[THC] first wort hops

[Dr L A Swihart]

mr soul wrote:
> I am planning an American IPA for later this week.  I was thinking that I would try out first wort hopping (FWH).  My understanding on FWH is that you put your hops in the kettle once you collect your first runnings from the mash and leave them there for the sparge, warm up, and the boil.  Supposed to result in good hop flavor.  Anyway..
>    
>   My recipe
>    
>   2-Row Pale 15.75 #
>   Crystal 10L .89#
>   Crystal 50L .71#
>    
>   FWH Magnum            13AA              2.4 oz
>   FWH Cascade            5.6AA             1.2 oz
>   Dry Hop Cascade        5.6AA             2.4 oz
>    
>   I get 63% efficiency and this will be for a 6-gallon batch.  OG = 1.065
>    
>   I have been told that in terms of IBUs FWH is the equivelent of a 20 min boil.  I am not sure why this is, this is just what I have read online.  IBUs come in at 50.6 using this calculation.  For comparison if I use promash set at a 60 min boil my IBUs are a whopping 125!!  Now I like bitter beer but come on!
>    
>   So my question (finally) is all of the above logic correct.  Those of you that have used FWH what is your experience?
>    
>   

I have never studied this.  (Meaning that I've tried it and not paid 
attention to the results.... I'm a very bad student of brewing most of 
the time, it's much more of a play-time activity for me, although 
through longevity on the playground I've picked up some meaningful 
information.)

The article by Dave Draper at
http://brewery.org/library/FWHsummaryDD0396.html
is helpful; I think it gets at the answers you're looking for and is 
reliable.

Me, I'm looking into (almost *studying* maybe) the new fad of "late hop 
additions" as per article by Jamil Z in the recent Zymurgy.  I brewed an 
IIPA last Friday, first test case....

Linda

PS I would not trust the Promash calculation for a high-grav (anything 
over 1.050) beer until comparing with the results given by Ray Daniel's  
formula using the correction factor.  That IBU difference you mention 
doesn't sound right, but I need to get this email outta here and get to 
work.  And an IBU calculation only tells you "calculated IBU's," not 
IBU's.  To say you've got such-and-such IBU's it has to come from a 
measurement.