no bitterness after boiling in a hop bag

[nipsy3]

I typically use hop pellets, but I'm now using my homegrown hops for brewing. This was only the second occasion I'd ever used whole hops and didn't like the way they clogged the siphon when racking from the brewpot the first time, so I bought a mesh hop back to boil them in. Everything seemed to go alright, but I realized at about a week after fermentation had begun there was almost no bitterness to my American ale. It has all the aroma and flavor I'd expect, but no bitterness to balance it out.

Recipe:
9 lbs American 2 Row
1 lb Crystal 60L
1 oz Centennial 60 min
1 oz Cascade 15 min
1 oz Cascade 5 min
White Labs American Ale Yeast

Where's the bitterness from the 60 minutes of Centennial?

Only thing I can think of is that it was brewed in the hop bag. I tried my best to position it where it would get caught up in as much of the rolling boil as possible. Something to do with them being homegrown?

How can I add more bitterness to it? Will adding hop extract at this point help? Or does it need to be boiled? Could I boil some more centennial hops in water for an hour and then add the tea to the beer?

 

[peripatetic]

I use one of these on the end of my siphon, and I have no problem with clogged siphons:

stainless scrubber

I attach it with a rubber band, and it works like a charm for me. I've also heard of people using stockings (panty hose).

[edit: my point was this: don't use a hop bag. =) ]

 

[KayaBrew]

There must be something else going on. I use a mesh bag for all my hop additions (fresh, pellet, bittering, flavor etc) and I never have any flavor or bitterness issues. Are the Centennials homegrown? Are you sure of the hop variety and relative AA%?

 

[Yooper]

There are a couple things that I can think of. One is that you have no idea of the AAUs of your homegrown hops. They could be much lower than your commercially available ones, or not. I use my homegrown hops for flavor and aroma, but only use commercial hops for bittering.

Another thing could be the bags- if they were "loose" in there, totally free in the boil, that doesn't impact utilization. But if they were packed tightly, that dramatically decreases the utilization.

Last thought- I assume you dried the hops, and they were as dry as commercial hops. But if not, and they were still a bit wet, then you may have used far less than an ounce of hops. In my experience, an ounce of dried hops is about 6 ounces of the wet hops off the vine. If they weren't dried thoroughly, you may have underhopped.

 

[jackson_d]

i gave up on my hop bag a few months back..

i did an IIPA and it tasted like a pale ale. The hop bag had plenty of room to move around, i didnt tie it off or anything. A friend of mine had the same problem. We both decided to stop using them. No issues now. I just throw the hops right in the kettle. No false bottom no hop bag no nothing..

I siphon off the top of the kettle and when i get close to the bottom, i use the hop bag as a strainer over the top of the primary. Its a pain in the ass, becuase the trub gets caught in the strainer and you have to scoop it out and toss it aside. But I figure the little bit of work is worth properly bitterd beers..

Actually my LHBS had this super fine nylon strainer. It has elastic around it so it stays around the lip of the bucket. It works really really well. Again, a pain in the ass to scoop out the trub that gets caught in the strainer, but with a littl irish moss or whirlfloc and a proper cold crash, all my beers are crystal clear.

 

[TheFlatline]

Yeah, how old is your hop vine? I've heard that the first few years of the hop vine the AA varies and is inconsistent.

 

[nipsy3]

It's a second year vine and I know AA can vary with homegrown hops and that there's no way to verify what that percentage actually is, but I didn't think it would be that much. I mean there really is almost zero bitterness.

I'm sure they were completely dried and then weighed. I wouldn't say they were compacted in the hop back, but I couldn't tell if they were able to move free enough to be utilized. I'm leaning more towards it being something with the bag because I used the same hops last year, but probably only had enough for a half ounce and it came out as expected.

Would boiling the same amount of hops in a small amount of water and adding the tea work to add bitterness?

 

[Synovia]

my guess is that the hops get significantly less exposure to the wort (IE, bad circulation) even packed loosely simply because of the bag.

 

[Bobby_M]

While I agree you do lose some utilization in the socks, it's not that bad. I think the fact that they are homegrown is the biggest factor. Do you know what a ripe cone is exactly? I think it's subjective and you need a seasoned grower to show you the difference. From what I understand, a cone can look mature while the lupilin hasn't fully developed.

You could have been using what amounts to 3% AA in addition to the fact that whole leaf has less utilization than pellet in addition to using a hop sock.

Lesson learned, only use homegrown for flavor/aroma additions.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Anything in a bag will get less utilization (as has been said).

I use my homegrown (so far) for one huge IIPA, I couldn't care less whether the IBU's are 75 or 110, so it matters not.

Year after year you will get an idea of the approximate IBU's.

 

[edasaurus]

I use one of these on the end of my siphon, and I have no problem with clogged siphons:

stainless scrubber

I attach it with a rubber band, and it works like a charm for me. I've also heard of people using stockings (panty hose).

[edit: my point was this: don't use a hop bag. =) ]

peripatetic, do you reuse this scrubber? If so is it easy to clean?

 

[Catt22]

my guess is that the hops get significantly less exposure to the wort (IE, bad circulation) even packed loosely simply because of the bag.

Yep. I tried the suspended paint strainer contraption after reading all the wonderful things about it. The finished beer was considerably under-hopped. I'm done with hop bags permanently. I have a FB installed in my BK and it stops the majority of hop debris and trub. Don't really know whey I tried the bag thing in the first place. Seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn't for me.

 

[Lupy]

The bag works fine for me, or so it seems. My method is derived from someone(?) here. I clamp half of a 5gal paint strainer bag to the kettle edge and then, every so often, stir the hops in the bag with a big spoon. Add hops; stir; add hops; stir....and so on.
No way to check utilization but it seems to work fine.

 

[Brew_Weasel]

I typically use the stainless steel tea balls for my pellets. It takes a few of them if I am doing multiple hop additions but it also makes things go smoothly as I just toss in the next in line at the prescribed time.

 

[Houblon]

Its your hops and not the bag, thats why you should only use homegrown hops for flavor/aroma and depend on the commercial hops for bittering.

You could spend the cash and have the hops tested.

I use a hop bag(s) and never have problems with bitterness.

 

[buzzkill]

I use my home grown hops for bittering, but I make a small test brew to see how dank they are. Then I go bigger/smaller as needed for the real brews. the good news is if the beer isnt bitter then your buddys will like it better,your taste buds will suffer though.

 

[artguy]

I have been using a 5-gallon nylon paint strainer bag suspended over the center of the boilpot (clamped to a ~6" PVC pipe that hangs on an old curtain rod), and I've definitely been getting about the bitterness I would expect from previous experience hopping without a bag and from the standard IBU utilization calculations. FWIW Beer Alchemy software inputs about a 10% IBU loss from using a bag, plus another 10% loss from whole hops rather than pellets...

 

[JimE]

I typically use the stainless steel tea balls for my pellets. It takes a few of them if I am doing multiple hop additions but it also makes things go smoothly as I just toss in the next in line at the prescribed time.

That sounds really interesting. Is the trub the only thing you have left in your wort when the boil is done?