Advice on Northern Brewer needed.

[Duxuk]

My last brew, which I posted an account of in "Brew Days" was an extract beer using 46g of mixed Goldings and Northern brewer to make approx, 12 litres. I am impressed with the flavour from the FV but haven't opened a bottle yet. I think it's going to be more to my taste than similar previous beers with a Goldings/Fuggles mix. :thumb:

My question is if I try my next beer using only Northern Brewer (@ 9% alpha acid content) will I need to adjust my hopping quantities and times to avoid it being significantly more bitter?

Last time I boiled half the hops for the full 60 mins. Half the remainder for the last 20 and the rest for the last 5. I then added 15g of N Brewer to the FV dry after 4 days.

I want the flavour of NB but don't want it to sock me in the mouth with bitterness. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[pittsy]

hi on th e top left of this site next to malt miller link there are some very helpful calculators calculators.php click here and look for bitterness link , on there add in your ibu and your alpha acids such as 9% as you mentioned and it will give you how many grammes you need to add :thumb:

 

[Duxuk]

Thanks for that Pittsy. I tried the calculator. 23g of NBrewer as bittering hops would give 34.5 IBU which seems, from reading around other peoples recipices, might be a good level. I have estimated my utilisation lower than the 29% which the calculator starts with because of my method using a rather small pan. I put it at 20%. I would then add another 11.5g for 20 and 11.5g for 5 mins then dry hop. Unless anyone tells me this would be a disaster, I will try it as soon as tommorow.
I'm trying to brew like a ...............can't think of a good analogy, but someone who does it a lot!...............to build up a good stock of homebrew so I don't need to buy bottles. Well not as often at least. :