Single Hop IPA's

emacgee · 05-08-2009, 05:45 PM

I’m going to be making a bunch of half batch single hop IPA’s this summer in order to find out the properties of as many hops as I can. I’m keeping the same malt/grain bill for all of the recipe’s and I’m going to do hop additions at the same times. Bascially it’ll be a 60 min, 20 min, 10 min, and a dry hop addition. So I wanted to keep the proportions of the hops the same so that I could compare them accurately. What I did with this was calculated the alpha acid contribution I wanted from each addition and then calculated how much of each hop it would take to reach that AA and thats how many ounces I used for each addition. Does this sound like the right way to do this? Thing is I have my lower AA hops in the 5-7% range and it takes 10 or more ounces for some of them, does this seem like much for a 2.5 gal IPA. Thanks for the feedback

AJ_in_HD · 05-08-2009, 05:47 PM

should be fun!

I just made an all centennial IPA that tastes great. I'm sure you'll have a great time taste testing them.

cheers.

SchizoFilly · 05-08-2009, 05:49 PM

Can you clarify something for me, are you shooting for the same IBU level amongst all the IPAs or just the same quantity of hops?

**zac** · 05-08-2009, 05:52 PM

Schizo, thats my question, you trying to brew the same SG & IBU, with all the same malts, then hit a target IBU with each different hop?

Subscribed. I am planning on doing this someday.

**IrregularPulse** · 05-08-2009, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zac

Schizo, thats my question, you trying to brew the same SG & IBU, with all the same malts, then hit a target IBU with each different hop?

Subscribed. I am planning on doing this someday.

Thats what it looks like to me which is why it takes so many more lower AA hops then the higher AA ones.

The numbers will see way high because usually a bittering hop (one with high AA) is used for the first hop addition where most of your IBUs come from because it doesn't contribute much flavor if any. So where 10ounces seems like a ton in a 2.5 gallon batch, it's because you're only using a 5-7% AA hop instead of the normal 10-15AA or so .
This is my take on all this.

emacgee · 05-08-2009, 05:58 PM

I am keeping the same malt/grain bill base for all the recipe's. I am doing all of my hop additions at the same time. I am not doing the same quantity of hops, rather I am doing the same AAU's per addition. Since the gravity will be the same for all of them I figured this would be the same as IBU without having to do the math. So I just calculated how much weight it would take of each hop to achieve the same AAU per addition. Hope thats clearer

Beerrific · 05-08-2009, 06:05 PM

You could also consider keeping all the additions the same size except for the 60 minute addition. Change the 60 minute addition enough to adjust for the IBUs. I would recommend that since flavor and aroma do not necessarily scale by AA content. You could have one beer with low AA (so higher 20, 10 additions) end up with more apparent flavor and aroma, well of course, you used more. Then comparing that to a higher AA hop that might not have as much flavor. You would hate to end up with a the conclusion "oh that hop doesn't contribute as much flavor as this other" just because you used less.

emacgee · 05-08-2009, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IrregularPulse

Thats what it looks like to me which is why it takes so many more lower AA hops then the higher AA ones.

The numbers will see way high because usually a bittering hop (one with high AA) is used for the first hop addition where most of your IBUs come from because it doesn't contribute much flavor if any. So where 10ounces seems like a ton in a 2.5 gallon batch, it's because you're only using a 5-7% AA hop instead of the normal 10-15AA or so .
This is my take on all this.

Thats what I figured. Now what I'm wondering and what I guess I'm going to learn from all of this is whether or not flavor/aroma contribution is proportional to the AA of a hop. Ex: will 2 ounces of Cascade lend more aroma than 1 ounce of Colombus since their is more weight or will they lend apprx the same since they will be about the same AA?

emacgee · 05-08-2009, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beerrific

You could also consider keeping all the additions the same size except for the 60 minute addition. Change the 60 minute addition enough to adjust for the IBUs. I would recommend that since flavor and aroma do not necessarily scale by AA content. You could have one beer with low AA (so higher 20, 10 additions) end up with more apparent flavor and aroma, well of course, you used more. Then comparing that to a higher AA hop that might not have as much flavor. You would hate to end up with a the conclusion "oh that hop doesn't contribute as much flavor as this other" just because you used less.

So would you say keep the same AAU for the 60 minute addition and then for the 20,10, dry hop do the same weight? How much weight would you add for those additions for a 2.5 gal batch? 2 oz per each of the last three additions?

Matt Up North · 05-08-2009, 06:24 PM

If i were doing this, I would brew up 5 gallons of wort, blend it all together in your normal kettle and then seperate out 5 x 1 gallon boils and hop those. Get 5 x 1 gallon jugs to ferment in or even 10 x 64oz growlers for more testing. Then you have an exact base that will not change as much as brewing a second time. Also you will use like an ounce of hops for each rather than 10oz.

$.02