Less Hops vs Later Addition

[audioa84]

Hello all,
I've been brewing for a little while now but have come across a small problem I haven't been able to determine the best solution for. I am thinking of brewing a recipe that calls for 9AAU of a hop (1 oz of 9AAU hops for 60 min - this is what the recipe said and I believe is the standard equation for hop utilization.) However, the variety that the recipe calls for is only available in 13AAU. Should I go with less of the hop, say 0.7oz, or should I go with a later addition, say 40 min instead of 60? I tried searching this wonderful forum for an existing thread but I didn't find one that matched my question. Thank you in advance for your help.

Audioa84

 

[BrewSRQ]

Your best bet is to use an ibu calculator like the one on brewers friend. Depending on how your recipe is written, it may provide how many ibus each addition contributes to the beer. If this is the case, plug in the values for your hops aa% and 60 min addition, then adjust accordingly to match the recipe.

 

[EDF713]

Either option would work, you can play with a recipe builder like Beersmith (free using the free trial) or Brewer's Friend (http://www.brewersfriend.com/) by changing the boil time of the 1 oz of hops. If you save the .3 oz of hops you could reuse them, but you would need an airtight way to save them, even ziplocks will let in some air. Another option is to share the recipe, depending on the hop there may be a lower alpha "family member" of the hop that would work. Also, when you buy the hops check the alpha acid content on the package, there is some variation and you may find a lower alpha package of the hop.

 

[hou_me]

Ounces Hops= [V*IBU]/[U*%AA*7500]

V is Volume
U is Utilization* (typically 30% or .30)

Source:
http://byo.com/mead/item/887-how-to-hop

 

[jddevinn]

Ounces Hops= [V*IBU]/[U*%AA*7500]

V is Volume
U is Utilization* (typically 30% or .30)

Source:
http://byo.com/mead/item/887-how-to-hop

Hop utilization varies greatly, about 10-40% depending on the boil time and the gravity.


A look up table and equation are published here. Adjustments may need to be made to the boil factor for your equipment profile.
http://realbeer.com/hops/research.html

Heres a quick excell file that will do the adjustment https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66921612/Hops Adjustment.xlsx

 

[billl]

In general, if your addition is for bitterness, then just add less hops at the same minute marker. If your addition is mostly for flavor, aroma - then keep all the flavoring hops and adjust a bittering addition to hit the overall IBU.

 

[audioa84]

Thank you all for your responses. I have Beersmith and that's where I got my figures from. I guess I was trying to figure out if there would be a preferred method or if there was a flavor difference. I also should have been clearer that this is the bittering hop addition. There is an aroma hop addition later on. I haven't brewed enough to figure out if there will be a big difference in flavor in a 40 min addition vs 60 when there are other hops later for aroma.

 

[Northbank]

Personally, I like a short boil if I can get it ..... so for example on a recent recipe I was overshooting the IBUs I wanted so instead of cutting the hops back, I just shortened the boil time. Hey I'm busy .... Bittering is bittering -- 40 minutes vs 60 minutes won't change that much. If you are doing an extract brew you can also add more LME/DME earlier in the process if you are holding some back and cut back on IBUs as well ...