Looking for participants for a hop experiment. We'll need at least 6 brewers to brew exactly the same beer except for the hopping schedule. Below are some ideas distilled from the Facebook thread:
- use Ozarka, or some other water from the store. They may vary a bit batch to batch, but they should be fairly close
- include a baseline of bittering from a clean hop like magnum or willammette
- hop bursting in the last 10 mins or so plus a dose of dry hops with the hop under investigation. That way, the recipe IBU's aren't driven by a low AA hop
- not using any carmel/crystal malt in the recipe
- all extract, so more people can participate and there are less variables in the process
- bottle only
- keep very good notes. I'm thinking of sending these beers and results to James Spencer at Basic Brewing Radio/Video so he can discuss it on his Podcast. I may even write up a small bit for BrewYourOwn magazine, but would joyfully delegate this task to a gooder writer...
- the ingredients from Northern Brewer:
NB Gold Malt Syrup 6.0 lbs.
NB Munich Malt Syrup 3.15 lbs.
Briess Caramel 40L - crushed
White Labs WLP001 California Ale
And you'll need hop pellets. Feel free to choose another if you want:
Chinook [Bobby]
Cascade
Hallertau
Fuggle
Goldings
Saaz [John]
The amount you'll need in ounces will follow this equation so that the IBUs will be the same in each batch:
hops in ounces = 8.8/AA [60 minute addition]
= 2.5/AA [10 minute addition]
Plus another 1/4 oz at flame out. AA is the alpha acid content of the variety you choose. For example, for AA=4.4%, you'll need 2 oz for the 60 minute addition, and so on.
- I hope we all have a 20 qt brew-pot, as this will make an important impact on hop utilization if we all use separate sizes. Assuming we do, this is how I'm going to do this batch:
malts/grains
6# gold LME
0.4# Munich LME
0.6# crushed Caramel
This will give something like 7*35=245 gravity units, which gives a starting gravity of 1 + 0.245/5.5 ~ 1.045.
hops
60min [see above]
10min
0min
yeast
WLP001
water
------TBD--------
Instructions:
-add 1.5 g of water to brew pot
-bring water in pot to ~150F and steep the caramel malt for 45 min in grain bag
-remove grain and add 1.5 g additional water
-bring to boil
-add LME
-return to boil
60 min hops
10 min hops
0 min hops
*-cool as rapidly as possible (ice bath?)
-pitch yeast when T~75F
*-keep yeast at or near 75F overnight
-drop temp to 68 for next 3 days
-return to 75 for days 4-7
-transfer after 7 days
-bottle after day 14
The asterisks symbolize a couple of the variables here, as we all cool and ferment under different conditions. But at the end of the day, we shouldn't get too serious, and should instead relax and have a home brew.
I haven't brewed this batch yet, so if someone else beats me to it or sees problems with the above, please post.
Oh of course, top off the batch and aerate (by dumping batch back and forth, for us low-techers) before pitching yeast. You should need about 2.5 gallons.
- could also use yeast nutrient and something like whirlock or Irish moss, but I don't think it's necessary, since we're not competing, but let me know...
- the cool-down shouldn't matter too much as long as an ice-bath, wort chiller, etc. is used.
- Correction to the above recipe: replace the 60min hop addition with Magnum for all recipes; only the 10min will differ. Cool?
- There is no better way to experience the true hop character (aside from eating them) than to dry hop. I think that everything after 10 mins should be subject to artistic license. As we discussed this weekend, hop bursting is a great way to fill the beer with hops without bittering it. Dry hopping will only help this.
- Then how about ~4 days in the secondary with 1 oz of the hop in each of our recipes? The transfer schedule might then go as:
primary : 7 days
secondary (w/hop pellets) : 4 days
tertiary (to clarify; fun to use that word) : 7 days
Of course, we can go a lot crazier when/if we do some IPA's, but that would be better done in a competition format, instead of an experiment.
- I recommend 67F for primary to reduce ester production, which could work against a hop-to-hop comparison. >= 67F while dry-hopping.
- If you can't control your ferment temp, then the ambient should be reported to help identify any variations in flavor due to that.
- I think 45 pts will provide a good backbone without masking the character of the hops.
Looking for participants for a hop experiment. We'll need at least 6 brewers to brew exactly the same beer except for the hopping schedule. Below are some ideas distilled from the Facebook thread:
- use Ozarka, or some other water from the store. They may vary a bit batch to batch, but they should be fairly close
- include a baseline of bittering from a clean hop like magnum or willammette
- hop bursting in the last 10 mins or so plus a dose of dry hops with the hop under investigation. That way, the recipe IBU's aren't driven by a low AA hop
- not using any carmel/crystal malt in the recipe
- all extract, so more people can participate and there are less variables in the process
- bottle only
- keep very good notes. I'm thinking of sending these beers and results to James Spencer at Basic Brewing Radio/Video so he can discuss it on his Podcast. I may even write up a small bit for BrewYourOwn magazine, but would joyfully delegate this task to a gooder writer...
- the ingredients from Northern Brewer:
NB Gold Malt Syrup 6.0 lbs.
NB Munich Malt Syrup 3.15 lbs.
Briess Caramel 40L - crushed
White Labs WLP001 California Ale
And you'll need hop pellets. Feel free to choose another if you want:
Chinook [Bobby]
Cascade
Hallertau
Fuggle
Goldings
Saaz [John]
The amount you'll need in ounces will follow this equation so that the IBUs will be the same in each batch:
hops in ounces = 8.8/AA [60 minute addition]
= 2.5/AA [10 minute addition]
Plus another 1/4 oz at flame out. AA is the alpha acid content of the variety you choose. For example, for AA=4.4%, you'll need 2 oz for the 60 minute addition, and so on.
- I hope we all have a 20 qt brew-pot, as this will make an important impact on hop utilization if we all use separate sizes. Assuming we do, this is how I'm going to do this batch:
malts/grains
6# gold LME
0.4# Munich LME
0.6# crushed Caramel
This will give something like 7*35=245 gravity units, which gives a starting gravity of 1 + 0.245/5.5 ~ 1.045.
hops
60min [see above]
10min
0min
yeast
WLP001
water
------TBD--------
Instructions:
-add 1.5 g of water to brew pot
-bring water in pot to ~150F and steep the caramel malt for 45 min in grain bag
-remove grain and add 1.5 g additional water
-bring to boil
-add LME
-return to boil
60 min hops
10 min hops
0 min hops
*-cool as rapidly as possible (ice bath?)
-pitch yeast when T~75F
*-keep yeast at or near 75F overnight
-drop temp to 68 for next 3 days
-return to 75 for days 4-7
-transfer after 7 days
-bottle after day 14
The asterisks symbolize a couple of the variables here, as we all cool and ferment under different conditions. But at the end of the day, we shouldn't get too serious, and should instead relax and have a home brew.
I haven't brewed this batch yet, so if someone else beats me to it or sees problems with the above, please post.
Oh of course, top off the batch and aerate (by dumping batch back and forth, for us low-techers) before pitching yeast. You should need about 2.5 gallons.
- could also use yeast nutrient and something like whirlock or Irish moss, but I don't think it's necessary, since we're not competing, but let me know...
- the cool-down shouldn't matter too much as long as an ice-bath, wort chiller, etc. is used.
- Correction to the above recipe: replace the 60min hop addition with Magnum for all recipes; only the 10min will differ. Cool?
- There is no better way to experience the true hop character (aside from eating them) than to dry hop. I think that everything after 10 mins should be subject to artistic license. As we discussed this weekend, hop bursting is a great way to fill the beer with hops without bittering it. Dry hopping will only help this.
- Then how about ~4 days in the secondary with 1 oz of the hop in each of our recipes? The transfer schedule might then go as:
primary : 7 days
secondary (w/hop pellets) : 4 days
tertiary (to clarify; fun to use that word) : 7 days
Of course, we can go a lot crazier when/if we do some IPA's, but that would be better done in a competition format, instead of an experiment.
- I recommend 67F for primary to reduce ester production, which could work against a hop-to-hop comparison. >= 67F while dry-hopping.
- If you can't control your ferment temp, then the ambient should be reported to help identify any variations in flavor due to that.
- I think 45 pts will provide a good backbone without masking the character of the hops.
