SMASH with no bittering addition

[NeedsMoreHops]

I am planning a SMASH beer using Apollo hops. I have been pleased with First Wort Hopping before and I am considering this. Although FWH is not supposed to add bittering, this is not what I have seen so far and as they have a ludicrously high AA % I am wondering whether to leave out the bittering addition completely.
I am thinking about 20g FWH, and then 20g each for 30 mins, 15 mins, flamneout and dry.
Does this sound like a reasonable approach? Or Maybe I should add a 45 min addition as well, taking away some of the other additions (I have 100g to play with)

[seymour]

I think that's an excellent idea, and to be honest, I think a lot of people (professional and home brewers) add their bittering hops at the beginning while they wait for it to come to a boil, whether they officially call it "First Wort Hopping" or not. The consensus seems to be the pre-boil steeping gently prepares more compounds for isomerization, leading to a smoother, less harsh bitterness and flavour, compared to simply dropping hops into a violent boil.

Like you, I don't buy the claim about it not adding bitterness. Of course it does, they are hops, dissolved in solution, for the full duration of the boil plus however much time it took to heat up. It adds bitterness, and lots of it, depending on the hops used. I think that misconception originated from the common recommendation to only use low-alpha aroma/finishing hops for FWH. Thus, it's the low alpha acid percentage which contributes little bitterness, not the timing. So, if you're doing a single hop recipe, it almost certainly is a dual-purpose hop with relatively high alpha acid percentage, so the FWH addition adds just as much bitterness as the so-called "bitterness addition."

Best of luck with your experiment. I expect it will be a success.

[NeedsMoreHops]

Thanks for the response Seymour. I think in light of this, I might actually knock down the quantity of hops added at the beginning and move them towards the end (maybe spreading over 30 20 and 10 or something). At 19% (or whatever they are exactly) I think I need to be careful not to make it too bitter (although I'm sure some would argue there is no such thing as too bitter!). I'll post back when I have some tastings to report

[seymour]

Another smart idea. Sounds good.

[jimp2003]

There is nothing wrong with what you are proposing. In fact I will be taking a similar approach to a couple of pales that I will be brewing this weekend - the earliest hops will be going in 15 mins from the end of the boil.

Good luck with your brew!

Jim

[vacant]

There is nothing wrong with what you are proposing

John Palmer says Only low alpha finishing hops should be used for FWH (because they do, obviously, contribute to bittering). Having said that, I'd give it a go as an experiment. It's your beer.

[jimp2003]

There is nothing wrong with what you are proposing

John Palmer says Only low alpha finishing hops should be used for FWH (because they do, obviously, contribute to bittering). Having said that, I'd give it a go as an experiment. It's your beer.

JP doesn't really qualify why low alpha hops should be used for FWH other than the fact that these should be finishing hops which he is assuming are low alpha. Hops have moved on a bit - what about dual purpose hops which are great for finishing but have high AA?

Like you say Vacant, the OP should give it a go to see what the result is. I am he will end up with a tasty beer!

[DeGarre]

I've done the FWH method now a couple of times and to my tastebuds it does not add more bitterness, instead the bitterness is different: softer and flavoursome.

Next time I will do 50/50 between FWH and 60 mins and hope to find the sweet spot as I like to have firm bitterness in my bitters.

[NeedsMoreHops]

Regardless of the brew day today being a bit of a disaster (I had to switch to BIAB rather than sparge as SWMBO managed to destroy my mash tun and false bottom after only one outing) and ending up with 1.038 wort instead of 1.059, this is now in the fermenter. This is definitely the bitterest pre-fermented wort I have tasted, but there is a suggestion of a great beer. I went a bit mad with the number of hop additions but the result should certainly give a clear indication of what apollo can do. In the end I went for:
5g FWH
7.5g 45 min
7.5g 30 min
10g 20 min
10g 15 min
10g 10 min
10g 5 min
20g flameout
20g planned for dry.
Maybe I should have consolidated some of the additions as i don't really want to be doing this for every SMASH beer (although techincally I guess it was not just a SMASH as I did a Seymour oating addition).
I'll post in the brew day section if i get change and will update with tasing notes at a later date.
Cheers.

[seymour]

Sounds like a really cool session IPA to me! Also, as we discussed over here, the oats aren't malted, so you technically only used "a single malt", thus many brewer's would still bend the truth and call that a SMASH. But who cares? If you'd rather, you could call your series "Hop Trial" as Schlafly and several other commercial breweries are doing...

[NeedsMoreHops]

Ah, an excellent point, a SMASH beer it is then Although you're right, the taste matters more than the name...

[barney]

I add ALL my bittering hops as FWH.

[Hanglow]

The pale ale I am supping now was all from 15mins on, it has just the right amount of bitterness and huge hop flavour

I recently listened to a Brewing Network podcast about flameout hops with a hopstand/whirlpool and the amount of bitterness they add, and they suggest putting them into your brewing software as a 20min addition if you are going to do a reasonably long hop stand.. For this pale ale I didn't find that accurate but I''m certain they added a reasonable amount of extra bitterness in addition to the other additions from just tasting the wort and the final bitterness of the beer

[greenxpaddy]

If we are just talking about bitterness, the extraction difference from hops over a 60 min boil versus a 90 min boil is not that great as an overall percentage. I would doubt most people could blind tested notice a big difference in bitterness. I can't see that being any different whether high or low alpha acid hops are used. There is just more AA/gram in higher AA hops.

This is relevant because first wort hopping is probably about 30-60 mins for most people until a boil is reached. While its accepted some acidity is extracted during that period it will not be as significant as the same time added to the end of the boil .....which is not significant anyway.....60 minutes extracts the large majority of bitterness, which is one of the reasons it's the standard boil time.

So although it may produce a more rounded flavour, for what reason I can't explain, I doubt it really adds significant bitterness.

I don't add hops to literally to first wort but add them when the boiler is about half full and around 75-80c. This done mainly to aid 'boil over' prevention rather than any noticeable improvement in flavour.

[NeedsMoreHops]

I decided to do an experiment while dry hopping this last night so I could see what the aroma/taste effect of steeping is. I steeped some hops in cold water and although the hops/water ratio was roughly similar to that in the fermenter, this was not at all scientific and was just some hops and some water.
This evening I tasted this and the result is a hoppy/floral aroma (as expected) with a real grapefruit taste. The interesting aspect was that there had been an obvious bittering of the water. Maybe technically there were no IBUs but the bittering was clear and on its own it would be sufficient for an IPA. Maybe the bittering would be short-lived and so would not be an effective method of bittering? Maybe this is partly because of the high AA %? Room for more experimentation...