full boil hops

I recently got a new brew kettle that can handle a full 5 gallon boil, to my surprise the same recipes I used before now are coming out extremely bitter. What is the deal with this? I am assuming that I need to use less hops do to the fact that I am boiling them with the whole amount of water, but how much less should I use? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

neiltl3 said:

I recently got a new brew kettle that can handle a full 5 gallon boil, to my surprise the same recipes I used before now are coming out extremely bitter. What is the deal with this? I am assuming that I need to use less hops do to the fact that I am boiling them with the whole amount of water, but how much less should I use? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

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As a guestimate, you can use approximately 25% less bittering hops. I find that using brewing software (I use Beersmith) can really help with getting more accurate results. There are some free brewing tools and calculators on the internet, if you just want to look at calculating some IBUs out.

+1 for using a software tool to tweak recipes.

I use beer calculus. It's free and easy to understand. It doesn't have all the mash calculations some tools have, but for quick questions about ingredients, such as' "How is going to a full biol going to affect my hop utilization?", it's great.

thanks this info will help me out greatly.

There can be a large difference in hop utilization from partial to full boils, the latter usually providing better utilization, as you've noticed.

Did you change anything else? Using a hop sack vs. not using one now? Adding any minerals like gypsum to your water, or using different water?

It's probably the boil changes though, which isn't uncommon. I'd just try to rule out anything else you may have changed. Sometimes 2 small changes can magnify each other.