Best Bittering Hop

Amarillo hops work very well with Citra in my experience. My other favorites for bittering include columbus, centennial and chinook.

 

I have never heard or seen reference to temperature increase under high krausen. Makes a fair amount of sense and seems like a pretty important tidbit. I will look into this. Thanks

 

Fermentation is exothermic in general (not just a high krausen). But the more active, the more exothermic.

 

Back on topic...

Any bittering hops to avoid b/c they're too harsh?
Cohumulone allegedly plays a role.
What's the threshold?

 

Hops high in Cohumulone are said by some to impart a 'harsher' bitterness, and 25% or 30% Cohumulone (as a percentage of total Alpha Acids) are sometimes said to be where the harsh effect becomes noticeable. So if you subscribe to this idea, avoid bittering hops where cohumulone is greater than 25%. This would eliminate a lot of the commonly used american hops. Personally I don't worry about it.

 

I'm partial to Columbus. It works pretty good for bittering, flavoring, aroma, and dry hopping. Plus, the price and availability make it even more attractive. I'm of the KISS school of brewing.

 

Last year I bought a pound of magnum so I used magnum for all my bittering needs. I was very happy w/ magnum but I just ran out. I'll probably try something else this year just to mix things up.

So, I can strongly recommend magnum as a bittering hop.

 

Cascade cohumulone ranges between 35 and 40.
Anyone think bittering w/Cascade makes for a harsh brew?

 

I do, I have never been a fan of cascades as a bittering addition.

 

You also have about 17% of your malt bill as crystal malt. Crystal malt is less fermentable and will leave behind sweetness. 17% crystal is typically viewed as far to much for a DIPA. That coupled with your extract and lack of added dextrose contributed to an overly sweet beer. Try limiting your crystal to less than 10% next time.

 

I've bittered with cascades a few times and have never been particularly impressed with the results.

 

I have made all Cascade brews several times. I tend to agree with HB42 with that the bittering quality is not all that great with just Cascades, if one is shooting for an American IPA or PA.

 

Warrior or magnum...the only way to go for big IPA's! I would avoid the Crystal malt, and in the last 10 min of boil dump 1lb of corn sugar. Oxygenate, oxygenate, oxygenate and then throw the farm at it with Wyeast 1056 for 5 gal batch...at least 3 smack packs......

 

IIRC, Pacific Gem has Cohumulone levels at close to 40%, but I've been loving them as a bittering hop lately, after using them as a bittering addition in a mild, biere de garde, IPA, and two very different porters in the past few months. It has a real swagger to it; it'll fill your mouth with a broad bitterness, but it isn't rough at all.

 

I like CTZ much better than Magnum for bittering IPAs, Magnum just doesn't seem to have enough character for me. I'm running some experiments with 1 gallon batches to see what I like better. I brewed both a Warrior and a Bravo IPA last night. Late additions were all the same (mixed Citra, Simcoe, Centennial, Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin, and El Dorado together and added at 20, 15, 10, 5, 2, and 0). I used 2.5 oz total hops for each 1 gallon batch, good thing I did too because I lost too much water to boil off and had to add 4 cups of water at the end to get gravity down to around 1.060, partial boils kill IBUs. I'm using WLP090, I've never failed to get 80+% attenuation on 1.060+ OG batches in 3-4 days with that, even when using extract.

 

Horizon is also a clean bittering hop.

Some beers I make use Cluster for bittering. It has a nice black currant flavor if not too old. Some hops do have a flavor contribution when used at 60 min.

 

Im a big fan if Millennium for bittering. It's very mild and pleasant.

 

You used two pounds of crystal malt and no sugar in a IIPA. That's a lot of crystal malt, especially given that the extract should have some crystal in it too. I'm certainly not one of those people who think every IPA or IIPA should be crystal malt free and dry as a bone from tons off added sugar, but your recipe had "Sweet, almost to the point of cloying" built into it from the start. A little sugar is good for a DIPA, as well as less than two pounds of crystal.

EDIT: just saw the date on the OP, lol.

Well for bittering I haven't played around enough to know for sure, so I've been using whatever high AA hops I have handy, usually belma or bravo, columbus a few times. I'm about to open a bag of magnum, so we'll see where that takes us. I would say that anything lower AA doesn't seem to do as good of a job, even if you use an equivalent amount of AA worth of the weaker hop. 11%+ seems to be much better, although exactly which one is best probably boils at least partly down to taste.

I would agree that cascade as a bittering hop is less than optimal, it's more of a flavor and aroma hop.