Northern Brewer Hopshot

[Rooster_P]

Does anyone have any experience with this product?

I was 2 days into my fermentation when I realized I read my receipe wrong. For my 10 gal of belgian blonde I put the 2 oz of hop in at 60min (flavor/aroma addition) and not at the 0 / boil for 60min mark. I am assuming the taste will be real malty without the bittering to balance.

My thought is to boil the hopshot for 60min with my priming sugar. I will put it in about 1 gallon of water for boil off. Using the 5ml should give me about 25 IBU if I understand the product information correctly. I have also read that the hopshot has a lower perceived bitterness in taste than what is actually calculated, so I am hoping that the 25 IBUs would get me to the 18-20 IBUs that I was supposed to have.

Any comments?

Thanks

 

[Denny]

I'm not certain that boiling with water will isomerize the alpha acids in the Hopshot. You may need to get some iso alpha acid extract.

 

[Beerrific]

I'm not certain that boiling with water will isomerize the alpha acids in the Hopshot. You may need to get some iso alpha acid extract.

Which they sell at MoreBeer.
IsoHop Bitterness Extract (1 oz) | MoreBeer

According to their math at the bottom there, you will want 1.38 ml to add 20 IBUs to 5 gallons. Going to cost you about as much as a batch of beer and you will have quite a bit left over.

 

[Rooster_P]

Thanks for the feedback. I still have 2 weeks to think about the isohop, but my hopshot arrived today, so I may still try boiling that.

 

[Rooster_P]

Denny, if I may ask a question, wouldn't the addition of the priming sugar to the boil provide the needed enviroment for isomerization? Or is the problem the qty of water/sugar.

 

[Rooster_P]

bump.......

 

[Denny]

Well, my understanding has always been that you needed "something" in the wort in order to isomerize the alpha acid. Lately, though, I've been involved in discussions that lead me to believe that isn't necessarily the case. At this point, I haven't had a chance to either study the chemistry involved or try it for my self to determine empirically, so I'm kinda on the fence.

 

[Rooster_P]

Thanks Denny. Although I am not the greatest judge of bitterness I think I will do as planned and keep a few bottles that will be primed seperatly without the hopshot so that I might be able to try to judge any perceived difference in bitterness. I will try to report back with what I find.

 

[ChshreCat]

If I'm understanding you right, you're saying you added your late hop addition at 60 minutes instead of near the end of the boil. Did you also have a regular 60 minute addition that was supposed to go in at that time too? Or did you reverse them? Or leave our your recipe's 60 minute addition altogether?

I'm thinking you might have the bitterness, but just won't have the aroma and flavor you should have gotten from the late addition. Maybe a hop tea and/or dry hopping would be better.

 

[Rooster_P]

No I added my hops as a late addition when I was supposed to add it at the beginning to be boiled for 60 min. 0 and 60 min two different things depending if you count up or down. So any way I believe I have the flavor and aroma and no bitterness.

 

[ChshreCat]

Ahh, I got it. You had no hops at the start of the boil and had them all at the end. I was thinking the other way 'round.

edit: I wonder if you could boil it in a small amount of water and extract, add that to your fermenter after cooling since the O2 would be driven off and there would be little chance of oxidation and let that little bit of added wort ferment out with the yeast already in your fermenter.

 

[Rooster_P]

OK I have an update. What I did was to boil my priming sugar in 1 gal of water. This boiled down to about 4 cup to go into my 10 gal batch. Four bottles were bottled with seperatly without the priming sugar/hop shot solution to keep a reference. All bottles were allowed to bottle condition/carb for 3 weeks. Currently I am looking for a good commercial representation of the SWMBO slayer (Belgian Blonde) that was brewed for comparison. The added hop shot definatly added to the bitterness for the beer. However the "unfixed" test bottle was so sweet I couldn't drink more than a few swallows. The finishied "fixed" product reminds me of a sweeter blue moon (minus the orange and corriander). I don't know if i got the 25 IBUs that the literature stated but there was an improvement.

 

[justineaton]

I just bought some hopshot to experiment with. I also picked up a couple dead ringer (bells two hearted clone) kits. I have a clone recipe for hop stoopid I was going to brew but I am thinking about adding it to one of the dead ringer kits instead I'm just not sure if I should keep the rest of the recipe the same or move the bittering hops to flavor and aroma times and only use hop shot for bittering. Any suggestions?

 

[Shuasha]

I've used it as the bittering addition for a Bells Two Hearted clone, it worked very well. You would completely drop the bittering hops to make the same recipe.

 

[justineaton]

I didn't want to completely replace the bittering hops, I bought the kit so I might as well use everything that comes with it. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to add the bittering hops to one of the other hop editions or maybe add them to the dry hops. I ended up leaving them where they where though. I bought two kits so I brewed one exactly as per the instructions and the second one I only made 4.5 gallons to boost the gravity a bit and then added the hopshot at 60 minutes with the one oz of centennial.

 

[justineaton]

Part off the reason I decided to do that is because northern brewer says deadringer is 29ibu and two hearted ale is 55. When I put the recipe into my recipe creator app to save it, it estimated it at 55.9ibu though so apparently the 29ibu is a typo. I'm worried this will be to much now. About the only thing I can change in the recipe now is the dry hops, should I double up on them in hope that the increased hop flavor will help balance the hop bitterness?

 

[Denny]

Part off the reason I decided to do that is because northern brewer says deadringer is 29ibu and two hearted ale is 55. When I put the recipe into my recipe creator app to save it, it estimated it at 55.9ibu though so apparently the 29ibu is a typo. I'm worried this will be to much now. About the only thing I can change in the recipe now is the dry hops, should I double up on them in hope that the increased hop flavor will help balance the hop bitterness?

Or you're using a different bitterness calculation that they do.

 

[justineaton]

Could be, it is suppose to be a clone of bells two hearted ale though and that beer is 55ibu so I'm thinking that's right.