Yep, too much hops.

Here's another update from tonight's Belma IPA. I mentioned that the hot wort was the consistency of peanut butter. Well, things only went downhill as it cooled. The picture below is of the chilled wort. No, that's not a typo. This lump of green modeling clay is actually the wort in the kettle post-chilling.

I was rather surprised at how much liquid I was able to extract from this. The whole mass got dumped into my BIAB bag in a small bucket. I then wrung and squeezed the bejeezus out of the bag, and kept pouring the collected drippin's into a 1-gallon jug. I ended up with over 1/3 gallon of liquid (starting from 0.8 gallons preboil volume). We'll see what happens next...

Too much hops?

Update from my Belma IPA experiment. One pound of pellets in 3/4 gallon of wort. Try as I might, there's no way I'm going to get a whirlpool going in this. The consistency is like peanut butter. Wish me luck getting this into the fermenter.

How much Belma does it take...

Belma is one of those hop varieties that really confirms for myself that the single-hopped test beers I have been brewing are well worth the time and effort involved. The descriptors you see online list orange, grapefruit, pineapple and strawberry (among other things) as being part of the aroma profile for Belma. If you just read those descriptions, you may end up thinking that this would be a great hop to use in an IPA. In particular, you don't find "strawberry" as a description for many hops. This would definitely be a unique note to impart to a beer via hopping.

Alas, my own experience just doesn't find this to be the case. I really found Belma to be a mild hop, without the big, fruity punch that one might expect given the description. In talking with others on some of the homebrew forums, it seems that I'm not the only one who has been a bit underwhelmed by the hop character of Belma.

Since I have just under a pound sitting in my freezer, the question becomes: "What the heck do I do with all of this Belma?". I suppose I could use it for bittering, but I have other hops that I prefer for bittering depending on the style of beer. Instead of letting them sit in my freezer forever, or just throwing them away to free up space, the time has come for a bit of experimentation.

The experiment: Is it possible to take a relatively mild hop and attain IPA-worthy hop character by using a very large amount? You night ask what constitutes a "very large amount". Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don't screw around when it comes to hops. I'm going to brew about 3/4 of a gallon of IPA and use however much Belma I have left (a bit under a pound) in it. I'm going to reserve an ounce and a half for dry hops (so somewhere in the 2oz/gallon rate for dry hops), and the rest is going in for a 1-hour hop stand. This adds up to over a pound per gallon for a total hopping rate.

My thought process is this. Different hop strains contain different concentrations of hop oils, which is where the flavor and aroma comes from. If Belma does contain the oil profile to give the citrus/melon/strawberry/etc notes that have been reported, but at a low concentration, then you could reasonably conclude that more hops will give you more oils, and at some point you will get enough into your beer to get the flavor/aroma profile you're after. Of course, hops contain a lot more than just oils. There may be a point of diminishing returns, where you start to get a significant amount of off-flavors (grassy, woody, vegetal, etc.) due to the volume of hops needed to get the oil content you want.

Once the beer is ready, I'll mainly be concerned with two things. The first is the flavors coming from the hop oils that I'm looking for. The second is whether there are any off flavors coming from the sheer volume of hop material required to get these flavors. If I get a desirable hop character, but start getting off flavors, then further experimentation may be warranted to see if you can "dial in" a hopping rate to get the hop character while minimizing off flavors. Brewday should be tonight. Stay tuned.

Not all IBU's are created equal

In recent times there has been a lot of talk about the "quality" of bitterness. The oldest bit of brewing lore to this effect is the claim that hop varieties that contain higher cohumulone give a harsher bitterness to the finished beer. The flip side is that other hop varieties may give a "softer", "smoother" or "neutral" bitterness. More recently, the proponents of first-wort hopping (FWH) claim that it provides a smoother bitterness than a traditional 60-minute addition. (Count me in this group, by the way) The same claim has been made regarding whirlpool or hop-stand additions (well, I know that I claim this at least).

Just to be clear, the claim here isn't that there is a difference in utilization or IBU's using these methods. The claim is that for a given number of IBU's, certain hopping schemes will provide a harsher or smoother bitterness. For example, a 60-minute boil addition of Chinook is (supposedly) going to give a harsher bitterness than something like a FWH of Liberty, even if they measure the exact same IBU's.

So this begs the question - what the hell does this mean, and how do you quantify it? Is 20 IBU's of Chinook at 60 min the same as 40 IBU's of Liberty as FWH? 30 IBU's? 50 IBU's? Or is it something else completely? Do we need one measure of IBU's and a separate measure of harshness?

Some brewers calculate the IBU's from a FWH addition as the equivalent of a 20-minute addition. Others calculate it as 70-80 minutes. The first way tries to account for the "smoothness/harshness" effect on the quality of bitterness, but doesn't factor in the additional utilization from the longer time the hops are in contact with hot wort. The second approach probably approximates the actual measured IBU's better, but doesn't factor in that this bittering may seem smoother. Is one way better than the other? I used to be firmly in the 20-minute addition camp. Now I'm on the fence and leaning towards the 70-80 minute camp, but with a caveat.

I have recently started to gravitate to the idea that IBUs and "Bittering Quality" are not only two completely separate descriptors, but also that they need to be considered separately. I think that attempts to approximate the affect on the smoothness or harshness of a hopping regimen by adjusting IBU's are missing a big part of the picture. Dialing in a hoppy brew really requires understanding what each addition is doing.

Let me share an example before I open the floor for discussion. Last year I brewed an IPA using nothing but flameout hops with a 90-minute hop stand, and some dry hops. I used an insane amount of hops (11 oz in my hop stand and 6 oz of dry hops for a 3-gallon batch). I sent the beer out for lab analysis, and it measured at 98 IBU's. But, to my palate, it tasted like about 60 IBU's, with a pretty smooth bitterness (similar to what I'd get from FWH). It tasted like an amped-up APA more than an enamel-stripping IPA. But the first time I drank it with food, something bizarre happened. I could instantly taste all 98 of those IBU's and my palate was completely blown out for dinner (which was a shame - it was a real nice ribeye). This really cemented the whole "IBU's vs harshness" idea for me. The beer somehow managed to hide its bitterness until I forced its hand with food.

So, what do we do about this dichotomy of bitterness? Damned if I knew. But now that my eyes are opened to this, I'll be paying close attention.