Hop ratios for a hop bomb

[Shade]

Like most, I'm still working towards creating an IPA that has the bitter hop burst on first sip like commercial beers.

For those getting that hit, what are you using in terms of hop ratios?

I recently made a DIPA with Chinook and Cascade on a pale malt base, it's pretty good but doesn't have that hit I am looking for.

It was a small batch - 10L/2.6 gal.

For the hop schedule I added:
70g total in the boil (30g Chinook @ 60, 20g Chinook/Cascade @ 5)
60g total in the hopstand (20g Chinook, 40g Cascade for 30 minutes)
70g total in the dry hop (30g Chinook, 40g Cascade for 5 days)

That is 20g/L total, 7g/L in the boil, 6g/L in the hopstand, 7g/L in the dryhop)
In US words, that's 7oz total, 2.67oz/gal, .9oz/gal in the boil, .8oz/gal in the hopstand, .9oz/gal in the dryhop.

Target IBU was 97.

Any pointers or thoughts on what I would have missed?

 

[pdxal]

We need more information to help. A full recipe would be helpful.
Malt bill, mash temp, OG/FG, water composition, freshness of hops, yeast, temperature of fermentation and hopstand would all have effects on how much your IPA/DIPA pops.

 

[Shade]

It was more a question of where people put the most hops - maybe I should be putting more into dry hop for instance.

I drank the beer again last nice. As noted, quite good. Floral on the nose, citrus hit on first taste - but not what I want.

Recipe:
2.8kg Maris Otter
0.4kg Vienna
0.2kg Carapils
.15 white sugar

Yeast was US-05.
Hops - they were fresh from LHBS, vac sealed.
Water here has next to nothing, so I treat it as pure. Added 6g gypsum.

Mash was originally at 70C, strike water was hotter than I realised, left top of vessel to get it down to 68C by end of mash.

Hopstand - I didn't note the temperature on this one, I brewed yesterday and did take it so expect it was 80-85C when I added the hopstand hops.

Temperature - have temperature controlled fridge. I didn't note the temps but would be 1 week at 18C, then increased to 20C to completion.

Dry hopped for 5 days.

Fermented in primary only, which is plastic. Bottled in glass.

 

[pdxal]

There are a lot of factors that will effect your perceived bitterness and how prominent the hops are.
Sweet beer, low sulfate levels/high chloride levels, old/stale hops will all decrease perception of bitterness and hops.
That's a real high mash temp. 70°C/158°F decreasing to 68°C/154.4°F by the end of the mash will leave a sweet beer, which will decrease perception of bitterness. Did you measure the OG and FG?
Dry hopping will only boost aroma, not bitterness.
You don't list the alpha acid percentages for the batch of hops you used. Did you plug that into an online calculator and get the 97IBUs?
Gypsum will enhance the perception of bitterness and hoppiness, so you're doing the right thing on that end. Not sure your volumes to calculate sulfate levels but likely in a good range.

 

[Shade]

Sorry, missed those bits - I didn't note the OG, the FG was 1014 (compared to estimated OG1084/FG1017) from the recipe.

Chinook AA was 11%, Cascade was 7%, but there's a chance I left in the defaults in the recipe calculator (the Cascade I just bought yesterday was only 5.5% so I am skeptical). But LHBS lists their Chinook as 12-14% so maybe it evens out.

I use brewersfriend to calculate.

 

[pdxal]

Lower your mash temp for a drier finish first and see what happens. I'll bet the bitterness and hops shine more. That looks like the bigger issue. Aim for 65-66 C.
Next, try upping your hopstand amount by 25% and see what happens from that.
I'd still like to see what year the hops are from. 2015 hops (2016 harvest just happened in the Northern hemisphere) would be a little lower in AA, depending upon shipping/storage conditions.
Good luck!

 

[Shade]

If the harvest just happened then I presume you are correct with them being last year's hops. I don't know how fast hops travel to NZ, but presumably it's not immediate.

Thanks for the tips, gives me something else to try.

I am guessing from the other notes that the volume of hops overall is such that I should be getting some hop punch though ..

 

[pdxal]

If the harvest just happened then I presume you are correct with them being last year's hops. I don't know how fast hops travel to NZ, but presumably it's not immediate.

Thanks for the tips, gives me something else to try.

I am guessing from the other notes that the volume of hops overall is such that I should be getting some hop punch though ..

Not if you have a sweet finishing beer with low AA hops.

 

[skoodog]

I'm no expert but here's a few things that I've done to highlight hops in my brews - bitterness is never lacking in my IPAs unless by design:

1) I build up my water from distilled, so for a typical 5 gal batch (19L?) i add 2 tsp of gypsum and 1 tsp of CaCL to get my water right. Your water profile is important when highlighting the right level of bitterness.

2) The amount of hops is less important than your alpha acid units - take a SMaSH recipe, if you make a Cascade IPA you're going to use almost 3x more hops than a Columbus because Cascades sit around the 4-5 AA range and Columbus sit at 12-15 AA. If you want a real hop bomb you want one of those power-hitters early in your boil for bitterness. Hops are expensive so those low AAU SMaSHes can really hit the pocketbook hard.

3) I go by the rule of thumb that to get the most hop flavor you want big additions right around the 15-20 minute mark. I personally like to balance this with a good early addition to give you that facepuckering bitterness. Of course, end additions get you the nice aromatics. Back to the volume discussion, it takes a LOT more late additions to get an IPA to really shine smell-wise so be aware when building your recipe. (I've yet to get any homebrew to smell like the aromatic heavy hitters, mostly because I have not nailed the balance of dry-hop timing and fermentation-timing well yet).

Hope that helps!

 

[SunnyDownSnuff]

Any pointers or thoughts on what I would have missed?

Hi Shade, here's a recipe worth looking at for ratios and schedule: Lawsons Double Sunshine Clone

very popular recipe right now, doesn't necessarily apply to the "bitter" aspect you mentioned but it does add a huge hop flavor/aroma profile if that's what you're after.

 

[Olaf_Deathbringer]

You need to calculate your OG (aka Gravity Units, or GU) and base your target IBU's(aka Bitterness Units, or BU) on this. The actual ratio is BU:GU.

Example: If your OG is 1.050(50GU) and your recipe calls for 25 IBU's(25BU), the ratio would be 25:50, or 0.5 Bitterness units per Gravity unit. This would be a slightly hoppy beer, like a pilsner. 18:50 would be hefeweizen range. For IPA, especially if you want to smack someone in the face, you need a bare minimum of 1:1. So, if your OG is 1.065, you want at least 65 IBU's.
Using this method eliminates the variances caused by using different hops that may have higher or lower alpha acids. IBU'S are IBU's regardless of how much hops is in your beer, or how much AA they contained.

As others have mentioned, you can also increase perceived Bitterness by managing your chloride to sulfate ratio. In general, the more sulfate(gypsum) you add to your beer the more bitter it is. You don't want to get too crazy with it, but a chloride to sulfate ratio of .7 will definitely make a noticeable difference in your recipe. Also, throw away your teaspoons and get a gram scale. You'll love yourself for it later!

 

[SunnyDownSnuff]

also, throw away your teaspoons and get a gram scale. You'll love yourself for it later!

++++1

 

[Shade]

Some great tips, thanks.

My main takeaways:
- mash a bit lower
- look at GU:BU ratio instead of volume for boil hops
- increase hopstand volume a bit
- look at adding CaCl also

I do have a scale I use for my hops. I had read that gypsum is 4g per tsp though so seemed accurate enough I'd have thought ..

I've been doing a lot more late hop additions in general and I wonder if that's a contributing factor as well so will try a 'normal' 60/20 min addition of high AAs and see what I get.

Reading a bit I see 1.2 BU:GU is recommended for IIPA but that doesn't sound that high. The beer I mentioned at the start of this thread was in that ballpark. Any advice on aiming higher than that?

Also, is hops per gallon applicable when figuring the impact of hopstand and dry hops or is that just an odd way to look at it?

 

[Olaf_Deathbringer]

If you want to increase hop character in your beer, I recommend First Wort Hopping(FWH). It's simple, just throw your bittering hop addition into the kettle while the Wort is still heating up(before it reaches a boil). All the wonderful flavor of your bittering hops will bind to the glycosides in the Wort and actually survive the boil instead of boiling off (which they would absolutely do if you added them during the boil). Long story short, adding hops pre-boil adds tremendous amounts of "kettle flavor" that late hop additions are incapable of doing. And while this doesn't increase the IBU's, it increases the perceived bitterness in much the same way that a high sulfate to chloride ratio will(to clarify, the FWH will contribute the same number of IBU's as a normal 60 minute hop addition, you just don't lose the flavor. So there is no need to use FWH and a 60 minute addition...the FWH serve as both.)

Regarding BU:GU for an IIPA, 1:2 would not be sufficient. Keep in mind, English IPA's have a much lower Bitterness ratio than American IPA's, and it probably varies all over the world. If you're trying to make a classic face puncher, I would go 1.25:1. So if your OG is 1.075, your IBU target would be 94.

Don't worry about the difference between standard and imperial IPA's. The nature of ratios is that they automatically compensate for a change in values; as the OG of your recipe goes up, your IBU'S will go up accordingly. I would focus on finding your preferred ratio for IPA's, and then you can keep the same ratio whether you're making triple, double, standard, or session IPA's.

Hops per gallon(grams or ounces) is the correct method for measuring hop stand and dry hop additions, since none of the alpha acids will be isomersized and are therefore not a factor.

 

[JordanKnudson]

It seems like you've got some good pointers for moving forward.

I would echo the advice to mash lower. Your goal should be a low FG. The drier the beer, the better the bitterness and hop punch is able to speak. I had several of my early IPAs finish around 1.014-1.016 and the residual sweetness just interfered with the hop character. I aim to finish around 1.010 or even a little lower to give that bone dry west coast style profile.

Also, know that adding calcium chloride can be a good thing when you use it with purpose (like any water salt), but that it typically accentuates maltiness, so be aware of that if you use it. I minimize the amount that I use in my super hoppy beers.

 

[Shade]

Okay, time to report back with some thanks!

First brew taking these tips into account I used the suggested recipe below:

Hi Shade, here's a recipe worth looking at for ratios and schedule: Lawsons Double Sunshine Clone

very popular recipe right now, doesn't necessarily apply to the "bitter" aspect you mentioned but it does add a huge hop flavor/aroma profile if that's what you're after.

.. with some mods, scaling it up to a 23L batch. BU/GU ratio was 1.3, mashed at 67C as per recommendation, FG was 1006, very dry. Opening the first bottle(s) last night, it is outstanding, I'm very pleased. Like a bought one!

I have another brew on now following the same process, tasted the sample and it is so far so good.

 

[beernutz]

I have been trying a technique I read about in a recipe on the electricbrewery website where when you dry hop you agitate the container which has the dry hops several times a day and over time add more dry hops. I've done an IPA and DIPA this way and both had a very pronounced hop aroma, although there was a lot more manual labor involved. My dry hops were in one of those cylindrical containers made of fine SS mesh with a screw on top fwiw.

 

[jan_b19]

have you looked at this: Might help
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/top-10-tips-super-hoppy-ipa.html

 

[day_trippr]

Reads like the writer worked himself up to an epiphany

The only thing I'm not sure I agree with is "Heady topper does not boil a single hop."
They may not, but instead may use CO2 extract.
I have the original on hand, I've done the clone (close!) and I don't see how they could hit the bitterness on FO/WP hops alone...

Cheers!

 

[day_trippr]

I have been trying a technique I read about in a recipe on the electricbrewery website where when you dry hop you agitate the container which has the dry hops several times a day and over time add more dry hops.

I've always given my dry-hopped carboys a good rocking a few times a day, but originally it was to avoid a dry cap situation ("As Seen On HBT").

I've done an IPA and DIPA this way and both has a very pronounced hop aroma, although there was a lot more manual labor involved. My dry hops were in one of those cylindrical containers made of fine SS mesh with a screw on top fwiw.

I've recently put up Heady Topper and Focal Banger clones and indeed the post-boil through dry hop procedures were more intense than pretty much any recipe I've done.

While both had extensive FO/WP hoppage, the Topper recipe then wanted a dry hop, cold crash, rack off, dry hop, cold crash, rack to keg going on. Woof!

fwiw, I always dry hop with pellets, because it's convenient, they store easier, and as I'll be cold-crashing anyway, don't need to worry about extracting them, so they can swim freely.

On the cold-crash cycle by the time the fermentor hits ~55°F the pellet mush has already sunk to the bottom and by the time the temperature reaches ~34°F they'll be packed solid and easily racked over...

Cheers!