I always have hops left over from different brews. I have a recipe that I keep repeating. My question is, can I mix and match hops to reach my IBU number without changing the taste of the recipe.
It may change your beer slightly depending on the hop and it’s attributes, but it can be done. Look at it this way breweries do it ALL the time. :cheers:
If you are using them strictly at 45-60 minutes for bittering chances are you won’t notice. If you start adding them late it will make a noticeable difference, based on the types. For example if you add 1 oz of cascade at 5 mins rather than fuggles you are going to get a major difference.
That’s what I thought but I wanted to make sure. Mostly I add bittering at 60 min. Then add flavoring and aroma hops late.
You make up your own recipes? What I did before buying hops in bulk was repackage left over hops from kits and develop recipes around them with grains that I had.
I don’t do kits, I make my recipes. I grow some hops and buy some. I have a local brew store that will put together my grain bill and crush for 1.65 lb. So I don’t usually have leftover grains.I keep my hops in the freezer. I usually have some hops around though. The one thing I do is design my beers around the hops I grow even if I have to buy hops I tend to use those types I grow. I have some nugget growing that I thought I would use for bittering but then maybe I would be better off using pellets to get better control of the IBU
There is some difference in the quality of bittering between different hops…for instance, Magnum will give you a much smoother bitterness than Chinook. But to just use up hops, I don’t think it’s gonna make a world of difference.
