FWH and Beersmith

[Nick4228]

Hey Everyone,

I know Beersmith does a calculation on how many IBUs are calculated from first wort hopping, and I also know that the general agreement is that the bittering from first wort hops is perceived less than you'd expect from the calculated IBU's. My question is does anyone have any experience with this, so I can get a rough idea what I'm going to end up with? Should I discount all the calculated IBU's from the FWH, or say 80%, less, more?

Specifically to my brew... I'm shooting for about 45 IBU's calculated and allegedly 17 of them are currently coming from FWH... and I'm trying to decide if I should I bump up my 60 min addition a bit...

*Note, I realize these are all calculated numbers and the perceived bitterness depends on the beer and other factors, but I'm just hoping for a general idea of how everyone is feeling about what their FWH add in relation to the calculated numbers*

I only mention Beersmith in case the program adjusts the IBU calculations to account for this...

 

[Herky21]

In my experience, you can do FWHing and completely skip the 60 min addition if you want to.

As to your question about what to do with the extra IBUs and how to calculate... The point is that the additional IBUs garnered from the increased utilization of FWHing are irrelevant. As an example, say you were going to add an ounce at 60 minutes, but move it to FWH. You have increased IBUs, but those IBUs aren't the same as the IBUs that come straight from 60 min additions, or at least that is what studies suggest. The flavor is just better and the bitterness is more rounded, if that makes sense. It is less harsh around the edges I guess.

The studies were done with hops at about 5.5% AAUs though, and I think when you use higher AAU hops like Warrior, then the increased utilization could very well be overwhelming and might imbalance the beer.

Hopefully some of what I said made sense. I think I was rambling a bit.