i have a large volume of fermented English IPA. its too far on the malty-side for my taste… I want to add hop bitterness to balance the beer out. my idea is to blend a small amount of incredibly hoppy beer to the large volume of malty beer to hopefully achieve that balance.
can 1 gallon of 1.040 beer, hopped with 2oz of warrior, boiled for 60 min really absorb 200+ IBUs as Promash tells me? I understand that it is hard to taste more than 100 IBUs but can this method give me a bitter little beer to blend with the 18 gallons of malty beer to have this effect?
Bitterness level are limited by iso-alpha-acid solubility in wort. If you are brewing only one gallon of wort and using 2 oz or Warrior hops, your iso-alpha-acid solubility will be limited to one gallon of wort.
So as you throw this little portion of beer to 18 gallons the alpha acids will be diluted and little bitterness will be added to the final beer.
The typical maximum solubility for iso-alpha acid in wort is around 80 ppm (aka: IBU). So regardless of what the formulas tell you, you will only end up in that range if you hop up a wort.
Does this mean the remaining alpha acids are not in the wort? I think of salt in water. Once you reach saturation, the salt won’t dissolve further and undissolved salt remains. Is it the same case here; the acids are there but not in solution?
I once heard that “claims without lab analyses equal estimates”. Having said that, as many of you know, multiple factors affects hop utilization, such as wort ph, wort gravity, fermentation, aging,also you can loss of alpha acid when trub sticks to fermenter walls, bitter acids adhere to yeast cells or when beer is filtered.
okay. so just to clarify… I have 18 gallons of a 1.114 malt bomb. thereare only 42 IBUs in this beer. (still fermenting) promash tells me that 2oz of hops boiled for 60 min results in 200 or so IBUs. if I increase the “batch size” 200IBUs in 1 gallon turn into 42 IBUs at 18 gallons. this is what im going for. if I can add another 42 IBUs, that would bring me up to 80ish IBUs and come closer to having a balanced beer
I understand that the human palate cant really detect more than 100 IBUs but does that mean they arnt there? if I can dissolve 200 units of acid into a gallon of wort, will it dilute evenly into a larger volume of beer?
obviously, I will wait until this beer is finished fermenting. hopefully I can get her down to 1.035 or a little lower. after tasting, I can make this gallon of beer and begin the blending experiment. I will update this thread and let you guys know how it went. I hope this turns into a happy accident
Assume you can get 100 IBUs in the beer you’re going to add to the 18 gallons at 42 IBUs. A gallon of the 100 IBU beer will boost the total IBUs by about 5 or (100/(18+1)). You could add two gallons of 100 IBU beer and then dryhop the (now) 20 gallons with several oz per fermenter and probably make it more palatable.
Next time pay attention to the BU:GU ratio. Then you won’t have to try and fix something like this. Personally I’d dry hop some and drink some plain. I have days when I like a malt-forward beer.
[quote=“abrown001”]I would try adding isomerized hop extract to the fermenter.[/quote]Can you add the extract without boiling it? Seems like the oil would just sit in clumps or stick to the sides and not mix in very well.
even when you boil it you have little black BB’s in your kettle and fermenter, scared the shit out of me the first time I used hop shots…Not sure about just adding it to fermenter, probably depends when it is added pre fermentation I assume would be best
If you want to go the blending route just make something hoppy and blend to your liking. IBU chart is a very loose guide. Your best bet is probably not to blend it all at once.
