Low AA Cascade

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opercularia

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My usual Cascade hops have been 8-8.5% AA. I recently bought some from a new supplier and they are only 5.5%. I will obviously have to up the quantity I use to achieve the desired IBU. Does anybody have an idea how this will affect the flavor?
 
I would suspect you'll end up with more citrus/grapefruity notes in your finished beer, but any of the aromatic hop characteristics will mellow over time. So if you're only interested in the bitterness, I would either switch hops or plan to age it for a couple months.
 
Agreed with ^, also are you sure you've previously had 8.5% Cascades? Never seen any outside upper 5% range personally, google shows the strain only goes up to about 7% AA.
 
Farmhouse's Cascades are 5.5% this year, compared to 7.8% last year, so I understand where you're coming from.

You could always just increase your bittering hops to account for the decrease in AA, but if you have the Cascade stash, there's nothing wrong with bumping them up!
 
Mine have mostly been in the 5s over the years, and it's only been recently that they've been in the 8s.

That's fine. You don't have to increase them, except for the bittering hops since a lower AAU will have lower IBUs. For late addition flavor and aroma hops "an ounce is an ounce" is perfectly fine. The AAUs don't matter for flavor and aroma or dryhopping.
 
Thanks for all the responses! The last 2 lbs I have used were Hops Connect(batch 13016) 8.3%. I've been trying for a little more "grapefruity" to match a brew I did a couple of years ago, before I started taking good notes, but I haven't been getting it.

What I was really wondering was how the flavor oils track with the AAs, or are they completely independent. If they are independent, then perhaps when I up the quantities to hit my IBUs (which I like) I may get better flavor.

I realize that AAs vary due to growing conditions. Are the flavor oils also as variable as the AAs, but possibly responsive to different growing conditions? In which case, how do we ever duplicate the flavor of a beer, only given the AAs of a hop?

EDIT: Just realized that perhaps the cascade I used 2 years ago may have been lower AA (no record). Perhaps this batch will replicate it!
 
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