This week I take a look at first wort hops, and whether they really do make your beer better. First wort hopping is a brewing technique that is over 100 years old, and widely reported to provide a smoother rounder finish on the beer. However recent studies have shown no detectable sensory difference. So is first wort hopping a waste of time?
What is First Wort Hopping?
First wort hopping (FWH) is a method where hops are added to the boil kettle at the very beginning of the sparge step in a traditional all grain mash process. As a result the hops steep for the duration of the sparge as wort is slowly drained from the mash tun. The hops are left in the kettle for the entire boil duration. Several studies below have confirmed this actually slightly raises the finished IBU level of the beer by about 10% as reflected in my BeerSmith software.
The method originated prior to the turn of the 20th century, and was used widely by German, British and Belgian brewers on a wide variety of styles from ales to lagers. It fell from favor commercially in the 1950’s-1970’s though it enjoyed a resurgence of sorts in both the US homebrew and craft beer communities after a 1995 article by Priess, Neuremburg and Mitter (Brauwelt International, Vol IV, p 308). I’ve written twice about first wort hopping here and in a revisited article here.
While at one time promoted as an alternative to late addition aroma hops, in practice few aroma oils survive the very long boil. Instead first wort hopping has been promoted as a way to create a smoother, rounder finish in beer.
Does It Really Make a Difference in Taste?
Stan Hieronymus published an article We might have been wrong about first wort hopping on his Appelation Beer blog a few years back. In it he mentions that even though he supported first wort hopping in his book For the Love of Hops, a study from Oregon State University by Shellhammer and Hahn, presented at the International Brewers Symposium in Corvallis (2017), compared a beer with FWH against one with normal boil hops and found that there was “no perceivable difference between the two treatments at a 95% confidence level”.
Stan goes on in his blog post to cover both the recent research and the original 1995 Brauwelt article I cited earlier. While the Brauwelt study had two German breweries create two identical Pilsners with FWH and the other without, they found panelists described the FWH beer as more pleasant tasting and having finer hop aroma.
As a third data point, Brulosophy did an exBEERiment creating two identical beers, one with a first wort hop addition and the other with a traditional 60 minute boil addition. Again, lab tests confirmed that the FWH beer had higher IBUs (15.5 versus 13.5), but in triangle tests his panel was unable to determine which beer had been first wort hopped, or even distinguish one beer from another with any statistical significance.
Author Marshall Schott concludes “With nothing more than hypothesis as to how adding hops to wort prior to boiling actually impacts beer characteristics, the results of this xBmt along with findings from various other experiments leave me even more convinced the only benefit to first wort hopping is that it reduces the likelihood of a boil over. This, admittedly, is the only reason I’ll continue doing it.”
So is First Wort Hopping Worth It?
Despite a plethora of articles including my own lauding the benefits of first wort hopping, I have to admit that the evidence to support the technique is growing thin. I myself have used first wort hopping on a variety of beer styles, focusing mainly on styles that are not hop forward. My rationale is that the rounder, smoother hop flavor would benefit a beer that is not hop-centered. I’ve had good results with the beers, but have not yet done an actual sensory experiment as described above.
I do find it interesting that even with the roughly 10% higher IBU level confirmed in the experiments above did not result in a different perception between the two beers in 2 of the 3 studies. Even in the Brauwelt article, the FWH beer was perceived as less harsh rather than more bitter.
Given that adding the hops earlier in the sparge really adds no cost, I will probably continue to use first wort hopping for beer styles that are not hop forward. Since I’ve largely moved to a single boil hop addition for my beers, there is really no downside to first wort hopping if you have a traditional all grain system.
Note that FWH is difficult to duplicate with an all-in-one or BIAB system as there is no extended sparge period. However some brewers simulate this by leaving first wort hops in the hot wort for 20 minutes or so before applying heat to reach a boil.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s article on first wort hopping. Thanks for joining me on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. If you want to take the guesswork out of brewing, please try my BeerSmith recipe software from BeerSmith.com. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter or my podcast (also on itunes and youtube) for more great tips on homebrewing.