Aa %

[Owly055]

Is there any simple way to judge the AA% on home grown hops? Or do you assume they will be close to the typical?

H.W.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

Some people will brew a hop tea with them to compare potency to a known value (buy the same variety whole leaf and use the same # of cones and see how yours compare.)

I typically just use mine under the assumption that they are 80% of typical because it's not a finely controlled growing environment. So far I haven't been disappointed with anything I brewed with them.

 

[alane1]

Another method I've heard about is titration, basically as the above poster said make a hop tea of a known alpha hop and add small amounts of sugar to the known alpha tea until sweet overcomes bitter, record the amount, add sugar to achieve the same amount of sweetness and compare amounts. This will tell you roughly weather there is more alpha or less than the known variety. Cheers.

 

[PapaBearJay]

If you go in search of Dr. Leonard Perry from the University of Vermont, you can find a .pdf that gives a rough guideline for determining the AA content of your homegrown.

 

[westchesterBrewer]

Here is the pdf link:
http://www.uvm.edu/~pass/perry/hopsanalysis.pdf

At the very bottom is the DIY instructions. He suggests trying it on a known hop alpha to test your methods. Guessing you just buy an ounce of hops with labeled alpha and give it a try a few times to prove your methods are correct? Sounds like a fun experiment!

 

[Brewer Gerard]

Anybody try this? I've got indicators and stuff and am going to give it a go. I'll post results on the experiment one way or the other.

 

[Brewer Gerard]

Performed this at the weekend on some amarillo @ 10.9%. I used double concentrations of hops and couldn't get a colour change from the phenolpthalein. I'm not sure this is an entirely credible process for determining AA% of a variety.