Hops: AA% on flavor/aroma

I am not a fan of bitterness, but I really like the flavor and aroma of hops.

I'm making an APA next month and I'm going to keep the IBUs to 25 while boiling 4 oz of hops and dry-hopping 2 oz.

I'm wondering:

1) Boiled for the same amount of time, say 10 minutes, would a 7%AA impart more flavor/aroma then a 5%AA (all else being equal, even the variety of hop [assume different batches to account for different AA%])?

2) There are different ways to affect hop utilization (like boil size and boil SG). I know utilization affects how much bitterness can be extracted, but does it also affect flavor/aroma extraction?

What I'm looking for are the best ways, aside from dry-hopping, to maximize hop flavor/aroma, while minimizing bitterness.

an IBU of 25 will make it not an APA. minimum IBU is 30 for an APA.

1. %AA has no affect on flavor/Aroma only bitterness

the only way i know of to increase hop flavor/aroma is to boil it less.

I think the simplest way is to just minimize your Bitterring additions,45 minutes or longer. There are some high alpha hops that can bring great flavor and aroma. I like to do most of my additions in the last 20 minutes, and I'm liking First Wort Hopping. Your water profile is also going to have a big impact on Utilization.

TipsyDragon said:

an IBU of 25 will make it not an APA. minimum IBU is 30 for an APA.

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I know it is out-of-style; I'm purposely keeping the IBUs lower than accepted by the BJCP. There is no official style that has high hop flavor/aroma, but low IBUs, so I'm tweaking it to my liking. I'd call it an Oregon Pale Ale, but man do people like their bitter beers around here.

im not saying there is anything wrong with it. i to don't like bitter beer either. i do like the idea of calling it an OPA. you could try getting the same IBU but with only late hop additions.... but be warned you will need a crap load of hops and that can get expensive.

Do a google search on a method called hopbursting. People have done a lot of late hop additions to smooth out the bitterness of a beer while keeping the aroma and flavor up there.

And the aroma and flavor come from hop oils. The percentage of acid within those oils make little difference in anything but bitterness.

TipsyDragon said:

im not saying there is anything wrong with it. i to don't like bitter beer either. i do like the idea of calling it an OPA. you could try getting the same IBU but with only late hop additions.... but be warned you will need a crap load of hops and that can get expensive.

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I'm about to leave work now so don't have Beersmith in front of me, but IIRC I'm doing 60 minutes of 1 oz Willamette (4.5%), then the remaining 1 oz of Willamette and 2 oz of Cascade (7.0%) in equal additions at 20, 15, 10, 5 minutes. Then dry-hopping another 2 oz of Cascade. (3 gallon boil)

I read somewhere that boiling hops for 60 minutes helps facilitate the hot break, so I wanted a small amount at 60, with the majority late-added.

I'd like to call it an OPA because it will have Cascade (Mountain Range, to the east) hops, Willamette (Valley, which Corvallis is in the heart of, and River) hops, and Pacific (Ocean/coast, to the west) yeast.

carnevoodoo said:

Do a google search on a method called hopbursting. People have done a lot of late hop additions to smooth out the bitterness of a beer while keeping the aroma and flavor up there.

And the aroma and flavor come from hop oils. The percentage of acid within those oils make little difference in anything but bitterness.

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I'll look into hop bursting when I get home. Thanks.

So if alpha acids have no bearing on the aroma/flavor oils. Is there any way to quantify aroma/flavor potential? Does it vary from variety to variety, or is it basically a function of mass? I know each variety has its own aroma and flavor, but can its intensity be predicted (other than through trial)?

First wort hopping tones down the bitterness of the bittering addition while increasing the flavor and aroma slightly. Using a hop-back is another way to increase aroma and flavor without adding much bitterness. Hop bursting is also a great method, but as mentioned, all of these methods require significantly more hops, which can get expensive quickly.

As far as which varieties provide more aroma and flavor, my understanding was that much of the bitterness comes from alpha acids, while much of the flavor and aroma comes from beta acids. I'm not sure how true this is though, because I've gotten lots of flavor and aroma dry hopping with supposedly lower beta acid varieties like Chinook. I think you'll just have to use trial and error.

1. Hop boil time does not make any difference in the hot break.
2. AA% has nothing to do with the amount of hop oils.
3. Shorter boil times mean lower utilization.
4. Shorter boil times more more flavor/aroma oils are retained.

If you take any APA recipe and boil the bittering hops for 30 minutes, you'll reduce the IBUs by about 1/3.