Hops Schedule

I just did a AG batch (Brown Beer Experiment "Citrus HefeWeizen") and it dawned on me that I may have boiled the batch for 15 min longer than I needed to. I am not a hop head so I always tweak my recipes.
This time I decreased the amount of time to 45 min that I boiled the Hops so not as much AA came through the boil.
So the question is this. If I were to decrease my water volume appropriately would I be able to decrease my boil time?
Am I missing something here?
I used Hallertauer (4.80%) hops, so I guess I could have changed the hops to something different and kept the boil time at 60 if needed.
Your thoughts?
Thanks
Preston

Well, for one thing when you increase your gravity you decrease hops utilization anyway. Adjusting your boil time with an AG batch is probably not what you want to do, or is really feasible because you need a certain amount of sparge water to begin with. Just simply reduce the amount of hops.

You're 1/2 right. If you just look at bittering, then you can decrease your boil by having all additions less than 60 mins. However, bitterness is not the only quality you get from a hop addition, depending on when you add it. Long additions will give you mostly bitterness, but little flavor or aroma. Short additions give less bitterness but more flavor/aroma.

Adding all of you hop additions at less than 30 mins may yield a hoppier tasting/smelling beer with less bitterness but that may not be what you're looking for. So when you say you're not a hop head, do you mean you don't like bitter beers, or you don't like hoppy tasting/smelling beer?

And as I think of this a bit more, that is really what you want to do in this case. Back off the bittering hops and you can probably leave the other additions "as is". You'll want to invest in a sub gram (or gram if you can't find the other) resolution scale.

Lil' Sparky said:

If you just look at bittering, then you can decrease your boil by having all additions less than 60 mins.

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I don't 100% agree. He would have to rerun his calculations because the higher gravity of the wort is going to have an impact on his utilization.

zoebisch01 said:

I don't 100% agree. He would have to rerun his calculations because the higher gravity of the wort is going to have an impact on his utilization.

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Agreed, but what I said IS true. Moving your hops from 60 mins to 45 or 30 mins WILL decrease your bitterness, only even more so if you start with a higher gravity wort.

Here's how I think of hop additions. I try to shoot for not only a bitterness range, but also how much hop flavor/aroma I want for the style. Some styles don't require much/any, for example hefeweizens. So you target the majority of your bitterness at the 60 min additions and try to pull out the flavor and aroma with the late additions. I usually only use a 30 min addition if I'm shooting for a beer with a lot of hop character.

Lil' Sparky said:

Adding all of you hop additions at less than 30 mins may yield a hoppier tasting/smelling beer with less bitterness but that may not be what you're looking for. So when you say you're not a hop head, do you mean you don't like bitter beers, or you don't like hoppy tasting/smelling beer?

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I like the Smell and to some degree I like some taste, but I don't like very bitter beer. When I make a beer I usually only change the first hops addition -25% no mater what kind of beer it is. Everything else I leave the same for the Smell and taste. This also means that I have small portions of hops in the fridge that I will probably be repackaged with the similar hops together into larger packages.

Thanks guys!

Preston

zoebisch01 said:

And as I think of this a bit more, that is really what you want to do in this case. Back off the bittering hops and you can probably leave the other additions "as is". You'll want to invest in a sub gram (or gram if you can't find the other) resolution scale.

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Funny you should mention that. I just purchased a .1 to 500 g scale from ebay. I could not believe the cost ($5.00) so I bought it. Here is the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...em=160207754670&_trksid=p3984.cTODAY.m238.lVI

Thanks
Preston

The only universal downsides I see with reformulating a recipe for a 45 minute boil are sacrificing efficiency (from lower sparge volumes) and hop utility. If you tend to brew lower OG beers, Adding a little more malt probably is not that big of a deal. Since you already use less than the typical amount of hops for a style, it also probably is not a big deal to add a little more.

If you are dealing with malts known for DMS, you may want to stick with the longer boil to minimize that problem. When you add the hops, though, is up to you.

Why not give it a try?

I do suggest using brewing software to work out those recipes, if you don't already.


TL

TexLaw said:

The only universal downsides I see with reformulating a recipe for a 45 minute boil are sacrificing efficiency (from lower sparge volumes) and hop utility. If you tend to brew lower OG beers, Adding a little more malt probably is not that big of a deal. Since you already use less than the typical amount of hops for a style, it also probably is not a big deal to add a little more.

If you are dealing with malts known for DMS, you may want to stick with the longer boil to minimize that problem. When you add the hops, though, is up to you.

Why not give it a try?

I do suggest using brewing software to work out those recipes, if you don't already.
TL

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It was just a passing thought, which led me to the post. I probably will keep brewing beer with the 60 min boil and just reduce the Hops. I don't want to sacrifice efficiency for 15 of free time!
As far as the typical amount of hops for the style I usually try to say at the bottom end of the scale, and I use BeerSmith software to keep that in check. So if a particular style has a range of 15-30 IBU, I try to stay on the botom end near 15. It has worked so far.
Thanks
Preston