Hop utilization vs late Extract addition

Okay so I read the 16 or so page thread about late LME addition. I never did find a definate answer of an exact process. So with the help of the Tastybrew.com calculator I came up with the following Brew Plan. Please note for brevity I'm not including alot of other info.

Brew - Midwest Fat Tire Clone
Ingredients:
6lb gold LME
1.5lb steeping grains
1 oz Northern Brewer Pellet Hops - 6.0 AAU
1 oz Saaz Pellet Hops - 2.3 AAU
Target IBU - 26

Original process: recipe calls for 60 min boil of 1 oz Northern Brewer hops and 2 min boil of Saaz hops, with all 6lbs LME in pot with 2 gal. water, producing 26 IBUs. I used the tastybrew calculator and came up with the following.

Alternative process: 20 min boil of 1 oz Northern Brewer Hops and 2 Min boil of Saaz hops with 2lbs LME in pot with 2.375 gal. water, producing 26 IBUs. I would remove hops from wort, add remaining LME, let sit for 10 mins to pasturize, and proceed with cooing etc.

Could someone with Beersmith etc. run these #'s and make sure I'm accurate? I'm not to proud to beg either... so PLEASE!

All I ever brew are late additions.

I'm not discounting your findings of the alternate process you quoted, but with only a 20 min boil I doubt that you'd really have that much bittering AAs extracted from the hops. That's bordering flavor and aroma extraction times.

I boil 1.5 gals and use only 1 lb of malt in my boil for 60 mins. According to Papazian's book 1 lb in 1 gal with 1 oz hops extracts the MAX out of the hops. This combination results in a 1.040 gravity (BYO says 1.045 for DME)which is supposed to be perfect for bitterness extraction.

A high gravity (all malts in 2 gal water) wort is going to drastically reduce the extraction process.

MVKTR2 said:

Okay so I read the 16 or so page thread about late LME addition. I never did find a definate answer of an exact process. So with the help of the Tastybrew.com calculator I came up with the following Brew Plan. Please note for brevity I'm not including alot of other info.

Brew - Midwest Fat Tire Clone
Ingredients:
6lb gold LME
1.5lb steeping grains
1 oz Northern Brewer Pellet Hops - 6.0 AAU
1 oz Saaz Pellet Hops - 2.3 AAU
Target IBU - 26

Original process: recipe calls for 60 min boil of 1 oz Northern Brewer hops and 2 min boil of Saaz hops, with all 6lbs LME in pot with 2 gal. water, producing 26 IBUs. I used the tastybrew calculator and came up with the following.

Alternative process: 20 min boil of 1 oz Northern Brewer Hops and 2 Min boil of Saaz hops with 2lbs LME in pot with 2.375 gal. water, producing 26 IBUs. I would remove hops from wort, add remaining LME, let sit for 10 mins to pasturize, and proceed with cooing etc.

Could someone with Beersmith etc. run these #'s and make sure I'm accurate? I'm not to proud to beg either... so PLEASE!

Click to expand...

I am showing 22 IBU using the standard AA for the hops.

Trip

MVKTR2 said:

Okay so I read the 16 or so page thread about late LME addition. I never did find a definate answer of an exact process. So with the help of the Tastybrew.com calculator I came up with the following Brew Plan. Please note for brevity I'm not including alot of other info.

Brew - Midwest Fat Tire Clone
Ingredients:
6lb gold LME
1.5lb steeping grains
1 oz Northern Brewer Pellet Hops - 6.0 AAU
1 oz Saaz Pellet Hops - 2.3 AAU
Target IBU - 26

Original process: recipe calls for 60 min boil of 1 oz Northern Brewer hops and 2 min boil of Saaz hops, with all 6lbs LME in pot with 2 gal. water, producing 26 IBUs. I used the tastybrew calculator and came up with the following.

Alternative process: 20 min boil of 1 oz Northern Brewer Hops and 2 Min boil of Saaz hops with 2lbs LME in pot with 2.375 gal. water, producing 26 IBUs. I would remove hops from wort, add remaining LME, let sit for 10 mins to pasturize, and proceed with cooing etc.

Could someone with Beersmith etc. run these #'s and make sure I'm accurate? I'm not to proud to beg either... so PLEASE!

Click to expand...

It seems that you are mixing the "late extract" and "late hop" methods.

The late extract method is to add a portion of your extract at the beginning of a 60 minute boil (the amounts that homebrewer 99 gives sound good) and add your hops as you normally would, then add the rest of your extract for the final 10-15 minutes (just to sterilize it).

The late hop method is to boil your wort as you normally would (especially important for all grain brewing) and only add your hops in the last 10-15 minutes. The trick it to increase the amount of hops you add so as to reach the same IBU level as you normally would with the 60 minute additions.

Of course you can combine the two methods and eliminate the need for a 60 minute boil altogether, but you will need to increase your hops to get the correct bitterness in the final beer. You can check out the demo copies of promash, or beeralchemy (mac) or else use the on-line recipator (spelling?) if you want to do the calculations yourself.

Thanks for the input Catfish, but I'm not getting the 2 methods confused. I know the 2 procedures and am using an online calculator. The problem arises in that hop utilization is effected by the gravity of the wort the hops are being boiled in. I ran the #'s and they're posted above. When running the #'s performing the full of 6 pounds LME for 60 min boil with 1 oz NB hops @ 6.0 AAUs it gives me 26 IBUs. When you reduce the malt added for the full 60 min boil to 1.5 pounds LME and use a full 1 oz NB hops @ 6.0 AAUs it gives an IBU of something in the high 60's. WAY too bitter because the hop utilization is way up with the lower gravity boil. What I did is listed below! I just hope my reciptator is correct! (My original reason for posting was wondering if I was correct about boiling the full 1 oz for just 20 mins in 1.5lbs LME would give me the correct AAU's.... just seemed goofy that a 20 min boil would work, I feel save with the procedure used below, it makes more sense)

I recalculated using the same Tastybrew calculator. Here's what I did. 60 min boil with 1.5 lbs LME in a 2 gal boil, using .4 oz. NB hops 60 mins and 1 oz. Saaz 2 mins. Calculator said I should have 28 IBU's. What's done is done, Que Sera Sera! Brewed it Mon. AM, it's now bubbling away happily. Thanks for the input 2 4 trip and hb 99

That's was the point I was making...the hop utilization would go up in a lower density wort.

homebrewer_99 said:

According to Papazian's book 1 lb in 1 gal with 1 oz hops extracts the MAX out of the hops. This combination results in a 1.040 gravity (BYO says 1.045 for DME)which is supposed to be perfect for bitterness extraction.

Click to expand...

You seem to mention this a lot. Where does Papazian say this? I assume you are referring to TCJOHB? I have looked through it and I cannot find anywhere that he says this. He does provide a table showing hop utilization vs. wort gravity, and 1.040 is the entry with the highest utilization, however the table does not actually GO any lower than 1.040, and I don't see anywhere in the text that he infers that a lower gravity than that would make hop utilization go DOWN even though the trend of the chart is that the hop utilization is going UP with decreasing gravity. I certainly agree that boiling hops in just water is a bad idea, but I'm not sure I believe that utilization is the reason. I am inclined to believe that the utilization would be HIGHER in water as opposed to 1040 wort, but that you'd extract some undesirable compounds from the hops that wouldn't happen in wort.

From BYO's Mr. Wizard column:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif]Since hop utilization decreases as wort gravity increases it seems logical that one solution to the dilemma faced by extract brewers who boil concentrated wort is to boil the hops separately. This may sound attractive but one downside to this is that the quality of the bitterness and the extraction of plant substances from the hops are reportedly different when hops are boiled in water compared to boiling in wort, and the differences are not for the better.[/FONT]

Click to expand...

Either way, the answer is still "don't boil hops in just water", but the conflict of reasoning has always made me wonder if I'm missing something.

If you read what I wrote I never said Papazian says anything...I always say "in Papazian's book"...

Yes, I am referencing the "Hop Utilization Chart Based On Desity Of Boiled Wort and Boiling Time" on page 268 in the 1st Edition and page 258 in the 3rd Edition.

If you are referring to this comment "According to Papazian's book 1 lb in 1 gal with 1 oz hops extracts the MAX out of the hops. This combination results in a 1.040 gravity (BYO says 1.045 for DME) which is supposed to be perfect for bitterness extraction." then all I can say is that I agree with you that the chart stops at 1.040. I can't deny that.

The part about it being perfect is my understanding of the chart.

If hop bitterness extraction/utilization were any better don't you think it would be on this chart (or someone else's chart)?? I do.

Think about it for a moment...since it doesn't exist then it's has to be an understood.

Also, my previous comment: "That's was the point I was making...the hop utilization would go up in a lower density wort.", also assumes the 1.040 is an understood for the same reason.

Do you have a chart that states 1.030 gives you 40% utilization? I know I don't. So without that information I/we can only base my knowledge of hop extraction on that chart alone.


I have to admit that I have made "hop tea" in only water.

homebrewer_99 said:

If hop bitterness extraction/utilization were any better don't you think it would be on this chart (or someone else's chart)?? I do.

Think about it for a moment...since it doesn't exist then it's has to be an understood.

Click to expand...

I don't agree with making that kind of an inference from Papazian's chart - especially since the information DOES exist, just not in his book... The chart in Papazian's book is very small, it does not have a lot of different gravities, so it is more of an example to illustrate the effects of wort gravity on hop utilization, not a real reference. There are other charts out there that are much more comprehensive, and go down to lower gravities, and in every case, there is a trend of increasing utilization with decreasing gravity. From those charts, I see no reason to assume that the utilization plateaus at 1.040 or some other small value - it doesn't follow from the trend, and I don't recall ever seeing it mentioned.

Chapter 5 of "How to Brew" has a similar chart that goes down to 1.030, and the utilization at 1.030 is higher than at 1.040. That table is from Tinseth, the guy responsible for one of the calculation methods used by brewers to calculate hop utilization. Going to Tinseth's site:
http://www.realbeer.com/hops/
He has formulas and a javascript calculator that let you put in any gravity you want. Plugging in 1.040 wort gives a utilization of 25%, plugging in water at 1.000 gives a utilization of 36%.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any tables or formulas that quantify the extraction of undesirable compounds from hops at lower gravities, as mentioned in the BYO snippet above - an assumption I think IS probably safe to make from the tables is that since they only go down to 1.030 or 1.040 in the "normal" tables, it's probably a good idea to not go much lower than that when boiling hops, to avoid the potential off-flavors.

Hope I'm not coming across as too rude or anything, I know that your understanding and mine BOTH reach the same conclusion that you should boil hops in wort of moderate gravity, not water, so it's sort of irrelevant... But what can I say, I'm a card-carrying pedantic, always have to figure out the reasoning

No, you are not coming across in any bad manner, so we're cool.

OK, I got the book out. I stand corrected. You are right, there is a table that goes down to 1.030.

I remember studying the chart (somewhat) and reading the instructions on how to use it, but all I got out of it was (paraphrasing) that as a homebrewer there are too many approximations and variables to tweak on a small scale that close is good enough. :rockin:

While I didn't do the math, I have tweaked my hops by as little as .5% AA with success.

CHeers!