Why not high alpha hops for bittering all the time?

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.

cee3

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
75
Reaction score
0
Location
Brighton, MI
Is there a good reason not to use high alpha hops for bittering? If you're boiling them for 60 min they don't contribute to the flavor anyway. With the price of hops so high these days I figure that would a way to save a few bucks.
 
That's what I do now. I use Galena as it's the highest alpha acid hop I can get and it's got a nice neutral flavour. The only exception is when I'm first wort hopping, then I'll use the hop I feel is appropriate for the recipe.
 
That's what I do now. I use Galena as it's the highest alpha acid hop I can get and it's got a nice neutral flavour. The only exception is when I'm first wort hopping, then I'll use the hop I feel is appropriate for the recipe.

+1 on Galena.

There was a great piece on "surviving the hops shortage" on the Barley Legal Blog that recommended High Alpha bittering, and some other cool tips and tricks. http://barleylegal.ca/Articles/HowToSurviveTheHopShortage

It's a good read.
 
The only reason I can see not to do it is if you are making a low IBU beer. Just throwing some numbers out there. If your looking for about 10 IBUs if you use .25oz of a 12% AA hop if your scale is off a little or your using whole hops and theres more leafy matter in there then you could be off your mark. On the other hand if you use 1oz of a 3% AA hop a small difference isn't going to change much.
 
That depends on how you want to look at it.

The commercial market trends is doing this, thus more high alpha varieties are favored and more acreage is devoted to high alpha hops. Hence, the lower Alpha varieties are more scarce and command a higher price per ounce. Economically, it makes all the sense in the world. More bang for less material.

But.........

IMO, it all depends on the bittering you are looking for (and your water). Meaning, sometimes high alpha hops can contribute a harsh, sometimes unpalateable bittering. And, if your water is high in Sulfate (and you don't amend) that harshness can be exxagerated. For example, IMO, Chinook is a great hop but, in high sulfate waters it's a horrible bitter ( cue milwaukee's best bitter beer face).
 
Bokonon has it right, ditto GMB. Some beers require low IBU and low cohumulone levels, hard to achieve with the high AA hops.
 
The only reason I can see not to do it is if you are making a low IBU beer. Just throwing some numbers out there. If your looking for about 10 IBUs if you use .25oz of a 12% AA hop if your scale is off a little or your using whole hops and theres more leafy matter in there then you could be off your mark. On the other hand if you use 1oz of a 3% AA hop a small difference isn't going to change much.

I agree it depends on your target IBU and if you want to add hops for flavor and aroma. (Late Additions)

I made a Summit Pale Ale with Summit Hop at about 32 IBU's hopped from 60 to 0 and dry hopped.

Some are good for bittering, flavoring and aroma. Other are not as good this one.

My Summits were 16.5% AA!!!! :rockin:

The tangerine-citrus taste is awesome.

See this recipe. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=72206
 
I have been using Magnum for bittering on my last 5 brews, one of which was a blueberry wheat. I have a decent scale so I just adjust the amount of hops needed to meet my IBU target. I have been very happy with the Magnum bittering. I haven't noticed any unusual flavors that I can attribute to the bittering hops.

I just took a pull off my West Coast Amber Ale last night and it has a good clean bitterness and awesome flavor (especially for being green). I used Magnum for the 60 min addition and Amarillo for all the rest.
 
Yeah pretty much what has been said. The only case being you have to be careful with low IBU beers, but I have had fairly good success. We are talking only adding say 5 or 7 grams of a high Alpha hop at 60 minutes, so it becomes more crucial for your measurement to be accurate.

That all being said, I still use German Hallertau for things like Hefe's and such. Or in the case of Lagers, I think you need to be more careful as well because they tend to have less masking going on.
 
bokonon is right on. It's all about the level of error or control precision you need out of the hops.
 
I made the mistake of throwing in a lot of Bravo 13.5% just to get my IBU's up there really quick and so I wouldnt have to use a lot of them, then added my aroma hops at the end. Although this made a good beer, it was pretty bitter when it was young. The longer I let it sit though, the better it gets.
 
Very generally, there's nothing wrong with minimizing the bittering hop quantity by using high AA hops. However, the long answer may be fairly complex.

Consider the same question in the context of malt: "why not chocolate malt for color and roasted flavor all the time?" While it's certainly possible to achieve a wide variety of color and flavor solely with 2-row and chocolate malt, you'd be missing out on a lot of flavor, color, and body components available through other grains.

To a lesser degree, the same is true with (bittering) hops. The most obvious example that comes to mind is to compare two hypothetical IPA recipes that are identical in volume, grain bill, mash schedule, boil length, and IBUs. One recipe would use a single high AA bittering addition at 60 minutes followed by a hefty dose of flavoring hops at flameout. The other recipe holds off on the hops until the final 20 minutes of the boil, loading them into the kettle in fairly large quantities in an almost constant stream from 20 minutes until flameout to achieve both flavor and bittering components. Beer #1 (with the high AA addition) will likely have a more assertive bitterness with a lot of grassy flavors, while Beer #2 will have a smoother bitter character and a ton of hop flavor complexity. While this is an extreme example, it should be fairly clear that the high AA bittering technique, while excellent in times of hop crisis, is not necessarily the panacea of hop bittering techniques.
 
Bokonon is right, but so is...

IMO, it all depends on the bittering you are looking for (and your water). Meaning, sometimes high alpha hops can contribute a harsh, sometimes unpalateable bittering. And, if your water is high in Sulfate (and you don't amend) that harshness can be exaggerated. For example, IMO, Chinook is a great hop but, in high sulfate waters it's a horrible bitter.

True, true, and true again. The same recipe, made with the exact same ingredients, can be way out of whack if the water isn't right for high-alpha hops. Magnum and Target can do that easily.

( cue milwaukee's best bitter beer face).

bitterbeer.jpg


Cheers,

Bob
 
I have been doing this for the most part as well. The only time I would avoid doing this is when you are brewing a beer that only has a bittering addition. While most of the hop flavor gets boiled off after 60 minutes, some will remain, and without late additions, you will have a little hop flavor coming through from the bittering addition.

For example, on an oatmeal stout I made a couple months back I added almost 2.5oz of EKG at 60 minutes. Even though it was not strong, I could taste a distinct hop flavor in the finished beer which is not out of place and was quite nice. If I had used a high alpha, citrusy hop, any flavor contributions from that would have been out of place and detracted from the overall beer.
 
That's what I do now. I use Galena as it's the highest alpha acid hop I can get and it's got a nice neutral flavour. The only exception is when I'm first wort hopping, then I'll use the hop I feel is appropriate for the recipe.

+1 on Galena. I brewed a Belgian Pale Ale with Styrian Goldings that were 2.9% AA, so I tossed in 1/3 ounce of Galena @60 to get the IBUs up where I wanted 'em. Absolutely, positively can't tell the difference in the beer. Next time I'm at Austin Homebrew I will have to remember to pick up some more for adjusting alpha acids in future batches. A single ounce lasted me for three batches.

- Eric
 
Back
Top