irishrover32
Well-Known Member
Hi I'm wondering does the dryness ie final gravity have any impact on flavour and bitterness of hops? Have I heard they make bitterness more apparent?
Dryness, flavour and bitterness
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TheCanisDirus
Well-Known Member
Yes. Drying out the beer allows the hops and other additions to come through more. (This is why West Coast IPAs are traditionally very dry) You can also do this with fruit beers as well. A lower attenuating yeast or a higher mash temp (or any combo really)... leaving the beer with more un-fermentable sugars will increase the sweetness, malty-ness (depending on some what grains) and somewhat "cloud" hop flavor and other nuances in the beer.
irishrover32
Well-Known Member
Ok that makes sense but wat about bitterness? If u had two identical beers with the only difference being their FG and both being 50IBU's would the drier beer taste more bitter?
yes, the one with lower FG would taste more bitter. typically most just refer to BUGU (bitterness units: gravity units) for balance and ignore how the final gravity effects it, but its not quite right. there was another method developed called the balance value that factors in FG too. here's an example of a calculator for that: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rohw0009/homebrewing/calculator/bvcalc.htm
