accurate hop measurement

[keat64]

I ordered some digital scales on that there ebay thing, which havn't arrived.
I had planned on doing an Old Peculiar clone this weekend.

For my first AG a few weeks ago i used estimates with the hops.
I basically split a 100g bag of pellets in to 10 piles, visually compared them, so they all looked about the same, then counted each pile as 10g.

Considering my scales havn't arrived, i might have to do the same with the OP brew.
I can't imagine that there would be much difference with a brew that had 35g and the next one which might have 40g, but i thought i'd get your take on it. ??

 

[AdrianTrace]

How old are your hops? The percentage of AAs and BAs they may have lost from the expected values due to age would probably make more of a difference than a slightly different weight being used, so I wouldn't worry about it too much :)

Edit: Ah from the last brew Still not worth worrying about :)

 

[keat64]

The hop pellets are vacuum sealed, and any remainder i'll probably freeze for the next or future brew.
Just trying to ascertain how accurate the hop measurement should be, before it affects a recipe with noticable difference.

ie, the OP recipe calls for 36g, I cant physically weigh 36g and at best could only really estimate 40g.
Even then the 40g might be 45g.

Incidentally, how did the mead work out ??
This is something i've thought about for ages.

 

[AdrianTrace]

Well, 10% is 10% - will you notice 10% more or less hops? I'm not certain I would, but only you can find that out :)

The mead is still in the converted garage (no heating), so every time I do a beer, the demijohns are clustered round the boiler and start fizzing again. I have space for one at a time indoors, so they come in and get going again. I haven't tried them yet, but the last mead I made at the old house, the demijohn that I hid for a year after racking was the best ever, so I want to hide these too :-?

 

[mike77]

I would say that it would make the most noticeable difference for your bittering addition. Boiling an extra 10g of high alpha acid hops for 60 mins would raise the IBUs significantly.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/ibu-calculator/

Try the calculator above with the details for your brew to see what might happen if the numbers are off a bit.

I think late hop additions would have a much less noticeable impact if the numbers are off a little

 

[keat64]

I'm sure the bittering hop is Challenger, which Google is saying AA between 6.5 and 8.5%, so I calculated the IBU's for 90 minutes at 7.5% with 36g and 45g and the IBU's went up 10 points.
Now having said that, those numbers are meaningless to me, as I don't know how bitter an IBU is.

 

[mike77]

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/01/24/beer-styles-ibu-chart-graph-bitterness-range/

The chart above lists ibu ranges for various styles.

If you follow the recipe exactly how many IBUs should it be?

IBUs much over 50 would be going into the danger zone for me.

 

[geetee]

I have posted on here before about hop utilisation and the decay in time of bitterness with boiling.
The quoted alpha acid converts to iso alpha which is bitter but requires the full boil to do this. Whatever the quoted alpha is on the packet you will probably only get about 30% AT MOST and this is the full boil. So is the alpha says 16% expect it to be about 4% when utilised.
When you add late hops the short boil time means you will get even less of the alpha converted so 15 minute hops may get about 25 % of the full boil which is 30% at most (so 1% of the example above). 5 minute hops are even less for bitterness you will get a very small fraction converted probably not worth calculating.
Having said that the late hops do contribute all of the flavour/aroma which is totally unrelated to the alpha acid content. Boiling will drive off the flavours of any early hops which is why most people add their flavour hops late or as dry hops where they are not driven off.
Hope I have explained this properly?

There is a rule of thumb for calculating bitterness but it is just an estimate.Probably what is used in software but I can post the formula I use if anyone wants.

 

[Slid]

I ordered some digital scales on that there ebay thing, which havn't arrived.
I had planned on doing an Old Peculiar clone this weekend.

For my first AG a few weeks ago i used estimates with the hops.
I basically split a 100g bag of pellets in to 10 piles, visually compared them, so they all looked about the same, then counted each pile as 10g.

Considering my scales havn't arrived, i might have to do the same with the OP brew.
I can't imagine that there would be much difference with a brew that had 35g and the next one which might have 40g, but i thought i'd get your take on it. ??

I would suggest that this approach is going to be a good enough measure for beer. The human eye is remarkably good at this form of estimation and there are many other variables involved in the impact on the final beer, as others have pointed out.

 

[Steved53]

If you've got a few minutes spare, you could always count the total number of pellets, divide that number by 100, then multiply by the number of grams per addition!!:lol:

 

[keat64]

Scales still havn't arrived, however, I was bought a kit beer for Christmas, so I can now put the AG recipe on hold for a week or two.
Also got two of those kegged HobGob's, so i'll have a few kegs to tinker with.