Bittering

[65C]

I'm loving brewing my own stuff - but not big on all the maths involved (I do maths all day at work so it's good to guess a bit at home)

the aroma side looks like a simple 30G to 400G scale spread across 10mins/dry hop - but I'm less sure about the bitter side

if I'm brewing 23L/5gal type batches - is there any rule of thumb on bittering hops?

like approx 30g of 9% for low bitterness, 50g of 13% for high etc.

any help appreciated

 

[cswalker]

There's no "wing it" method for bittering that I'm aware of. Curious if others have noticed any.

 

[IslandLizard]

Use a recipe formulator/calculator such as BeerSmith or Brewer's Friend.

Extracted bitterness (IBU) depends on many factors, %AA in the hops and their freshness, amount added, duration and vigor of the boil, altitude, boil gravity of the wort, and a whole plethora of unknowns we recently started to discover when adding large charges of hops at lower temps during hop stands and whirlpool.

There's an IBU table and some formulas in Palmer's How to Brew on how to calculate IBUs, Use a spreadsheet. But again, there seems to be a bit more to it than just that.

Most humans can barely distinguish a difference of 5 IBUs, in the lower ranges (10-40 IBU), and even less so at higher bittering. Once you get over 80-100 IBU it's a toss up. We may notice a difference, but it may not be the bitterness.

 

[65C]

I really need a 'wing it' even if it comes with a disclaimer - appreciate the note Island - if there is high margin of error I'll just try things - I thought the bitter part was more sensitive as I've read a lot of 34g type recipes where the points look to matter

thanks

 

[IslandLizard]

Are you looking for an off the cuff estimate of IBUs?

IBU = AAU x U x 75 / V

AAU = oz x %AA
U = 0.2 (1.050 wort, 60 minute boil, Tinseth)

So in that example (1.050, 60', 5 gal), using 1 oz of 9 %AA hops: (=9 AAU)
IBU = 9 x .2 x 75 / 5 = 27

Here the IBU is 3x the %AA of the hops. Does that steer you in the right direction?

 

[Yooper]

The thing is- even if you wing it to get a set number of IBUs, that doesn't even matter.

Here's why- in a 1.037 OG beer, 35 IBUs will make a bitter beer, as the IBU/SG ratio would be .944. In a 1.085 beer, 35 IBUs will make a sweet beer, as the IBU/SG ratio would be .410.

Beer is all about balance- balancing the sweet wort with the bitter hop oils. That's why this matters.

 

[65C]

really useful, thanks Island

I'm using roughly the same grain bill for each batch (4.5 - 5KG of Maris + maybe .5 dark as ph high here + maybe .5 Munich or something to mix things up a bit)

I'm doing a 23L batch every week or two - and varying the hops/carbonation - plus have 3 diff yeasts on the go - the aroma side I've a good grip on but I need to experiment more on the bittering - as I'm using 100g packs I really need it to be 50g or 33g to keep ingredients simple - also I'm buying the cheapest bittering hops each time so they range from 9-14% - but spending more on the aroma

 

[65C]

Yooper - sorry I should have made clear in the original post that sugar levels would be roughly same as I'm mostly using same quantity Maris +/- 15% something else - I've 3 rolling 23L fermentations at moment which seems to be working out okay - but there is variation in the %AA - I'm just going to have to try diff quantities and work it out over time

thanks

 

[brewbama]

http://realbeer.com/hops/

 

[JKaranka]

You want me to tell you that 10g of 8%AA Challenger hops per kilo of malt at the beginning of the boil? Because I can easily state that will work

PS: with caveats, obviously. Like you won't make German lagers with that, or dark sweet beers for American palates.

 

[Sadu]

If you don't like math, Beersmith is the best investment ever. Enter your ingredients, set the efficiency you think you will get, pick what gravity and IBU you want. Beersmith figures out the quantities for everything. So easy.