Bittering hops flavours?

[Pugh]

Hi All,

Do any of you know of any info regarding the flavours imparted by the 60 minute/bittering hops? If they're boiling for that long do they only contribute a sensation of 'bitterness' rather than any discernible flavour(s)?

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, I couldn't find the answer in my books.

Cheers.

 

[Brew_DD2]

Mostly bitterness but there is some recent research which suggests that certain varieties can lend some flavour even when boiled for 60 minutes. Scott Hamish speaks about it on the latest episode of the Experimental Brewing podcast.

Co-humulone levels can give a differing quality to the bitterness.

 

[Sadfield]

As above. To a lesser degree the same flavours that they provide later in the boil. I think that, although most aromatics have lower boiling point than 100°c, 100% extraction isn't achieved in 60 minutes (or any length of boil) so some flavour remains. Brewing a beer with only a bittering addition is quite an eye opener in this regard.

 

[Zephyr259]

It's an interesting one, I recently made a czech-style pils with 100% pilsner malt and Styrian Goldings, it had a decent amount of hops (50g which was 2.2 g/l) spread over the final 15 mins of the boil but has a tonne of flavour, only difference from similar brews is I used 75g of Styrian Goldings at 60 min to bitter where I'd usually use a small dose of Admiral. The flavour is also more nuanced than in the Corncrake clone I make which has double the Styrian Goldings over the final 15 mins, might be that Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager is actually very good with hops even though it's blurb focusses on malt expression.

 

[Pugh]

Thanks all.

@Zephyr259 are you saying 50g at the end is similar to 75 at the start? 75 at 60 sounds like a lot to me!

 

[Zephyr259]

Thanks all.

@Zephyr259 are you saying 50g at the end is similar to 75 at the start? 75 at 60 sounds like a lot to me!

I wasn't meaning to imply that if I did. The situation was that I had 125g of Styrian Goldings which I wanted to use up, The late hopping schedule I wanted to try in the lager used 50g of that and it just worked out that the remaining 75g added at 60 mins hit a good IBU for the style. But upon tasting the beer is has way more flavour than I was expecting. Compared to the Corncrake I'd say my lager has a much more refined flavour and I feel like I've got more out of the hops compared to just throwing them all in over the final 15 mins and the main difference is the large bittering dose.

Something I'm going to experiment with, I've always wondered why old recipes and the clones in Wheeler's books had so little in the way of late additions, maybe large bittering additions give the desired character as they're not all malt focused brews.

 

[Hanglow]

A lot of german lagers only have a 60 minute addition and still have that classic noble peppery/floral hop aroma.

It's not in your face hoppyness obviously, but you should be able to tell the difference between two beers only hopped at 60minutes with different hops assuming they aren't similar

 

[chthon]

I made a light beer, when I was propagating Rochefort yeast, with only a 60 minute bittering addition of Merkur hops. Not very much either, because they were high alpha acid. However, they did impart a nice (subtle, but nocticeable) hop aroma and flavor. This was a very nice beer. One could say that the Rochefort yeast had also its influence, but the combination was very tasty.