As every brewer knows, hops are added to the brew during the boil in up to three additions, and in some cases also to the beer in the secondary fermenter or in the keg... or... are you sure? Now read this:

First Wort Hopping

--David Draper, http://hbd.org/ddraper/beer.html

In the latter part of 1995, Dr. George Fix posted to the Home Brew Digest about a process he had recently come across described in the brewing literature. Since then much interest in the procedure has arisen. The process is called First Wort Hopping (FWH), and it refers to the practice of adding hops to the brew kettle, into which sparged runnings are collected, at the beginning of sparging. The idea is that the hops soak in the collecting wort (which usually runs out of the lauter tun at temperatures ranging from 60 to 70C depending on one's setup) for the duration of the sparge, and the volatile hop constituents undergo very complicated reactions, producing a complexity of hop bitterness and aroma that is obtainable no other way. In general, this procedure, which originated in Germany, has been used in Pils type beers. However, it is possible that the procedure might also be beneficial for other styles as well; this remains to be determined.

The original article on which Dr. Fix reported appeared in the brewing journal Brauwelt International, by Preis, Nuremberg, and Mitter; vol IV, p. 308, 1995. In this write-up, it is my intention to summarize the main points of this article so that brewers can at least get some idea what the basic data look like, and from here the experimentation at the homebrew scale will undoubtedly provide more insight on how this process might best be used for our beers.

I will do this in two parts: first, straight reportage, in outline form, on the contents of the article (any errors or omissions are mine); and second, some commentary elicited from various brewers in the HBD during March 1996. This is not intended by any means to be a comprehensive treatment of this topic; it is only a summary.

Summary of the Article

1. Introduction. First wort hopping was used extensively at the start of the century but mainly in order to enhance bitterness rather than aroma. It was recognized that the higher pH of the wort (as opposed to later in the boil) had a positive effect on utilization, combatting the effects of losses from coagulation on break material. The higher pH of the first runnings enhances isomerization of alpha acids. Other attempts were made to actually hop the mash (!!); other early efforts involved running the sparged wort through a hop filter-- a "hop front" instead of a hop back, I guess...DeClerk steeped the hops in 50C water before adding to the wort (to remove "unpleasant" stuff); a later worker used 70C water. Both reported enhanced aroma qualities.
2. Experimental Procedures. Two different breweries produced the test brews, Pils types, that make up the subject of this article. The two breweries make a slightly different version of Pils. No mention was made in the article whether the beers were products of decoction or infusion mashes (see comments below). At each brewery, the FWH beer was brewed with a reference beer alongside. The FWH and Reference beers at each brewery were done under controlled conditions, identical ingredients, pitching rates, etc., and differed only in the way they were hopped. The reference beers were hopped in the customary fashion for the two breweries under consideration, namely with two late-kettle additions. For the FWH beers made in both test breweries, the hops that would have been used in these late-kettle additions were instead dumped into the boiler once its bottom was covered with wort; no stirring--they just sat there while wort was sparged on top of them. Brew A (total hopping: 13.0 g alpha acid per hectolitre of cast wort) was first-hopped with 34% of the total amount added-- Tettnang and Saaz that were typically used in aroma additions at the end of the boil under normal conditions. Brew B (total hopping: 12.2 g alpha acid per hl wort) used only Tettnang, but 52% of the total hop amount was used as First Wort Hops. No late-kettle aroma hopping was done in either brew. Brew A was boiled for 90 minutes and Brew B for 80 minutes, both at atmospheric pressure.
3. Tasting panel results: the FWH beers were overwhelmingly preferred over the reference beers in triangular taste tests (i.e., each taster was given three beers, two of either the reference beer or the FWH beer, and one of the other, and had to correctly identify which two were alike before their preference results were incorporated in the database). 11 of 12 tasters of each beer preferred the FWH beer. The main reasons given for the preference: "a fine, unobtrusive hop aroma; a more harmonic beer; a more uniform bitterness."
4. Analytical results--bitterness: The FWH beers had more IBUs than did the reference beers. Brew A: Ref beer was 37.9 IBU, FWH beer was 39.6 IBU. Brew B: Ref beer was 27.2 IBU, FWH beer was 32.8 IBU. This should come as no surprise, since more hops were in the kettle for the boil in the FWH beers than in the Reference beers. Prior to fermentation, the worts from both breweries showed the following features: the FWH wort had substantially more isomerized alpha acids, but less non-isomerized alphas. This was particularly true of Brew B, which had a higher proportion of first-wort hops. Nevertheless, the bitterness of the FWH beers was described as more pleasing than the (slightly weaker) bitterness of the reference beers.
5. Analytical results--aroma: For the aroma compounds, very distinct differences were measured (gas chromatography) in both the identities and concentrations of the various aromatic compounds between the FWH beers and the reference beers. Because the precise nature of the effects of aromatic compounds on beer flavor are very complicated, it cannot be said with certainty just why the various measurements resulted in the overwhelming tasting preference, but clearly something is going on here. Even though the reference beers had higher *absolute amounts* of most of the aroma compounds, again the FWH beers got higher ratings for overall pleasure.
6. Final comments: each brewery needs to experiment with its own setup for determining what sort of first-wort hopping is best for it. But the alpha-acid quantity should *not* be reduced, even if one gets more bitterness than one would get in the usual way. The tasting panel results seem to indicate that the bitterness in the FWH beers was fine, and mild--i.e. there is little harshness that can appear in a highly bittered beer. If the hops are reduced to compensate for the extra IBUs one gets from the first-wort hops, then the whole benefit of doing it might be lost. The recommendation is to use at least 30% of the total hops as first-wort hops--basically, this means adding the aroma hops as first-wort hops rather than late kettle additions.

To quote the article:
"...But we recommend that first wort hopping be carried out with at least 30% of the total hop addition, using the later aroma additions. [New paragraph] As far as the use of hops is concerned, the alpha-acid quantity should not be reduced even in the case of an improved bitterness utilization. The results of the tastings showed that the bitterness of the beers is regarded as very good and also as very mild. A reduction of the hop quantity added [to compensate for the presence of more hops early in the boil--this note added by Dave, it is clear from the context of the preceding paragraphs] could result in the bitterness being excessively weakened, and the good "hop flavor impression" could be totally lost."