Good day to all in Homebrew Talk Land, the best homebrew forum I've ever had the pleasure to associate with.
The problem of the day: Where in the heck is my bitterness?!
I cannot for the life of me seem to get a decent firm hop bitterness in my IPAs. At best, they taste like pale ales. And becasue they are not designed to be pale ales, the balance isn't right. The vast majority of my low IBU beers (12-30), and my stouts, come out as expected.
I use the EZ calculator for setting pH and ions. My water is very soft and low carbonate. I use ProMash for recipe formulation. Mitch Steel, in his new book, IPAs, discusses several times how pH dropping during fermentation can result in a 25 - 30% loss in IBUs. My beers actually taste like that. For example, a 65 IBU IPA will taste more like 45 IBU to me. Sierra Nevada confirmed to me that Celebration Ale is 65 IBU at the bottle, lab tested. So I kinda use that as my "calibration beer".
I realize this is palate subjective, but I know when the beer is not as bitter as I expect. . By way of example, a beer I racked this AM has a theoretical IBU of 106 (assuming 30% loss that should be just above 70 IBU). OG 1.066. 64 theoretical IBU come from the 90 and 60" additions, with 42.1 coming from 30 - 1" additions. FG 1.012. Beer pH 4.64. This should be bitter, and while tasty, it is NOT bitter.
There are other examples. The only thing I can think of is that there is so much late addition hop that it is in essence covering up the bitterness. And what I should do is should do is target 90% of perceived IBU (63 in this case) as the bittering addition, then work on flavor. But this will still mean that my theoretical IBUs are going to be in the 120 range, which seems kinda crazy. I could just trust my palate and adjust recipes accordingly, but I really would like to understand what's going on.
Thoughts? I'm swimming in pale ales!!
Cheers!
Nanoman
The problem of the day: Where in the heck is my bitterness?!
I cannot for the life of me seem to get a decent firm hop bitterness in my IPAs. At best, they taste like pale ales. And becasue they are not designed to be pale ales, the balance isn't right. The vast majority of my low IBU beers (12-30), and my stouts, come out as expected.
I use the EZ calculator for setting pH and ions. My water is very soft and low carbonate. I use ProMash for recipe formulation. Mitch Steel, in his new book, IPAs, discusses several times how pH dropping during fermentation can result in a 25 - 30% loss in IBUs. My beers actually taste like that. For example, a 65 IBU IPA will taste more like 45 IBU to me. Sierra Nevada confirmed to me that Celebration Ale is 65 IBU at the bottle, lab tested. So I kinda use that as my "calibration beer".
I realize this is palate subjective, but I know when the beer is not as bitter as I expect. . By way of example, a beer I racked this AM has a theoretical IBU of 106 (assuming 30% loss that should be just above 70 IBU). OG 1.066. 64 theoretical IBU come from the 90 and 60" additions, with 42.1 coming from 30 - 1" additions. FG 1.012. Beer pH 4.64. This should be bitter, and while tasty, it is NOT bitter.
There are other examples. The only thing I can think of is that there is so much late addition hop that it is in essence covering up the bitterness. And what I should do is should do is target 90% of perceived IBU (63 in this case) as the bittering addition, then work on flavor. But this will still mean that my theoretical IBUs are going to be in the 120 range, which seems kinda crazy. I could just trust my palate and adjust recipes accordingly, but I really would like to understand what's going on.
Thoughts? I'm swimming in pale ales!!
Cheers!
Nanoman
Dropping pH is a natural part of fermentation and has a direct impact (one of many) on the solubility of isoalphacids *(and thus IBU). My pH on finished beer is still on the high side, but is dropping as I get more comfortable with acid additions. As for recipe, right now I am automatically bumping theoretical IBU 30% to account for all losses (ferment, hop age, etc.). So far, this has greatly improved the beers. 
