Hop Acidity Question

I am going to follow a recipe for a wheat beer and the the recipe references using 1oz Hallertaur hops with a 4.5% Acidity for bittering and .5oz of 2.4% acidity for flavoring. I ordered the hops. The bag says 6.8% acidity. Do they come in different strengths ? Should I adjust the amount to obtain an approximate AAU ?

Thanks

MNBugeater

I would not think that would be too big of a diffeence. I used something like an AAU of 9.2 in my wheat. 1.5 oz bittering and 0.5 oz for the last 10 minutes or so. The hops I used was Perle.

Yeah it won't make a huge difference but you can adjust the amounts if oyu are shooting for a certain IBU. Promash is awesome for this.

So correct me if im wrong but Im gathering that from your replies...

I COULD adjust the amount of the 6.8% hops used in order to get 4.2 AAU (roughly .6 oz) from the bittering, OR I could just use 1 oz of the 6.8 hops to get 6.8 AAU becuase the difference between 4.2 and 6.8 AAU isnt that noticable ??

MNBugeater said:

So correct me if im wrong but Im gathering that from your replies...

I COULD adjust the amount of the 6.8% hops used in order to get 4.2 AAU (roughly .6 oz) from the bittering, OR I could just use 1 oz of the 6.8 hops to get 6.8 AAU becuase the difference between 4.2 and 6.8 AAU isnt that noticable ??

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Just take your total IBU with the recipe and then adjust your hops to match. You can use the recipator or promash to accomplish this.

www. promash.com
www.recipator.com

This might help too....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2887

In answer to your other question: hop AA changes from year to year. Growers irrigate, but they can't control the temperature or the amount of sunlight. So, they test and label. This is one of the big reasons people don't recommend growing bittering hops at home. Aroma and flavors vary a lot less.

Most people can't taste a bitterness change of less than 10 IBU.

david_42 said:

Most people can't taste a bitterness change of less than 10 IBU.

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For real?

What's the most hop intensive brew you have heard of?

Orrelse - Yep! At the "Off Taste" seminar I went to at OSU, we had to put four ales in bitterness order. They were actually Coors Light with extra hop extract to 10, 20, 30 & 40 IBU. Just about everyone swapped a pair in the order. I have 20 & 30 reversed, which was the most common error.

I had a 140 IBU Double IPA at the Bistro's Double IPA fest in 2003, can't remember the name though. Russian River Pliny the Elder runs 100 IBU and Hop Rod Rye at Bear Republic is over 90.