Late hopping with high Alpha hops

So I've always heard that you shouldn't use high alpha hops for late kettle additions - My question is why not?

Is it just a matter of wasting the more expensive hops or will the higher alpha give you some off flavors??

A friend of mine and I split a pound at Galena and I was wondering why not use it for flavor and aroma in a pale ale and see what happens - Heck why not dry hop with it?

The alpha is not really the problem. It will not be utilized. I believe the culprit is cohumulone, which is highly soluble. Higher alpha hops tend to have higher cohumulone (you can look up galena). It is a bit more complicated than that, but I believe most aroma hops have low co-humulone content; which is why they are used late.

Late and dry hopping with high alpha varieties (simcoe, columbus, amarillo, centennial, citra, sorachi, chinook etc) is very common in the US.

Galena is not commonly used for late hopping though. Not sure why, I never use it and have only had beers bittered with it.

Cohumulone

Traditionally, cohumulone (R=isobutyryl) has been considered to add a harsh, unpleasant bitterness to beer, and so low-cohumulone varieties were considered more desirable for brewing purposes; most noble hops have relatively low cohumulone. For this reason, cohumulone is often the only alpha acid identified specifically by hop producers. Cohumulone is indicated as a percentage (by weight) of the total alpha acid content of a hop.

However, recently the role of cohumulone has been called into question, as new high-alpha hop varieties that are also high in cohumulone have come onto the market which are considered to impart a good bitterness.

Click to expand...

Got this off beer wiki

This deserves some more investigation

I had some Firestone-Walker Pale Ale in the Lower 48 a couple years ago and have been chasing it since.

Generally I get pretty close with mixed german noble hops early and Chinook late. It's pretty much my house ale, though I am playing with home toasted 2 row so my grains are up in the air.


I have two posts in Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale thread in the recipe section. One of them has the F-W Pale hop clone in it, I linked them back and forth to each other.


Here it is, first time ( of two total) I wrote "best beer yet" in my logbook.

2# Vienna (3L)
1/2# crystal 10
150°F for 60 minutes, 6.8#LME late

Notti Yellow probably, I wasn't using liquid yeast yet I think.

(60) 4.25 HBU Saaz
(60) 3.0 HBU Hallertauer
(30) 6.4 HBU Hallertauer
(15) 3.8 HBU Chinook
(2) 3.3 HBU Chinook

Should be post #120 in EdWort's thread.

pkeeler said:

The alpha is not really the problem. It will not be utilized. I believe the culprit is cohumulone, which is highly soluble. Higher alpha hops tend to have higher cohumulone (you can look up galena). It is a bit more complicated than that, but I believe most aroma hops have low co-humulone content; which is why they are used late.

Click to expand...

This is incorrect. Cohumulone comes into effect for *bittering*. Cohumulone IS one of the constituents that make up Alpha Acid, and the percentage you see listed is the percentage of the Alpha Acid that is Cohumulone.

Aroma hops are classified as such because of their oil profiles, not because of the resins that are responsible for bittering(though they usually have low cohumulone). Classic "noble" hops have certain ratios of oils that are considered by many to be more desirable. But, American hops typically don't fall into this noble category but are still pretty great for aroma (they usually have much higher myrcene levels-see Amarillo).

The fact is, you can use ANY hop that you personally like the aroma of for late hopping. A TON of hops these days are considered dual purpose, depending on the person. Some folks hate Chinook, for instance, but for me it's a great dual purpose hop. So are Simcoe, Columbus, Centennial, Northdown, First Gold and a ton of other hops. Some hops are thought to have better bittering attributes but not so great of an aroma for late additions, Target being a good example(though, of course, this is all debatable). I can't comment on Galena specifically as I haven't used it, but from what I read it's better used as a bittering hop. I think Nugget also is typically thought of more as a bittering hop.

Using high AA hops for late hopping is tricky because utilization curves start out rather steeply. You get about half the IBUs in the first 15 minutes compared to a 60 minute boil.

Thanks for all the great info on this guys

Its given me a ton to think about

I think the great thing about being a home brewer is that I can try it and if it turns out badly its not that much of a big deal

I think I might split a 10 gallon batch of Pale ale, Dry hop half with a traditional hop and then dry hop the other half with the galena to see what happens

That sounds like fun doesn't it?

I used a high AA Simcoe for late wort hopping in my last couple of beers because I happen to have a few pounds of it at the moment. Both beers turned out very nice - hoppy without any harsh bitterness notes.