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Hi, I have my beer brewed at a local brewery for my beer company where 50% of profits go to charity.
I had the brewery scale up a home brew recipe that a local brew shop developed and I approved. Upon scale up, the 30 barrel recipe basically called for 7 lbs of Magnum at the beginning of the boil for bittering and 22lbs of El Dorado at the end of the boil for flavoring and 22lbs of El Dorado in dry hop. The beer came out very bitter with little aroma and little flavor and alot of bitter. In trying to figure out why, I learned it takes about 1.5 hours from the end of the boil till the last bit of wort is cooled. That basically means the 22lbs of El Dorado I assumed was flavoring hops sat at a near boil for 1.5 hours, effectively becoming bittering hops, giving bitterness but no flavor because most/ all of the aroma would have been driven off. I am assuming this is the main cause.
I am strategizing how to not let this happen again. I want the beer to come out full of flavor, but not too bitter.
What I am planning on doing is:
1. Use no hops at all during the boil.
2. At flameout, Whirlpool then hop with enough hops to hit my IBU target (This will sit in hot wort for a total of 60 min as the wort gets heat exchanged, however a decreasing amount of hot wort)
3. Transfer and cool about half of the wort to the fermentor
4. Add flavoring hops, re-whirlpool, then transfer and cool the remainder of the wort. (This will sit in hot wort for a total of 30 min as the wort gets heat exchanged, however a decreasing amount of hot wort)
Thirty minutes in hot wort still seems like a lot of time iso the alpha acids and produce alot of bitterness, especially with the El Dorado, Simco, and Citra I will be using, all of which have pretty high AAs.
My though is to use older hops, CY 2014 or maybe even CY 2013, because they will have much lower AAs. I have no experience using older hops, but from what I have read if professionally prepared and stored (nitrogen, foil, refrigerated), the flavoring stays in tact (some sources have stated flavor actually goes up with the myrcene breaking down into its intermediaries (not sure if this is true)) and the AAs drop. By old I don't mean aged like lambic hops, merely sealed, properly stored hops that have been sitting in a freezer somewhere.
Anyone with any experience using older hops or any advice on how to get late addition hops not to bitter, please let me know. Thanks so much for following along!
I had the brewery scale up a home brew recipe that a local brew shop developed and I approved. Upon scale up, the 30 barrel recipe basically called for 7 lbs of Magnum at the beginning of the boil for bittering and 22lbs of El Dorado at the end of the boil for flavoring and 22lbs of El Dorado in dry hop. The beer came out very bitter with little aroma and little flavor and alot of bitter. In trying to figure out why, I learned it takes about 1.5 hours from the end of the boil till the last bit of wort is cooled. That basically means the 22lbs of El Dorado I assumed was flavoring hops sat at a near boil for 1.5 hours, effectively becoming bittering hops, giving bitterness but no flavor because most/ all of the aroma would have been driven off. I am assuming this is the main cause.
I am strategizing how to not let this happen again. I want the beer to come out full of flavor, but not too bitter.
What I am planning on doing is:
1. Use no hops at all during the boil.
2. At flameout, Whirlpool then hop with enough hops to hit my IBU target (This will sit in hot wort for a total of 60 min as the wort gets heat exchanged, however a decreasing amount of hot wort)
3. Transfer and cool about half of the wort to the fermentor
4. Add flavoring hops, re-whirlpool, then transfer and cool the remainder of the wort. (This will sit in hot wort for a total of 30 min as the wort gets heat exchanged, however a decreasing amount of hot wort)
Thirty minutes in hot wort still seems like a lot of time iso the alpha acids and produce alot of bitterness, especially with the El Dorado, Simco, and Citra I will be using, all of which have pretty high AAs.
My though is to use older hops, CY 2014 or maybe even CY 2013, because they will have much lower AAs. I have no experience using older hops, but from what I have read if professionally prepared and stored (nitrogen, foil, refrigerated), the flavoring stays in tact (some sources have stated flavor actually goes up with the myrcene breaking down into its intermediaries (not sure if this is true)) and the AAs drop. By old I don't mean aged like lambic hops, merely sealed, properly stored hops that have been sitting in a freezer somewhere.
Anyone with any experience using older hops or any advice on how to get late addition hops not to bitter, please let me know. Thanks so much for following along!
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