Amount of hops, in grams, per gallon

[Nebraskan]

I don't like my beer too bitter, but hops are a necessary part of the beer. What is the amount of, say, Cascade hops (Alpha 6.3%, Beta 6.6%) to the wort during the boil, figuring the amount per gallon? I have read that adding at the preboil and then some at the end of the boil is a good rule of thumb.

I also have a small bit of Hallertau (3.8 Alpha) and Crystal (4.8% Alpha) besides the Cascade. Making a dark beer from Briess CBW Special Dark liquid malt extract.

 

[flars]

The bitterness threshold is sort of relative for each person unless you are meaning all IPAs or double IPAs are not your thing. I brew an amber ale that uses 2 ounces of Cascade for 60 minutes in the boil and 1 ounce of Cascade at 1 minute left in the boil for flavor/aroma. This is for 5 gallons of beer. I don't consider it too bitter but you might.

Using a recipe builder might help to quantify the bitterness level with a number. I use this recipe builder quite often.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator

This is the link to all of Northern Brewers recipes that can be used as a reference.
https://www.northernbrewer.com/learn/beer-recipe/

Hope this helps some.

Edit: The recipe builder can be used to automatically scale a recipe for a different volume of finished beer.

 

[Nebraskan]

I am SO glad for that link as my gallons of water was off in my calculations. for the 1 can of Briess CBW Special Dark I needed to use only about 2.4 gal of water not the 3.25 I had originally thought. formula is target SG divide by the malt SG per pound per gallon and Briess is 1.035 SG with 1 gallon of water. after the math (and drop the 1 as that is just water SG you have 0.050 / 0.035 = 1.428 and that is you factor. You need 1.428 pounds of LME to achieve a SG of 1.050 in 1 gallon of water. Now, if you want to figure out how much water you need with a container of 3.3 lbs of Briess, then you take 3.3 and divide it by 1.428 to get how much water is needed eg. 3.3/1.428=2.31 gallons of water. I wanted to make it around 3 gallons for my 3 gallon glass carboy so I added 1 lb of DME Dark Briess to the mix and came up with a S.G. of 1.050 using 3.25 gallons of water. By the time I got done boiling the SG had risen to 1.054 so I diluted just a bit with water down to 1.050. (after cold break and aerating.
Added ale yeast and now we wait and see. Oh, and I added 12 g of Cascade hops at around 170 degrees and then added 12 g of Cascade hops (both pelleted) at the end of 1 hour and boiled an additional 15 minutes. I put those last in a stainless Steel tea strainer and that was not the brightest idea. I dropped in the strainer, and all went well, but when cleaning out the strainer it was all swollen and pretty much a solid mass. So I don't think I got the full benefit of the aroma aspect of the hops since they did not get really exposed to the wort.

I used Safale US - 05 ale yeast.

 

[MagicMatt]

If you don't like bitter beer, don't use hops at the bittering stage (i.e. no hops until flameout). Or you can try FWH (first wort hopping), where you put a small amount in the kettle as you are collecting your sparge runoff (say 0.5 to 1 oz).

Personally I do not like bitter IPAs either, and have moved to a strict no-hops boil routine. I add 3oz at flamout, 3oz at whirlpool for 20min, then 3oz in dry hop. Works great for me.

 

[Nebraskan]

.... I add 3oz at flamout, 3oz at whirlpool for 20min, then 3oz in dry hop. Works great for me.

Your addition is for 5 gallons of wort or 1 gallon? You did not mention amount of your brew.