SMOOTHER BITTERNESS
While this was one of the benefits intended by the pioneers of this method.
CONVENIENCE
It is so simple to just toss my entire bittering hop charge into brew house equipment boil kettle while draining the mash tun.
Since the wort is not yet boiling, the pellets dissolve gently into the warming wort. There they proceed to steep until the boil begins.
By this time, the hops are well saturated and not prone to causing an immediate boil-over. It only takes a couple of boil-overs to see the value in avoiding them by whatever means necessary. FWH is probably the simplest way I know.
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SAFETY
Since transitioning to FWH, I have NOT ONCE had a boil over due to a hop addition. That first 60 minute addition tends to be the time when boil overs are most likely to occur.
Adding lots of pellet hops to rapidly boiling wort causes the pellets to instantly dissolve. This creates thousands of new points of nucleation, which can in turn cause an almost immediate boil over of hot, sticky wort.
That’s messy, dangerous, and it wastes your beer!
First wort hopping can eliminate that pesky 60 minute addition.
FIRST WORT HOPS VS 60 MINUTE ADDITION
As mentioned previously, the first wort hop addition is not NECESSARILY mutually exclusive with a 60 minute boil addition.
However, I think most micro brewery factory today tend to use one method or the other. I personally don’t see a lot of benefit in using both.
You may need to recalculate the expected IBU extraction when using first wort hops for bittering. Luckily, many popular brewing recipe apps have first wort hopping as an available option.
CONCLUSION
For most of micro brewery factory, there are two major reasons to stick with this method. Those reasons are the convenience and safety benefits.
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Emily Gong
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