Late Hop Additions with 'No-chill'

[Meatymc]

What's the latest thinking on the benefit of adding hops to the 'cube' with the wort obviously at boiling point? Some seem to say that despite the oil evaporating it's trapped in the cube and re-absorbed whilst others maintain it changes 'composition' and looses any value.

Then of course there's the question of adding bitterness given the time taken from immersion to the point temperature falls to below 80C.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

It's a crapshoot. I made a Saison where 100g of motueka in the cubes made a fantastic hoppy character, now I got an English style where it may make no difference.

It's worth it for experiments.

[Notlaw]

You can't get the same results with no-chilling as you can by using late additions, so the best you can do really is to add them all as dry hop additions.

[PhilB]

Hi Meatymc

I've never done any "cube-hopping" ... I've always removed my hops from the wort before transferring (by boiling them in hop socks) or separated them as part of the transfer (via a hop filter) into the no chill.

You can't get the same results with no-chilling as you can by using late additions, so the best you can do really is to add them all as dry hop additions

... but I'd (respectfully) disagree with that comment from Notlaw ... by boiling your wort and transferring it into a no-chill cube you are effectively making your own (fresh wort) kit, and so you can apply the techniques that kit brewers use to add late-addition-style hop impressions i.e. you'd make yourself a hop-tea

Since you haven't (necessarily) made a concentrated wort kit that will require diluting down to OG, you might not want to make your hop-tea in water ... but if you chill your cube in your brewfridge down to (or put your cube somewhere that is) 5-10C cooler than your pitching temp, then you can put some of your wort from the cube into a pan (a few lts, say) and the rest in your FV, and bring the wort in the pan to a boil (for long enough to sterilise the pan) then add any late hop additions (whether very short boils, flameout hops, or post boil steeps (at whatever temps) ... whatever your recipe requires) to that portion of wort in the pan ... and then when you add that (warm) wort in the pan (filtering out your hops) to the cooler wort in the FV it will even out to around your pitching temp

Cheers, PhilB

[jaroporter]

You can't get the same results with chilling as you can by using cube additions, so the best you can do really is to add them all as dry hop additions.