Do you pull your hops during chill?

[calgary222]

Probably a dumb question, but I though I would confirm.

I had always left mine in as I used to use an immersion chiller and there seemed to be no harm and a number of recipes call for 0 min additions.

I recently up-sized my rig and went to rims and whirlpool and found my hop container (hooked to the side of my pot) was getting in the way of my whirlpool, so I pulled it during cooling.

I started thinking about it and wondered if late addition short timed hops were having a more bittering effect than intended...

I can always build a spider to hold the hops if that's the way it should be.

 

[bleme]

I always leave my hops in. If I'm not planning on harvesting the yeast, I'll dump them right on into the fermentor also. I do consider the added hoppiness when I am making my recipe though.

 

[jalc6927]

I use Muslin bags for my hops and pull them before wort goes into fermenter. I don't make IPA's, and not really looking for strong hoppiness

 

[Vandulus]

I've been using a hop screen that's removed immediately after the boil simply to reduce the amount of trub left. Leaving the bittering hop additions shouldn't make too much difference assuming they've in in for 30+ minutes. Late additions on the other hand can affect how much bitterness you're getting especially if you use high AA% hops. The first thing is to figure out how long the wort is above 180 F as below that temp you won't get as much isomerization.

If it takes you 5 minutes to move your kettle and cool it to 180F, figure that's about another 4 minutes of hop utilization (~75-80%) if you leave the hops in. The other factors I'm aware of that would make a difference are:
- the OG of the wort as the higher the OG, the lower the utilization overall
- the IBUs of the wort as the higher the IBUs, the lower the utilization due to saturation

 

[Pappers_]

I pull the hop bag out before running the wort through the counterflow chiller.

 

[radwizard]

I'm sure either way works out. Personally I have found the pull out method to be my choice.

 

[calgary222]

Interesting responses - thanks!

Thanks Vandulus - that's more or less what I was thinking - appreciate the metric of 180.

I agree that either can work and you can adjust according to bitterness as one would like. I think I will be having to pull with my rig for the reasons noted, but may have to adjust up quantity or soak times on some old recipes,

Cheers!

 

[Jtk78]

I use a large bag on a homemade spider for my hops, but have always left them in until right before I pull my chiller. My thought was a lot of people throw the hops in loose, and they're not getting them out of the kettle at flame out.