Thursday, September 23, 2010

Homebrew Digest #5740 (September 23, 2010)

HOMEBREW Digest #5740 Thu 23 September 2010


FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
re Brewing Science Classes ("David Quain")
Hop Flavor and Aroma in High Gravity Beers (sjohnson3)
RE: imperial IPA ibu (Ric Cunningham)
RE: IIPA IBUs ("Mike Patient")
Subject: re: Brewing Science Classes ("\\-s@roadrunner.com")
imperial IPA (Nick Trubov)


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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:33:47 +0100
From: "David Quain" <david.quain at red-ts.com>
Subject: re Brewing Science Classes

Building on the conversation in HBD #5736/5739 don't forget the
International Centre for Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt
University, Edinburgh. The MSc is particularly popular either on campus
or by distance learning - see www.icbd.hw.ac.uk/courses.php

Cheers

David

david.quain at red-ts.com
www.red-ts.com


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:41:19 +0000 (UTC)
From: sjohnson3 at comcast.net
Subject: Hop Flavor and Aroma in High Gravity Beers

Paul Hethmon asks about some ways to improve his aroma and flavor
profile on high gravity beers:

I did some initial experimenting of my own this summer with my own
formulation of a clone of Oskar Blues
Brewery's "Gubna" beer. It is a very malty high gravity brew with lots
of hop flavor without that grassiness
that I have found in previous attempts to throw a lot of hops into the
boil to get up into that 100+ range of
projected IBU's. In talking with some of our club members here in
Nashville, several recommended that I
use most of my hops at the very end of the boil. The Oskar Blues website
indicated that this particular beer
uses Summit hops, one of the newer high alpha varieties that are
becoming available to homebrewers these
days. So I did just that, and ended up adding 1 ounce of Citra hops (AA
of 11%) at the beginning of my 10 gal batch boil because I needed
some whole hops to work in my kettle to help with the run-off and the
Summit hops were pellets. I ended up
adding 8 oz. of Summit pellet hops (AA of 16%) at the 10 min. mark
before shutting off the burner. Now, granted, this ends
up being a very expensive proposition, but the Pro-Mash calculation on
the IBU's gave me 78 IBU's on an OG of 1.078.
I ended up serving the two kegs at the Music City Brewers' Festival, and
even had some cans of Gubna to let
people do a side by side tasting, and it was pretty close in capturing
that beer's profile. Several people actually liked
mine better - probably because it was a lot more fresh! It was very
malty (it uses some rye and
dark Munich in the mash, I believe) and actually very hoppy, but not a
lot of harsh bitterness. Just what I hoped for.
But as I said, this costs a lot in terms of the amount of hops you have
to use, but it is worth trying at least once
to see the difference this makes with some of these high alpha hops.

I would expect that the little amount of Fuggle and Cascade hops you are
adding at the end will be "underwhelming" and "overwhelmed" by
the more intense hop bitterness from your Zeus hops at the beginning of
the boil.

Hey, Paul, I see that you are planning to come to our competition in a
few weeks. We're looking forward to seeing you
then! We can talk more at the Beer Dinner. Wish I still had some of that
Gubna clone to share with you.

Steve Johnson
Music City Brewers
Nashville, TN


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:27:14 -0400
From: Ric Cunningham <wilypig at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: imperial IPA ibu

There is a threshold limit to what the human body can detect for IBU's.
If you really want to get the most bang for your buck with hopping use enough
hops for 1/4 of your bittering at 60 to 90 minutes then add 1/2 of the
remainder
during the final 20 minutes. This will give you the best results for
flavor. Then
add the last 1/4 at flameout. Good luck.


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:47:04 -0400
From: "Mike Patient" <mpatient at rta.biz>
Subject: RE: IIPA IBUs

Paul mentioned he got 196 IBUs from his IIPA in previous attempts. How is
this being measured?
My understanding of IBUs was that above 100 it is very hard to tell the
actual bitterness. Most human palates can't differentiate past that, and
most algorithms break down past that. Was this really measured, or was it
just an overkill of hops? (I bet it tasted gooooood though)

As for the hop aroma, I don't think the 20g at 5 and flameout is enough. I
do that with my APA and if I don't dry hop, it doesn't have much of a hop
aroma. I would cancel the last flameout addition and double it in the
secondary as dry hop, however, if you don't want to dry hop, how about
making a hop tea and adding that after fermentation? It won't make a mess,
and you'll get some aroma and possibly flavor out of them. I think 114 is
an attainable goal.

Mike

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:20:35 -0400
From: "\\-s at roadrunner.com" <"\\-s"@roadrunner.com>
Subject: Subject: re: Brewing Science Classes

> In HBD #5736 Jeff Walls asked about brewing classes other than Seibel and
> UC Davis
>
>
>
>

The problem is that any short courses are not likely to be sufficiently technical
and any good technical programs are multi-year degree programs.

Heriot-Watt offers an MSc degree in brewing and distilling by distance learning
from their International Centre for Brewing and Distilling.
http://www.postgraduate.hw.ac.uk/courses/view/119

Doemans in Germany has a similar program, but I am not aware of distance learning.

Perhaps you could start by picking up a few good undergrad courses in the basics,
physical chemistry, lab methods, microbiology, biochem.

-S


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:36:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Nick Trubov <ntrubov at swbell.net>
Subject: imperial IPA

Here is what I do. I bought a little jar of hop pellets (Saaz) that I keep in
the freezer and I drop a couple of pellets into any glass of beer I'm drinking
(and I drink almost exclusively IPA's). It sure does taste good. I even like to
chew on the little buggers.

NT

==========================
Nick Trubov
and all the other Trubovs
Lorree, Corbin and Alex
==========================


> So I'm getting ready to brew an Imperial IPA this coming weekend.
> I did one a year ago with an OG of 82 and 196 IBU based on some
> recommendations that I couldn't go high enough. In the end I don't
> think I went too high, but it was mostly bitterness and not much
> aroma or distinctive hop flavor. I did EKG at 5 minutes left in the boil
> and it wasn't enough.
>
> So, for this one, I'm shooting right now for an OG of 80 and IBU of
> 114. Main bitterness is planned from from whole leaf Zeus hops. I've
> got a bit of Fuggle, then finishing with Cascade. My thought is to put
> 20 g of Cascade at 5 minutes out and another 20 g at flame out.
>
> Without getting into dry hopping or a hop back, what do you think?


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5740, 09/23/10
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