Does the perception of Hops diminish with add sugar?

OK - let me explain.

I have an Amber that is pretty darn good - however I was surprised the bittering hops was not more evident.

So I'm wondering why?

My mini mash got hot which I feel added unfermental sugars - my question is - would those extra sugars mask the bittering hops?

I want to tweak but I don't want to add more hops and find out it was the extra sugars

Sounds like the sugar. Hops and spruce tips and stuff were used to balance out the sweetness of the malt. Too much malty sweetness or dextrin could certainly overpower bittering hops. What was your recipe?

DOOOOODDDDD
Did you start with a Partial mash recipe? or convert? Cause the gravity of your wort will effect bittering usage to EXTREME amounts. If you have a recipe written for a 3 gallon boil...and you do a 5, and don't adjust your hops....I'll send you a bottle of the bitter concentrate you'll make!
Thin wort extracts bittering compounds MUCH more effectively than "Thick" Wort.

BigKahuna said:

Thin wort extracts bittering compounds MUCH more effectively than "Thick" Wort.

Click to expand...

It's curious that so many HBTers don't keep up with brewing news. John Palmer debunked the gravity / hop efficiency myth on Basic Brewing quite a while ago when he reported on the 2007 International Brewers' Symposium on Hop Flavor and Chemistry.

no no - the only thing was the FG was high from the mash hitting the low 160s (before I fixed that problem). FG was 1.014 instead of 1.012.

The brew tastes pretty darn good and I'm happy with it (Fat Tire Clone) . . . until a friends tried it and commented it was a little malty. It does have a little residual sugar in it which might over power the hops just a tiny.

Thin wort extracts bittering compounds MUCH more effectively than "Thick" Wort.

Click to expand...

Really!! hmmmmm I don't think that was the problem but I'll keep that in mind.

BigKahuna said:

Thin wort extracts bittering compounds MUCH more effectively than "Thick" Wort.

Click to expand...

To me this is a great reason for late extract additions. My partial boils start with about half the fermentables - usually the wort and sparge from the mini-mash, and maybe a cup or so of the extract. The rest of my extract goes in with 5-10 minutes left in the boil.

Bitter and sweet sort of cancel one another out. That's the why for achieving balance in a beer. There are lots of reasons why it doesn't come out with the level of bittering you intended.

As for the utilization, the equations for utilization are indeed gravity dependent. Is there a new set of equations out there?

jkarp said:

It's curious that so many HBTers don't keep up with brewing news. John Palmer debunked the gravity / hop efficiency myth on Basic Brewing quite a while ago when he reported on the 2007 International Brewers' Symposium on Hop Flavor and Chemistry.

Click to expand...

Dont' know nutten about that, what I do know, is when I switched to full boil extract before going AG, I ruined 2 beers by signifigantly over bittering. BeerSmith has actually recomended as much as a 2 fold increase in hops when converting an AG recipe to a 2 gallon extract. I guess all of that mean I'm convinced that hops are better utalized in a thin wort than a thick.

I'm not arguing with Mr. Palmer, I'm just reporting my first hand experiences.

Palmer did point out that hot break material will pull iso-AA out of suspension. While high gravity doesn't always equate to significant hot break (extract brewers, for example), it could explain your experience.

BigKahuna said:

DOOOOODDDDD
Did you start with a Partial mash recipe? or convert? Cause the gravity of your wort will effect bittering usage to EXTREME amounts. If you have a recipe written for a 3 gallon boil...and you do a 5, and don't adjust your hops....I'll send you a bottle of the bitter concentrate you'll make!
Thin wort extracts bittering compounds MUCH more effectively than "Thick" Wort.

Click to expand...

+1 :fro: