I live in Virginia's beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains at 2,600 feet elevation. As a result, water boils here at 207°F. Will this have any meaningful effect on hops utilization, i.e. should I be applying a factor to my IBU calculations?
TomVA
TomVA
Yep, you should. This is the relationship I was able to derive from standard boiling point vs elevation data and hop isomerization rates determined by Malowicki and Shellhammer.
Elevation
Boiling Point
Multiplier on Sea-Level Hop Quantity
0 ft (0 m)
212 °F (100 °C)
1.00
1,000 ft (305 m)
210.1 °F (98.9 °C)
1.08
2,000 ft (610 m)
208.1 °F (97.8 °C)
1.16
5,000 ft (1,524 m)
202.4 °F (94.7 °C)
1.48
10,000 ft (3,048 m)
193.2 °F (89.6 °C)
2.30
Sorry for the crappy presentation since this forum doesn't provide proper text formatting capability.
Just to confirm. Your table means that at 2000ft you should use 1.16 times the hops comparing to 0 feet?
Interesting. I never thought of this. Also on the Colorado front range so according to that table I should be using 50% more.
This is the effect on iBUs, what about flavor and aroma additions? Are they unaffected since we’re not looking for isomerization?
..., so I don't know if the higher temps are offset by the shorter heating time.
Yep, you should. This is the relationship I was able to derive from standard boiling point vs elevation data and hop isomerization rates determined by Malowicki and Shellhammer.
Elevation
Boiling Point
Multiplier on Sea-Level Hop Quantity
0 ft (0 m)
212 °F (100 °C)
1.00
1,000 ft (305 m)
210.1 °F (98.9 °C)
1.08
2,000 ft (610 m)
208.1 °F (97.8 °C)
1.16
5,000 ft (1,524 m)
202.4 °F (94.7 °C)
1.48
10,000 ft (3,048 m)
193.2 °F (89.6 °C)
2.30
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