I’ve been brewing for over a decade, but in recent years, have focused just on lagers. While my lagers have gotten way better over time, I feel like the lighter styles (Helles, Pilsner, festbier) are lacking in bitterness, with the malts being way overpowering. I’m not tasting any off flavors, just a general lack of any bitterness. I use brewersfriend to design all of my recipes, and just noticed that when adding hops to the recipe, it assumes 100% utilization. On reading other Brewing articles and threads, utilization is usually estimated more around 25-40% depending on setup and so forth. I use distilled water and add additions to build my water. Have I been under hopping this whole time, thinking I’m getting the right IBU’s per style but largely under estimating? Thanks!
Hop utilization percentage?
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Altitude?
https://beersmith.com/blog/2019/12/08/high-altitude-beer-brewing-and-hop-utilization/
Add more hops.
https://beersmith.com/blog/2019/12/08/high-altitude-beer-brewing-and-hop-utilization/
Add more hops.
Utilization is closer to 25% when boiled for an hour, less when boiled for a shorter time. Based on many hours of fiddling around with numbers (I'm a numbers guy), I've come up with a utilization estimation method, as follows:
squareroot ( 5 * boiltime) / 75
or for whirlpool hops it's closer to:
squareroot ( 1.4 * whirlpooltime) / 75
where the times are in minutes. To change to a percent, multiply by 100.
This method is intended for an average homebrewer with an average wort of around 1.050 to 1.060 specific gravity. It's only a rough estimate, and if you're not an average guy making an average wort, it will be farther off.
squareroot ( 5 * boiltime) / 75
or for whirlpool hops it's closer to:
squareroot ( 1.4 * whirlpooltime) / 75
where the times are in minutes. To change to a percent, multiply by 100.
This method is intended for an average homebrewer with an average wort of around 1.050 to 1.060 specific gravity. It's only a rough estimate, and if you're not an average guy making an average wort, it will be farther off.
Palmer has a chart on page 58 of how to brew that I use with his formula and it works.
Sometimes I run it thru a bazine filter and apply some game theory. For me it's a Numb3rs game.
No, my altitude only changed the utilization by 3% according to the brewers friend hop calculator.
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Elaborate, plz.
It's a math reference from a TV show.
You have to tell us what edition of htb it is lol. It's on page 81 of 4e. You can also plug in the tinseth equation he provides in a spreadsheet and then it gets fun.
Edit: Elevation matters as well since water will boil at a cooler temp you'll get lower utilization verse someone at sea level. For example I'm at 4984' elevation. Water boils here right around 203°F.
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1st edition, I think it's the free one that's on line. My copy was signed in 2016 at a symposium in Milwaukee. I use the math in here for every beer I've designed, with a little help on brewing liquor from the Water book.
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