I recall a recent thread on this but couldn’t find it. Maybe it was just a tangent in an unrelated post.
I have a pale ale just about fully carbed on tap. I did a light bittering with Magnum, then the rest of the hops went in at whirlpool. I do my whirlpool at 170F for 30 minutes. By then the temp is down to about 165F. Anyway… in my calculations I’ve been using 5% for the utilization number. After tasting this latest beer I think I will just plug in 0% for utilization. The 5% figure tricks me into not using enough of a bittering charge at 60 min. The flavor and aroma is there, just a little wimpy on the bitterness. I think next time I will bump up the amount of whirlpool hops too. Why not, right?
You guys who do beers this way, do you bother with predicting IBUs from the whirlpool? How much are you using in the whirlpool for an APA? Or an IPA? This particular one was 14 grams of Magnum at 60, 40 grams each of Cascade and Centennial at 170/30. Next time I think I’ll go 28g magnum at 60, and 60g each of cascade and centennial. (6 gallon batch)
I don’t calculate any more when I add at 170-175F, Jim. I just don’t think it’s enough difference to modify your bittering additions. For hop forward beers I add all my target IBUs @ 60, and steep 4-5 (occasionally 6) oz for APA, and 8-12 oz for AIPA. Intensity of hop varieties dictates the lower or higher end of the the spectrums. The IPA numbers sound like a lot (and are) but like I’ve posted, a lot of pre-whirlpool recipes showed 2 oz (sometimes more) added each @ 15, 10, 5 ,0 minutes. I just use the mindset of adding whatever I used to add late boil into the whirlpool.
EDIT - Obviously if you steep a good bit warmer than that, you’re extracting more bitterness and would need to account for it.
Yeah, all the information I’ve found suggests about a 10% utilization factor when added at flameout. Since the smaller kettles we use cool faster with the lower thermal mass, we won’t get the 15% and up that the pros do. I’m pretty sure that BeerSmith’s calculation for steep/whirlpool assumes about that percentage.
Personally I don’t throw the hops in until after I’ve cooled the wort to about 165F. In Beersmith you can set the utilization factor for steeped/whirlpooled hops to whatever you like.
It is good to hear this feedback. I was under the assumption that more bitterness was extracted even at these temps. My current APA is wimpy and not bitter enough because I was too dependent on the IBU figure. It seems that I just need to adjust my bittering hops and leave everything else alone.
To go one step further, when I steep at 170F, it is specifically because I don’t want to get any IBUs from that addition. This allows me to really dial in my bittering separately without having to make a WAG about utilization from my hop stand. You can adjust your flavor and IBUs completely separately that way.
Lets say i brew an AIPA- in fact lets use the beauty in my secondary right now…
.75 warrior FWH
2oz mosaic, citra and galaxy Whirlpool 172-178 for 45 min
dry hopped with 1oz mosaic, citra, galaxy and summer
if i were to enter this into the AIPA category the minimum IBUs is 40. If the program I used is correct, the warrior additions in First wort were only 33. If all the additions in whirlpool dont account for any IBUs, I dont meet the criteria for an AIPA- however after smelling and tasting it after racking to secondary prior to dryhopping, there is no doubt that its an AIPA…
First off, there are IBUs that theoretically calculate at that temp, I just don’t perceive them enough to account for them. However the hop flavor obtained in the steep is big, so you’d definitely perceive that as a jump in ‘hoppiness’. Are you just tasting all the extra hop flavor that makes it taste IPA-like, or do you really feel it’s more bitter ? +1 to Steve and Jon’s comments as well.
For a while I have figured the whirlpool hop additions as contributing IBUs equivalent to what they would be if boiled for 50% of the time. So a 20-minute whirlpool bitters the same as a 10-minute boil addition, etc. In practice now, I think it’s a little bit less than this, maybe 25-33% as much. So maybe I should be figuring that 20-minute whirlpool as 5 or 7 minutes boiled instead. It’s a decent ballpark figure anyway, and doesn’t allow you to lie to yourself that they’re contributing nothing, as they most certainly are a factor!!
Experiments have been run by folks with no boil hops at all, just pure flameout and whirlpool additions, and they can still get tons of IBUs just from these additions if they use enough; they don’t taste unbittered by any stretch. I might have to give this a try myself sometime.
Temp is the tricky variable though, Dave. You extract much more bitterness at say flameout or even 200F than you would at 170-175F. Added bitterness seems little to none at those lower temps IMO. Software just hasn’t caught up to this idea yet.
