AAU measurements for non-bittering hops

[kable]

A lot of clone recipes call out their hop schedule in AAU measurements instead of weight at a certain AA%. I know this makes things easier for people to swap out bittering hops or different AA% levels etc.

My question is how does this work for non-bittering hops? I have always ignored the AA% in my flavor, aroma, dry hopping hops because I am not trying to extract bittering (yes I know there is still some).

In this random sample recipe from BYO it calls for this 10 minute hop addition:
2.75 AAU Glacier hops (10 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5.5% alpha acid)

So normally, for bittering hops, you can have any weight X AA% that ends up equaling the 2.75 AAUs. So in their example they say .5oz @ 5.5%. So if I had a 2%AA hop I would have to use 1.3oz of it.
For flavor/aroma hops, there is a big difference between .5oz and 1.3oz isn't there? Yes, their AAU are equal, but I think it is a different beer?

I know this probably doesn't really matter much, but when I am trying to 'clone' something I want to be as exact as possible.

Do we ignore the AAU measurement for non-bittering hops and just go by the weight in the examples?

 

[Priemus]

With a 10 minute addition it will add so few IBU's to your beer I wouldnt worry too much about if its a 2% saaz or a 15%Zeus. Your mostly going to just get flavour and aroma, not bitterness regardless of the AAU levels.

It will probably add +/- 1Ibu at that point, so I would personally go for weight, thats where the flavour profile will be noticed.

 

[Hammy71]

I personally adjust for everything before flame out. Flame out, whirlpool, and dry hopping I just use the weights in a recipe. Priemus is right about flavor/aroma additions you won't even be able to notice. But I do....but that's my anal retentiveness.

 

[kable]

I guess that is my point. You shouldn't go by the AAU for non-bittering hops only call out and use a weight measurement.

Else you will potentially mess up the flavor and aroma, because 150% more flavor hops (my example above) is a much different flavor profile.

Sent from my Android, please excuse my grammar.

 

[Yooper]

I guess that is my point. You shouldn't go by the AAU for non-bittering hops only call out and use a weight measurement.

Else you will potentially mess up the flavor and aroma, because 150% more flavor hops (my example above) is a much different flavor profile.

Sent from my Android, please excuse my grammar.

That's my take, too. An ounce of cascade at 5 minutes is what you want for flavor/aroma, no matter what the AAUs are. You don't care whether those cascades are 9.4% or 4.5%, and if you reduce them to "match" the AAUs of the original hops, you're also reducing the flavor/aroma you get out of them.

I don't adjust hops with 15-20 minutes left or less. And since I rarely use hops between 20 and 59 minutes, I only end up adjusting the bittering addition at 60 minutes.

I didn't even do that today- I'm brewing a 100+ IBU IIPA. Changing the cascades (which are 8.4% today, much higher than the 4.8% from last time) at 60 minutes is pretty pointless when we're talking over 100 IBUs already!