Did not add enough bittering hops

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Chenzo

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We just brewed a Belgian Strong Dark ale recipe. It calls for Magnum hops with 15.4% Apha Acid @ 1/2 an ounce, or 7.7 AAUs... Our beer store was out of Magnum hops, so we bought Golding instead at 5% AA, and even wrote a note on the recipe to use 3 times as much to get up to 7.7 AAUs. You can see where this is going...

By the time we actually brewed, we forgot to regard our note, and added the original quantity of hops, forgetting that those hops had much lower alpha acids... thus we only added 2.5 AAUs instead of 7.7... Our beer is going to be way less bitter than the recipe called for.

I'm worried this won't be bitter enough, especially in such a strong beer like this one. I'm contemplating boiling the extra ounce of hops in a cup or two of water, then straining the hops and adding the bitter water to the carboy. Has anyone tried anything like this, or does anyone see any potential problems with this?

Any suggestions would be very helpful :)
 
If that's the worst mistake you made then I think you are doing pretty good. I'm guessing it's going to be not nearly bitter enough. However that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I did something similar to a pale ale I made, well I threw in most of the hops with like 2 minutes to go instead of at several times throughout the boil. I was sure it was ruined. Of course it wasn't, and it turned out pretty damned good.

While I suggest simply leaving it and hoping for the best, you could always dry hop in the secondary to add a burst of hop flavor. Perhaps rack to secondary after fermentation is finished and while transferring it snag a sample. While this probably doesn't taste anywhere near as good as the finished product, it should give you an idea of the overall bitterness.

One note is that the pale ale I messed up on had NO hop aroma until about 2.5 weeks after bottling at which point it magically became one of the best beers I have made thus far. Again I'd probably just let it do its thing, at least you know you have good beer right now, adding anything else may ruin your hard work! It's gonna be fine!
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm definitely going to try to add more hops; I'm not sure I want a non-bitter Belgian. I'm a hop head as is. The "hot French Randall" method described in rocketman's post definitely looks interesting. The problem is the HFR method adds hop aroma more than bitterness, and is added after fermentation is complete (as a substitution for dry-hopping or for aroma hop addition to the end of the boil). I want to add bitterness more than aroma, and I want to do it immediately, one day after it went to the carboy... Basically to replicate the bitterness that the beer should have gotten with hops at the start of the boil.

So after reading through the HFR post that rocketman linked, I think this is what I'm going to try: Boil the extra ounce of hops in 1 quart of water for an hour (possibly with a bit of malt or belgian candi sugar to not dilute the wort). Cool to 80 F, add it to the carboy. This hop tea should be much more bitter than HFR method. Again, this is one day after the wort went into the carboy, so it's still fermenting pretty rapidly.

Wish me luck, I'll post results in a few months when the beer is done...
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm definitely going to try to add more hops; I'm not sure I want a non-bitter Belgian. I'm a hop head as is. The "hot French Randall" method described in rocketman's post definitely looks interesting. The problem is the HFR method adds hop aroma more than bitterness, and is added after fermentation is complete (as a substitution for dry-hopping or for aroma hop addition to the end of the boil). I want to add bitterness more than aroma, and I want to do it immediately, one day after it went to the carboy... Basically to replicate the bitterness that the beer should have gotten with hops at the start of the boil.

So after reading through the HFR post that rocketman linked, I think this is what I'm going to try: Boil the extra ounce of hops in 1 quart of water for an hour (possibly with a bit of malt or belgian candi sugar to not dilute the wort). Cool to 80 F, add it to the carboy. This hop tea should be much more bitter than HFR method. Again, this is one day after the wort went into the carboy, so it's still fermenting pretty rapidly.

Wish me luck, I'll post results in a few months when the beer is done...

That's what I would do. I'd boil the correct amount of AAUs in a small amount of water (you can add a little extract if you want, but no higher than 1.040 for a gravity) minus the amount you've already added. Then, gently add that to the wort.

As you mentioned, the other techniques add flavor and aroma, which isn't what you want right now. You need the bitterness to balance out that beer and keep it from being cloyingly sweet.
 
+ 1 on adding some DME when you do the hop tea - I have some recollection that some wort is necessary for a chemical reaction with the hops, but i have no recollection of the specifics. Just that you want to use some DME, not just plain water.

Good luck,

Jim
 
You could try this.
hopshot.jpg


Never used it myself, but it would probably work well for your situation if you could get your hands on some.
 
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