I am finding that REAL Hoppy beers just aren't to my taste,but I make a German Bock Beer ,recipe posted below and I really love this beer.Now I don't really want to tweek this recipe but on cutting back on my other recipes on hops ,,how much cut back at a time,,1/2 ounce or less? http://www.wtv-zone.com/Larry82052/Beer/GermanBock.htm
The term "hoppy" can have multiple meanings. "Hoppy" can mean bitterness (e.g., IBUs) "Hoppy" can mean hop flavor. "Hoppy" can mean hop aroma. The aspects of flavor and aroma can be heavily interrelated; I will often state flavor/aroma in my posts. Which of the "hoppy's" above are not really to your taste? Cheers!
I apologize I meant to say the bitterness hops is the one I really am not liking,some is ok but not a lot!!
If you are looking to ‘manage’ the bitterness level than a better metric is AAUs (Alpha Acid Units) vs. just weight of a given hop. https://www.jaysbrewing.com/2012/06/21/what-are-aaus-how-do-i-calculate-them/ The AAU is a combination of hop amount and the Alpha Acids of a particular lot of hops. For example the recipe for the German Bock you recently brewed has one hop addition: · 1 oz. Tettnanger for bittering (60 minute boil) I recently brewed a Kolsch using Tettnanger and those hops were 3.1% Alpha Acids. If we use this value for your beer that means your German Bock had 1 oz. x 3.1% = 3.1 AAUs. That is a pretty low value for most beers. So maybe for you producing a beer with 3.1 AAUs is a good target? Other things to keep in mind: · Other hop additions (flavor hop additions) will add some bitterness to the beer · A desirable level of bitterness will likely vary with a given beer style. You might find that brewing an APA with only 3.1 AAUs will taste insipid. Do you use any brewing software? There is a free online recipe calculator on the Brewers Friend website: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/ Cheers!
What is your boil size? The extracted bitterness is a function of the amount of alpha acid in the hops, the amount of hops, the time boiled, and the gravity of the boil. When I use someone's recipe I find that I always have to tweak the recipes for the desired bitterness/aroma/flavor. If it is the bitterness that you are trying to get rid of, basically the higher Alpha Acid in the bittering hops (45-90 minute additions) the less you have to take away for a noticeable effect. Tettnanger hops are low to moderate alpha acid, so you may need to take more away for your effect. Traditional Bock has a BU:GU ratio typical of 0.36, the range of Tettnang hops is 3-6%. You are very close with your recipe if you are doing a partial boil (Ie 2.5-3.0 gallons). If you are doing 5 gallon boils your boil gravity is going to be diluted and you will extract much more bitterness.
I realize I have a long way to go on Beer brewing.My boil size is 5 gallons and following my original book recipe to the letter,and that beer was fabulous,can't wait to taste it.I know I need to start allowing about 1/2 gallon more so I allow for boil off,I can't imagine loosing 1/2 gallon to boil off but I know I need to make allowances.Lots of great info here,thanks guys,I do my best trying to remember everything here,hard to do,constant study here but that's ok as well,I wanna learn as much as I can,,many thanks to all that help me here!! Larry
If you are boiling 5 gallons and want to extract the same amount of bitterness you probably want to reduce down to about 0.8-0.9 oz with these hops. Most extract recipes that you will find assume a partial boil of 3 gallons and assume that you will top up the batch with additional water (boiled preferably). If you are doing 5 gallon boils, the sugar to water ratio is lower and the bitterness is extracted easier. If you want this to be closer to a dopplebock in bitterness to sweetness, it is likely that you will want to reduce this down to about 0.7. There are charts that show you typical Bitterness Units to Gravity Units (BU:GU) for styles, when you are first designing being somewhere near this target will taste acceptable, you tweak to taste from there. After all homebrewing is about making what you (and your friends/family) like and not what marketing tells you it should be. For calculating bitterness John Palmer covers this in his book How to Brew, which you can actually read online. The section that you are looking for is here: http://howtobrew.com/book/section-1/hops/hop-bittering-calculations I've built my own spreadsheet calculators, but you can find options on the internet that do this work for you.
