I’m curious about the use of the Hopshot in recipes such as the Pliney NB clone. Also hear that Heady Topper uses it too.
It looks like these recipes call for approx 100 IBU just from the hopshot. Then, as in the Pliney NB clone, you get approx 75 IBU from the boiled hops, as well as what I would estimate as an additional 25-30 IBU at least from the whirlpool additions.
If the working assumption is still that there is a threshhold for hop utilization of approx 100 total IBU, do you really need/want to use that much Hopshot up front?
Hop extracts are used by commercial breweries to minimize the amount of vegetal matter that will be present throughout the boil in extremely hoppy beers. We’re talking pounds and pounds of hops.
Neither Heady or Pliny have heavy bittering hop additions. The magic in those beers comes from the late additions. For a 5G batch, you are probably talking about an ounce or so of bittering, so I don’t know if this is really a concern on the homebrew scale, but as Friar Tuck says, who are we to argue? :mrgreen:
[quote=“Pietro”]Hop extracts are used by commercial breweries to minimize the amount of vegetal matter that will be present throughout the boil in extremely hoppy beers. We’re talking pounds and pounds of hops.
Neither Heady or Pliny have heavy bittering hop additions. The magic in those beers comes from the late additions. For a 5G batch, you are probably talking about an ounce or so of bittering, so I don’t know if this is really a concern on the homebrew scale, but as Friar Tuck says, who are we to argue? :mrgreen: [/quote]
Yes, I understand the benefit of cutting down on hop matter for commercial brewers. But I’m just wondering why the need to use so much extract for bittering. Obviously they know what they are doing. And I’m sure they have an eye on production cost too. So I would guess that if they could get by with say, half that amount of bittering from extract, they would. Just seems like overkill though, considering all the late hop bittering contribution. They are basically saturating the wort with maximal alpha acid soulubility just with the extract.
[quote=“Steeler D”][quote=“Pietro”]Hop extracts are used by commercial breweries to minimize the amount of vegetal matter that will be present throughout the boil in extremely hoppy beers. We’re talking pounds and pounds of hops.
Neither Heady or Pliny have heavy bittering hop additions. The magic in those beers comes from the late additions. For a 5G batch, you are probably talking about an ounce or so of bittering, so I don’t know if this is really a concern on the homebrew scale, but as Friar Tuck says, who are we to argue? :mrgreen: [/quote]
Yes, I understand the benefit of cutting down on hop matter for commercial brewers. But I’m just wondering why the need to use so much extract for bittering. Obviously they know what they are doing. And I’m sure they have an eye on production cost too. So I would guess that if they could get by with say, half that amount of bittering from extract, they would. Just seems like overkill though, considering all the late hop bittering contribution. They are basically saturating the wort with maximal alpha acid soulubility just with the extract.[/quote]
I’m not convinced the recipe kit being sold on NB is 100% accurate to the way its made at Russian River. Are you asking why Russian River uses it or why NB put so much in their kit/recipe?
First, full disclosure: I have never had the pleasure of tasting either Pliney or Heady. Hopefully I will have to opportunity to change that.
Yes, I am curious why so much of the hopshot is used. I have seen a very similar amount recommended in clone recipes for Heady, just like the NB clone for Pliney. So, the 100 IBU contribution from the extract seems to be accepted.
It could be that they are trying to get rid of an overstock of hopshot? Maybe they have a contract with the company that produces the hopshot? Maybe the person who formulated the recipe tried it and liked the results so stuck with it? I was not aware of a maximum threshold of 100IBU’s. I assume that’s just perceived bitterness and not actual measured bitterness?
Its the maximum ppm that is soluble in wort. You could play around with your brewing software and based on the rager/tinseth formulas, you will have more calculated IBUs (based on the math), but 100IBU is the maximum that can be dissolved if I understand it correctly.
Vinnie shared the recipe awhile ago: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/ … bleIPA.pdf I think he may have made a few alterations over time with some hop varieties but I made it per the instructions and it was a very good DIPA. There is A LOT of hops so I’d suggest upping your boil volume to account for losses both in the boil kettle and in the fermenter (2 rounds of dry hops suck up a good amount of beer).
Maybe they don’t want to screw around with estimations of IBU from whirlpooling, so they just slam it with extract and know that they are topping out at maximum bitterness.
BTW Flip, (and with all due respect to Siouxer, Blatz and any others) your doggie avatar is my personal fav.
The recipe calls for way more bittering hops than I had ever used but I blindly followed the recipe. Granted it was a DIPA but I expected the bitterness to be brutal but it was pretty balanced (again with the perspective it is a DIPA).
:cheers: That is my little buddy, the real ‘Flip’, when he was barking at me to play about 6 years ago. He has since passed away but we’re back to two whippets when we added another boy last fall.
