this stage of processing

[@enricoselvestrel5070]

unfortunately oxidation is very fast to act and I believe it is necessary to reduce the oxygenation of the work to the minimum necessary in order not to run the risk of unwanted oxidation

[@adammakesbeer]

@@enricoselvestrel5070 It is possible to over oxygenate pre fermentation. It can be harmful to the yeast. There may also be risk of the over abundance of oxygen leading to some staling of flavor and aroma compounds further down stream as well, but I don’t know the research on that. I do know some breweries use purified air to oxygenate their wort so as to not introduce too much oxygen pre fermentation.

[@oscarmontalbo5551]

Hey bud question? When do you think the best time to add fruit or fruit juice to an IPA, or is fruit better than fruit juice like a mango juice.

[@adammakesbeer]

I utilize fruit in the late stages of fermentation and allow it to fully ferment out so I can have a shelf stable product.

[@hatherlow]

I know this is 2 years old but thanks from 2024

[@beeriswhatimake]

Any experience with "dip hopping"?

[@adammakesbeer]

As in lower WP temp?

[@beeriswhatimake]

No, it's where you essentially dry hop in an empty tank with either 150 degree water from the HLT or use wort but only the sweet unboiled wort from the first 10-15% of the lauter. Continue the rest of runoff into the kettle and after you boil and WP you KO into that tank with your hop tea waiting. KO cold to account for the tank. Super juicy, no vegetal flavor. It's pretty new and just catching here on the west coast. It's fun to play around with especially on small batch stuff.

[@beeriswhatimake]

Just curious if and when anyone else has done it. I've read alot about it and I've done it a couple times. Just haven't spoken to anyone who's also done it yet.

[@Zeke8762]

I am going to be brewing my first IPA this weekend, and really don't want to dry hop due to the risk of O2 exposure and me using a bucket. The recipe I am following wants 55g of Mosaic 8 days post yeast pitch. Can I up that quantity a bit and just do a whirlpool addition instead to try and get a balance of more aroma from the desired dry hop without opening the fermenter?

[@adammakesbeer]

Yeah you can do that, but it will be a different character, with a bit more bitterness too. Do you have access to a CO2 cylinder?

[@Zeke8762]

@@adammakesbeer I do. It's currently hooked up the the kegerator but I can disconnect it when needed.

[@adammakesbeer]

@@Zeke8762 I would suggest dry hopping toward the end of fermentation, so that the surface of the beer is still expressing co2. Maybe have a second set of hands aiming a hose emitting co2 on the surface of the beer. That would probably limit the likelihood of oxidation. Let me know how it goes either way, and what technique you implement. 🍻

[@Zeke8762]

@@adammakesbeer thanks for the tips! Hopefully it comes out well!

[@adammakesbeer]

@@Zeke8762 Keep me in the loop!

[@philphy9257]

Cool video ! Question; how long do you recommend leaving the hops in the whirlpool ? I normally leave them in 20 minutes, but then when I’m done, there always seem to be a ton of aroma, and I am assuming flavour, remaining in the trub - goodness that’s not going into my beer 🍻

[@adammakesbeer]

That sounds good to me. I WP for 5 min and rest for 20, then start running off. Maybe play with different rest times, focusing on hap varietals with high level of survivables.

[@moltiin]

Loving the videos, Adam. Very cool to see how other folks are doing stuff. What sort of whirlpool and dry hop rates are you going for? We currently whirlpool at .5lb/bbl and dry hop between 1-2lb/bbl, but I'm not convinced were getting enough aroma.

[@adammakesbeer]

Thanks so much! Currently (as it is ever evolving) I and dropping my WP to 170-180F, hitting it with 22lbs of cryo and 11lbs of t90 pellets. Counting the cryo as 2:1 compared to standard pellets, I am using about the equivalent of 3lbs/bbl in the WP. I dry hop my FV post ferment at 58F with 3-4lbs/bbl.

[@adammakesbeer]

I know folks doing more and less than me for what it’s worth.

[@chino112582]

I’ve been experimenting with large charges of whirlpool hops at 170-180F. Last batch of IPA was 2.5 pounds per barrel of wort. Have you gone higher than that? Look forward to your input!

[@adammakesbeer]

I try and use cryo in the WP that way I don’t soak up too much wort. One pound of cryo is essentially two lbs of T90 pellets. So I use 22lbs of cryo and 11lbs of T90. So about 55lbs in 17bbls of wort. So I guess I have gone a little over 3lbs/bbl due to the cryo.