Hop Balance

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

IPAFAN1

Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2013
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
Location
Cleveland/Elyria
Just bottled the Octane, and can't stand to see an empty carboy, so here goes. Pulled a recipe from Beersmith, extract with steeping grains, for an 5 gal IIPA called Hellbender. Then went to Northern for all the ingredients. A couple of substitutions, such as Candi Syrup instead of corn syrup, and a slight variation on the Caramel, but my real interest is in the hop schedule. Since they're out of Amarillo, I grabbed some high-alpha Warrior, Mosaic and Simcoe, in addition to the Cascade.
Seems logical to me to use the Warrior at 60 for the bitter, then move through the Cascade, Mosaic and half the Simcoe on a continuous schedule. I've been pretty eager to try a late addition Simcoe, so I definately want to reserve half of it for the last 5 min.
So anyway, enough rambling. The question of this post is, are there more specific, but general hop addition practices based on the different characteristics of various hops, other than the typical "bitter early, aroma late" practice. Or would anyone change what I have planned?
 
Did some research and came up with a Hop schedule. This'll be a good opportunity to try a FWH.
So, the plan is:
1. Steep specialty grains
2. Build wort with extracts - 6# Light DME & 2# Wheat DME
3. FWH (Hold temp at 150-160 and steep Hops 30 min. - 3/4 oz Cascade, 1/2 oz Simcoe)
4. Begin boil
60 - 1 oz Warrior
45 - 3/4 oz Cascade
30 - 1/2 oz Mosaic
20 - 1/2 oz Mosaic
10 - 1/2 oz Cascade
8 - 1# Candi Sugar
5 - 1/2 oz Simcoe
Flameout - 1# Honey
I'll probably make my first attempt at an actual yeast starter instead of just re-hydrating because of the extra sugars.

Sound good?
 
Ouch. I just ran this through Beersmith, and I need to triple the amount of hops just to get it into the low end of the IBUs on a IIPA profile. this is going to be one expensive batch!
 
I'd probably move some of the hops to later in the boil- the 45 minute cascade, and 30 minute mosaic. But, yes, I'd say the late hops need to be increased to 1 oz at 20/15/10/5/0. And maybe more than one ounce at 0 minutes. A big IIPA needs lots of late hops to balance the bittering and the malt.

I don't think you need so many hops at FWH and 60 minutes, though. It depends on the AAU of the warrior, but I typically only need about .5 oz of warrior at 60 minutes to get 40 IBUs or so just from that addition.
 
Thank You. I appreciate the feedback greatly. Yeah, the more I read, I was indeed planning to move more of the hops to later in the boil. I just bought some more, so we should have 15 oz total in this batch. Plenty available to consider using a couple for dry hopping. I'll have to rework some of these numbers again. Beersmith2 might have some different AAU ratings than the actual packages I have, but based on the list I had here, it only came out to a 25 IBU and the IIPA's should be 60-120. I'll triple everything up, check the numbers, recalculate, and see how it goes.

But you mentioned less hops at FWH and 60? From what I've read, it's been suggested using 30% of your total hop volume in the FWH. I only had 25% there on this first draught (sic) and actually was considering increasing that. Hmmm... By the way, the Warriors I just got are Hopunion, and are 15% Alpha.
 
Thank You. I appreciate the feedback greatly. Yeah, the more I read, I was indeed planning to move more of the hops to later in the boil. I just bought some more, so we should have 15 oz total in this batch. Plenty available to consider using a couple for dry hopping. I'll have to rework some of these numbers again. Beersmith2 might have some different AAU ratings than the actual packages I have, but based on the list I had here, it only came out to a 25 IBU and the IIPA's should be 60-120. I'll triple everything up, check the numbers, recalculate, and see how it goes.

But you mentioned less hops at FWH and 60? From what I've read, it's been suggested using 30% of your total hop volume in the FWH. I only had 25% there on this first draught (sic) and actually was considering increasing that. Hmmm... By the way, the Warriors I just got are Hopunion, and are 15% Alpha.

Well, I don't know who suggested 30% of the total hop volume in FWH, but remember that it contributes to bitterness. It's a "smoother" bitterness, for sure, but that beer as written looks BITTER, and not 25 IBUs at all. 1 ounce or so of FWH plus an ounce of warrior for bittering will make a very bitter beer.
 
I'd double-check what you have entered in Beersmith for your hops first - namely, the AA%, use and boil/steep time. For my last IIPA my first addition was 3/4 ounce of Simcoe (13.5) and that added 25 IBU. Also, are you doing partial or full boil? That's another impact to utilization.
 
Still doing a partial boil until I get a bigger pot and a wort chiller, but I'm definately gonna increase the boil size on this batch for that very reason. (Better hop utilization) Usually only boil about 1.5-2 gal and top off, but this is my most serious batch yet, so I'm gonna try to get at least a 3 gal boil going. Maybe it's time to look for that new bigger pot.

Yeah, I've gotta review the data in Beersmith and make sure there's no major discrepancies. I'm still suspicious though. I've done regular IPAs with 4 -5 oz of hops before, and they seemed fine. Not over-the-top hop-wise. It just seems logical that a big IIPA like I'm shooting for would use a lot more.

I'll have 15 oz on hand to play with. Depending on how the Beersmith data review goes, maybe they all won't get used on this one. Want to get into a minimum of 85 - 95 on the IBU. My favorite beers have been in the 80-90 range. Since a chunk of the hops will be FWH, it should be less harsh, so I'm willing to push it past 100 if possible. Save some for dry.
 
Oh, I see why the discrepancies in the IBU calculation now.

This is sort of a simplification, but hops utilization decreases greatly in a small boil. Not because the SG affects utilization (Palmer has come out and said he "got it wrong" in How to Brew), but because of the dilution when adding water.

There is a set amount of hops oils that can isomerize in wort- generally though to be 100 IBUs or so as the maximum.

If you're boiling 2 gallons, even if you were able to get the maximum amount of IBUs of 100 in the wort, by diluting it by over 50%, you're cutting the IBUs in more than have.

For example, if you have 2.5 gallons of 90 IBU wort, when you add 2.5 gallons of water (0 IBUs), right there you end up with 45 IBUs at the most in the fnished beer.

Adding more hops at 60 minutes won't help much- if the IBUs are already maxed. That's why it's really hard to make a great IPA or other high IBU beer with a partial boil.

I'd suggest boiling as much as you possibly can, and adding the majority of the extract at flame out (so you have more room in the pot for more liquid, plus don't get "cooked extract taste"), and that should maximize the IBUs you can get.

With a 3 gallon boil, that should end up with a 2 gallon wort, there would be no way to get more than about 40-45 IBUs in the beer unless you use something like hops extract.
 
Yeah, get a bigger kettle! I still stove-top brew, but typically boil about 5.5-5.75 gals down to 4.25-4.75 or so on my electric stove and top off with .5 to 1 gal. I have made great IIPA's in the 70-88 IBU range this way.
 
Perfect. Picked up a 5.5 gal (22 qt) pot, and now I'll be able to boil 4+ gallons. Then I changed my "Equipment" in Beersmith, and Boom, what a difference in the Hop utilization. The IBU went off the chart, so I cut back the hops to just around 4-5 oz in the boil and I'm looking at a 97.5 on the IBU. Still going to do a FWH and a dry hop as well.

BTW, I have to correct myself. Was re-reading Palmer yesterday regarding FWH, and I believe what he meant is the 30% rule was of only the "finishing/aroma" hops planned, not the total hop bill.
 
Brew day went great! Only drawback was the massive amount of trub, and I got impatient with the little screen in the funnel, so just went for it and threw almost everything into the fermenter. (I figured out a great idea to stop that from happening again though.)
Bottled yesterday. And boy, I am as happy as a Clam at High Water!
All of these extract batches I've done so far have stalled out around 1.018 - 1.022. Too sweet for my taste. No more pitching dry yeast into the wort for me! I re-hydrated for the first time on this batch, and BOOM, 36 hours later I needed a blow-off instead of the airlock.
I was worried at first because the visible activity stopped after only 3 days, but just figured, RDWHAHB, and let it sit, swirled it a couple of times...
And here ya go...
22 days in Primary, then bottled.
OG - 1.082
FG - 1.014
ABV - 8.9% ?
Exactly what I was hoping for. Dried out, not sweet !!! Yay!!!
I can post the exact recipe I used that day if anyone is interested. Some of the timing and quantities changed throughout the day compared to my original target plan listed earlier. I have detailed notes on file.
I have even higher expectations about the Christmas Ale getting bottled soon. I used the same method of re-hydrating the Safeale US-05 on this batch, which was a week later, but it didn't blow off. Probably since the OG was only 1.062.
But what I'm really excited about is, that I saw the airlock was steadily active for 5 full days. That puppy cooked fer a while. And it's a beautiful color, and almost clear now.
Christmas in July Gang!
On deck, a clone of GLBC's Nosferatu Imperial red ale.
After that... Something Hoppy I guess...
Did anyone notice the Lake Erie Monster being a little sweet this year?
I was a little disappointed that it didn't dry out as much as the Alchemy Hour did. Oh well. It still had an ABV up there around 9, which will reach out and grab ya if you ain't careful.
Have a great week Y'all.
 
Here's how it went...
4.5 gal Boil
155 deg Steep: 16 oz Caramel 60L, 8 oz Carapils - 30 min.
Added 1# Golden Light DME to prep for FWH
FWH @155 deg 1 oz Simcoe, 1 oz Cascade - 30 min.
60 minute boil:
60 - 1 oz Warrior
45 - 3/4 oz Mosaic
40 - 2# Golden Light DME
20 - 2# Bavarian Wheat DME
15 - 3# Golden Light DME
10 - 1 oz Cascade
9 - 1# Blonde Candi Syrup
4 - 1/4 oz mosaic
3 - 1 oz Simcoe
Flameout - 1# Honey (Light Amber)
Cooled to 72 deg.
Re-Hydrated 11.5G Packet Safale US-05, & pitched.
Violent fermentation clogged airlock in 36 hours. (Will use a blowoff on the next high gravity batch.)
After krausen dropped back on 4th day, dry-hopped 1 oz Cascade.
Bottled after 22 days in Primary.
OG was 1.082
FG was 1.014
I'm very pleased.
 
Back
Top