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Author Topic: Think I'm going back to whole cone  (Read 12369 times)

Offline Robert

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Re: Think I'm going back to whole cone
« Reply #105 on: March 16, 2019, 03:06:57 pm »




Another probable advantage of whole cone is less polyphenols in wort and beer.  We hear a lot of advice about careful milling, to ensure we don't have too many fine husk particles in the mash to avoid excess tannin extraction.   The same people focused on this seem to give not a thought to dumping a heap of micronized hop bracts right into the boil.  I think I've seen a real difference in clarity and stability as well as flavor,  will be interested in whether BrewBama notices a difference.

OTOH, using American Nobles, I've been working on utilizing ployphenols to enhance your beer.  It seems it's not all downsides to tannins.

As I've often mentioned in referring to the downside of lupulin or some extracts.  Not just polyphenols, dozens of compounds in the green stuff essential to bitterness,  flavor, foam, and all the qualities of beer.  It's just a matter of balance, and different forms of hops make the right balance more or less easy to achieve.

What I've found in working with cryo hops a LOT is that it's all in where and how you use them.  Big surprise, huh?  My new project is kinda building my own hops by using both the nobles and cryo to customize the lupulin/vegetation ratios.

That is an interesting possibility that has occurred to me.  What I've read about the research done (especially by Miller) developing advanced extracts and such, was that they really ended up with some unforeseen challenges that led to essentially putting hops back together once they started taking them apart.  We never would have known how many chemicals in hops make an impact in brewing if somebody hadn't opened that can of worms.  But it does allow a brewer (a big industrial one with resources) to perfectly customize the product.  We can't do that, but LupulN2 + American Noble is about as close as a little guy can get.  I'll be curious about what you learn.
Rob Stein
Akron, Ohio

I'd rather have questions I can't answer than answers I can't question.

Offline BrewBama

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Re: Think I'm going back to whole cone
« Reply #106 on: March 17, 2019, 06:22:01 am »
My first impression of brewing with whole leaf hops is they have a very real handling difference. For example when you weight out portions from the bulks careful thought has to be given to containing them. Not so with pellets — just open the bag and pour them into a small cup or onto the scale itself. They they put.

Likewise, during the boil they react very different from pellets. They take a minute to become saturated and begin to churn in the boil and seem to provide a better visual indication that the rolling of the wort is working well. Pellets immediately dissolve and provide less visualization.

Cleanup is another remarkable difference. I simply lifted the false bottom and tapped it on the side of a trash can then rinsed it off in the slop sink fitted with a drain strainer. Not bad.

So far so good. We’ll see how the beer turns out.


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