Screwed up hop addition

[ben229]

Oh Boy, I screwed this up. I was inputting a recipe that I recently brewed into my software and noticed that I misread the boil hop addition. It called for 3/4 oz magnum for 60 mins. I read it as 1/4 oz. (the type is small on the recipe sheet..and I had my readers on...and...hell, I don't know what happened) I know my instinct should have kicked in.."man...that's a really small amount of boiling hops..." but it didn't. I brewed this a week ago...so we are talking post-fermentation. Any suggestions on adding bitterness at this point? My first thought is some sort of hop tea. I have plenty of the bittering hops remaining. Hop tea with some DME to aid in extraction or just water? Help?

 

[hercher]

You don't say what kind of beer you were brewing. It may be you don't need to do anything at all. However, some hop tea might help, or just dry hop your beer.

 

[masskrug]

I don't think .5 ounce of hops will make that big of a difference. I'd just dry hop it.

What other hops did you use?

 

[skw]

Taste it first. If it's good enough, I wouldn't mess with it any further. If it's not, I'd brew some hop tea and mix in a few drops in maybe 0.2L of your beer to get a taste before you dump it in the batch.

 

[brewmeister13]

Something like this would be ideal http://morebeer.com/products/isohop-bitterness-extract-1-oz.html, but cost and availability are prohibitive. I'd listen to the others about trying it first and then adjusting if necessary. You need to weigh the potential headache/problems vs the improvement. Most of the time things like this get filed in my notes as things to improve next time.

I'm also not sure how much bitterness you will be able to add with a hop tea. If you did go this route I would use some DME when making it and boil it more than just steep it like a tea. Otherwise you will end up with very little bitterness.

 

[doornumber3]

I don't think .5 ounce of hops will make that big of a difference. I'd just dry hop it.

What other hops did you use?

Why would he dry hop it. It was his buttering hops. What type of beer was it? .5 oz isn't going to ruin your beer though.

 

[doornumber3]

Why would he dry hop it. It was his buttering hops. What type of beer was it? .5 oz isn't going to ruin your beer though.

Buttering hops lol. Clearly meant bitter. Damn autocorrect

 

[dranderson]

I agree with SKW, taste it first and if It needs more add some dry hops

 

[chickypad]

Why would he dry hop it. It was his buttering hops. What type of beer was it?.

I was wondering this too, it may be a style inappropriate for dryhopping and that's not going to help with the under-bittering (or buttering as the case may be ). If it really just seems too sweet when you taste it I'd take brewmeister's advice above.

 

[chickypad]

I don't think .5 ounce of hops will make that big of a difference. I'd just dry hop it.

Again, I think it's hard to give that advice espeicially without more info. Magnum is a very high AA hop, and the OP cut the addition to 1/3 it's original. I was just looking at an old stout recipe I did with .75 oz magnum as the only hop addition with any bittering. Dropping it to 0.25 drops the IBU from 40 to 13.

 

[ben229]

That's my fear...the high AA hop and the amount that I left out. This is Northern Brewer's Brickwarmer Holiday Red....so...a healthy Red/Amber...OG in the 1.062 range. Hops called for are 3/4 oz Magnum for 60 mins and 1 oz Styrian Goldings for 10 mins. (There is also an oz of sweet orange peel at flameout). So, I really missed the boat on the bittering charge. No dry hopping called for in the recipe. I could see where dry hopping may add some perceived bitterness, but my fear is that it won't be enough to mask the sweetness. I will certainly taste it, but am working from the assumption that it will be too sweet. I'm leaning toward boiling the hops for an hour or so in 32 oz of 1.040 wort, cooling it, and adding it to the beer. Let it ferment again for a week or so and keg it up. I don't know that I'll get all of the bitterness that I need, but I'm hoping it will at least get me to an acceptable point. Thanks for the input.....any other thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[brewmeister13]

I would drop the gravity down a bit to help utilization. The higher the gravity the wort the lower the bitterness extraction you are going to get. I'd go 1.030 personally, but I would go as low as you felt comfortable (I'm unsure where the lower limit is to when utilization would suffer). I'd also go with more hops if you have that option. Since they were meant to be boiled with the entire batch you will get less utilization in the 32oz than you would have in the entire batch. I hope that whatever you do decide to do works out for you. Good luck.

 

[chickypad]

As was suggested before I would let the beer finish and taste it first. It won't be exactly the same as a conditioned and carbed beer but I think you can get an idea. I don't know the AA's of your hops but looks like it was supposed to be around 45 IBU and you may be coming in around 20. That may be not too bad, though not the hoppier red the recipe intended.

If you do decide to go with your plan don't forget about boil off. If you're only boiling a quart of water for an hour you might not have much left to add to the fermenter. It's a pretty high gravity red, so I don't think you need to worry too much about diluting it a bit especially when you're actually trying to up the BU:GU ratio. Even if you added 0.5 gallon of plain water it would only drop the OG to about 1.056. I know I've seen some posts about folks doing this in the past if you can find them.

 

[ben229]

Thanks for the input! I will go with the lower gravity...and I will shoot for one quart post boil. I'm planning on boiling the remaining 3/4 oz. I'll post an update and let you know how it all turns out. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it!!