High Cohumulone Hops = Harsh Bitterness?

Yes, i've encountered that when trying to get too many ibus from your bittering charge, especially when using columbus or chinook for bittering. If you back off your bittering charge and bump up your late addition hops to derive more biterness from the late hop additions (15 minutes to flameout), that might solve your problem.

 

Or you could use a hop variety that contributes a cleaner bitterness for your 60 minute addition such as warrior or magnum.

 

try < 2oz FWH for a 10 gal batch (~12-14%AA) and "unbump" the gypsum

 

You changed the hops varieties and dosing rates. Elaborate. These could have big impacts, probably more so than the gypsum, unless you and I have really different opinions on what a slight bump is.

 

Before you decided that it is the hops, I would think about how much your IBUs changed from previous versions of your IPA. From what I have read, the cohumulone = harshness is not based on anything "solid"

 

Cohumulone myth debunked by modern science

http://www.barthhaasgroup.com/johbarth/images/pdfs/2009_BWI_Cohumulon.pdf

I have no idea which hop characteristics makes a smooth or rough bittering hop, but Columbus leans towards the rough side for me. Equinox and Azacca are smooth.

 

Cohumulone does get blamed for harsh bitterness, I guess that has been debunked, I did not read the link.

I will say that I find Columbus to have the "harsh" bitterness. I only brewed with Azacca once but I did find that bitterness to be "smooth". Bravo and Warrior are two other high alpha hops that I find "smooth". Give those a try instead.

Also, not trying to pick on you but I thought it was funny that "10th iteration and I changed almost everything that makes and IPA an IPA and it was not like the others." Perhaps the changes were not as dramatic as I envisioned.

 

I wasn't at this presentation. There is enough evidence out there that you just get more bitterness due to higher solubility so cohumulone that I don't buy into the thinking.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/presentations/pdf/2014/Cohumulone Friend or Foe.pdf

 

Jeff (@hopfenunmaltz), I did not attend that presentation either but the following bullets make sense to me:

· Survival of the pH drop during fermentation. More iso – co - Humulone survives the drop.

· Tasters obviously found the more bitter beer....more bitter.

Makes sense to me.

Cheers!

 

OK science people, what does this bullet point mean? "Survival of the pH drop during fermentation. More iso – co - Humulone survives the drop"

I know that the pH falls during fermentation. Is this suggesting that the other iso-acids precipitate out of the beer as the pH falls? And that the iso-cohumulone doesn't precipitate as much? Or is there something else going on?

 

You pretty much have it.

 

How high did you bump up your gypsum?? What was your gypsum:chloride ratio??

I've found high gypsum ppm's to be related to harsh bitterness in IPAs. This is why I really lie loading up on cacl in IPAs and keep gypsum lower.

Also how long did your FO hops sit in the kettle warm? Did you just shut the flame off and let the beer naturally chill to 170??

 

That 30 minutes that your wort sits around 205f is extracting almost as much bitterness as 30 minutes of boiling so I think that's part of it. Also having that higher sulfate level is gonna make your bitterness more pointed and harsh than if you had a higher CaCl level. 200ppm CaCl and 100 ppm gypsum would definitely help round out your bitterness. I usually do a 10-15 minute hot steep at FO.

I shut the flame off. Add the hops, and just let them sit for 10-15 before chilling to 180 for a lower temp steep. I stopped using bittering hops with this method because that hot steep extracts a lot of bitterness. I typically will add 4-9 oz of hops at FO on my hoppy beers in 5 gallons.

 

I'm about to find out if I did my hop additions right too. Even more in that I used whole hops for my first time. But I added the vast majority of them after flame out and started the chill after about 30 - 40 minutes for whirlpool and rest.
I think most that bitterness you're not liking is going to be picked up because of the temperature you're holding it at is too close to being a boil. I suspect the water is still too vigorous and volatiles are getting converted and you're losing their flavor and aromatic potential. You don't want anything to be released, per se. You just want them in motion.

 

The programs don't know the best time to add your salts. You have to tell them. Some default to building your sparge/kettle salts to the same concentrations as the mash. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, so BrewCipher doesn't do that.

If you want to affect the mash pH, add salts to the mash. If you want to affect flavor without affecting mash pH, add them to the kettle. If you add enough salts to the mash to hit the pH you want, but also want more flavor impact than that amount of salts will provide, add salts to the kettle also.

 

Acid works fine if you have too much Alkalinity. If you don't have a high amount of alkalinity Lactic acid works, but if too much is used you can get a lactic flavor, phosphoric acid does not have the flavor issue.