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I crafted an Oatmeal Stout (using a Brooklyn Brew Shop kit) last weekend and the recipe instructions were to add 2/3 of the Golding Hops pack at the beginning of the boiling and the remaining 1/3 15 minutes before the end of the boiling.

What is the purpose of adding the same kind of hop at different stages of the boiling?

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  • I was surprised, but it seems this question was not asked & answered here. Or if it was, it is hard to find. – Mołot Mar 15 '16 at 16:24
  • I looked it up before asking and couldn't find it, but I was surprised because I thought it was a very basic question. – Ferran Brosa Planella Mar 15 '16 at 16:28
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Alpha acids, pleasant bitterness you want in your beer, are in inactive form in hops. They need to be isomerized to taste the way it should. This takes time and temperature, around an hour of boil to convert all of it.

Aromatic components of hops needs only to be washed out. But they degenerate and evaporate with boil, so the shorter you keep them hot, the more you will get. Ultimate is dry hopping, with no time hot at all.

Some components that brings taste needs to be boiled out of hops. This takes from 10 to 30 minutes - after that time, they begin to degenerate and evaporate, too.

That's why there are three traditional times to add hops:

  • 60' - bitterness, but almost no taste or aroma
  • 30' to 10' - taste, low to moderate contribution to bitterness and aroma
  • 10' to 0' - aroma, low contribution to taste, almost no bitterness
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  • @FerranBrosaPlanella No problem. As a side note - stouts should have low to none hop aroma. Now you see how your recipe accounted for that. – Mołot Mar 15 '16 at 16:20
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There is one more hop method.

First Wort Hop (FWH)

Process of letting your wort run into a hopped kettle.

I don't think FWH has been totally quantified as to what happens, but I've gotten results simular to late additions + the IBU of a 60 min addition.

Image below shows a FWH. Watching the oils come off is mesmerizing.

enter image description here

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  • What do you mean by a "hopped kettle"? – Ferran Brosa Planella Mar 17 '16 at 17:12
  • @FerranBrosaPlanella you put hops into your boil kettle before wort, to allow the first wort to run over the hops in a bag or free floating. – Evil Zymurgist Mar 17 '16 at 18:21
  • I see, interesting... Thank you very much! – Ferran Brosa Planella Mar 17 '16 at 18:26

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