hop additions during boil

[gurtpint]

Hello everyone. As the hot weather is still keeping me from brewing I'm trying to get my head around the hop thing before I get down to business. I plan on brewing a bitter/pale ale with pale ale malt + some crystal + munich for colour. I have EKG (6,0) and Fuggle (5,3) for hopping. Shooting for 1,050 OG and trying to get the IBU around 40, with a 90 minute boil. I've been checking out the recipes here but still can't quite figure out what a good hopping schedule could be like. Should I chuck in the most of my hops at the start of the boil and then add a bit more towards the end? Or perhaps divide the lot more evenly to be added at 90, 60 and 30 minutes? Is there any rule of thumb to this? At the moment I'm thinking of using only EKG for the boil and then add some Fuggle to the SV later on. Any feedback or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[markp]

Bittering hops are added at the start of the boil - flavour/aroma hops towards the end of the boil.
More boil time equals more bitterness, whereas late hop additions to the boil give you the flavour and aroma charachter.
Personally, I would use the fuggle for the bittering hop and then use the EKG for flavour/aroma, but that is just my preference. They are both dual purpose hops and work well together or as a single hop (my limited experience anyway).
A lot will also depend on how much bitterness you want in there and how much hop flavour/aroma.

How much of of each do you have, and do you like your beers with lots of hop aroma and flavour or more the background bitterness??
What is your brew length??

 

[rickthebrew]

gurtpint i`d keep the first one simple and then experiment from there - as markp said fuggles and ekg are dual purpose hops and great for classic beers, higher alpha acid hops mean you can use less to obtain the bitterness some hops hit upto 15% aa!! I`ve done some great brews with small amounts of hops like pacific gem, chinook and pilgrim as bittering hops for the full 90min boil with flavour / aroma late hop additions such as fuggle, ekg, bobek, first gold and challanger to deliver the flavour, :thumb:

the best part of brewing for me is experimenting and creating recipes and brewing the style of beer that I and my family and friends enjoy Good luck.

 

[gurtpint]

Cheers Mark. I realized my post was a bit unprecise. I was aware of the bittering/aroma difference but I was wondering if there are some general guidelines about the balance between the two... This will be my first AG so it's a big learning process for me. Generally speaking I do enjoy hoppy beers but more in the vein of English ales, since the few American ones I've been able to sample have often been a bit too citrusy for me. But since I'm a newbie I can't really tell which one it is that I enjoy more - the aroma/flavour or the background bitterness. I'll probably just have to drink, oops scratch that, I mean work hard to get my palate up to the job, he he... Oh, I'm hoping to get a brew length of 23L and I have 100g each of EKG and Fuggle.

 

[gurtpint]

Ta Rick! Experiment I will - I plan on trying out different hops as time goes on and slowly figuring out what I like. Picked up these two since they have regularly popped up in the Brit-style recipes I've seen. Getting some high AA stuff for bittering seems like a sound idea to me, gotta try that. Lots of things I could try IF ONLY THE BLOODY WEATHER GOT A BIT LESS SCORCHING! Argh!

 

[rickthebrew]

some of the american hops like cascade and chinook are very citrusy - You can make a great pale ale with just pale malt but small additions of crystal, amber, munich or wheat malt can help build a great malt structure, also what yeast do you plan to use? I`d reccomend US-05 with pale hoppy ales as it really lets the hops shine :thumb:

based on your grain and hops i`d brew something like this:
recipeview.php?recipe_id=585

have a good play with the forum recipe maker :thumb:

 

[gurtpint]

The yeast I have is Wyeast 1318 London Ale III. We'll see how it turns out. The recipe you gave looks good - ta! Would you recommend dry hopping for this recipe or would that be a bit OTT?

 

[rickthebrew]

I`ve dry hopped a couple of brews but felt (in my limited experience :? ) that it didn`t add much to the brew - it can add aroma mainly and some flavour, however I find adding a late addition of hops for the last minute of the boil and also steeping some hops after the boil ( let the brew cool to around 80degrees c and steep hops for 30mins) gives loads of flavour and aroma. Maybe do a brew then do it again and dry hop to see what works for you :thumb:
One of my next brews will be an american pale ale (APA) simular to an english IPA but with american hops like simco, colombus, williamette and ahtanum - some of these hops have aa % of around 15!!! :shock: The hopping schedule can read something like 10grams of hops every 5mins of the boil - so 90min boil can equal 180grams of hops!! If this makes any difference i have no idea but sounds interesting :lol:

Hope the weather cools so you can get brewing - its raining and cooler in the UK :party: so hopefully i`ll be brewing to get some stocks up over the next couple of weeks

 

[markp]

This was my hop schedule for Alemans Imperial Stout I recently did.
Been sat in a corny for nearly 2 months now......only a year or so to go :rofl:

62g EKG 120 mins boil - 34.9 IBU
77g fuggle 120 mins boil - 37.1 IBU
31g fuggle 15 mins boil - 7.4 IBU
26g EKG 5 mins boil - 3 IBU
24g fuggle - steep 20 mins at flame out

That was for a 15 litre batch :shock:
That's the hoppiest thing I've ever done.....but I don't know what it will taste like for a good while yet.

ATB

 

[rickthebrew]

great stuff mark, an imperial stout has been on my to do list for ages - i`ve around forty 1/2 pint guiness original bottles so hope to brew this one soon for xmas 2012 :lol:

 

For my pennyworth I'd say 60g Fuggles (bittering) and 30g Goldings (aroma).

 

[gurtpint]

Thank you kind sirs... I looking forward to experimenting with different combinations. I've been thinking of making a batch with the same grain bill but using Fuggle as bittering hops and reserving the aroma side of things to EKG. I guess I'll skip the dry hopping first time round. The temperature is slowly going down and at the moment it's just above 24 in the cellar. I'll give it a little longer to see if the ambient room temp would drop enough here in my apartment, so I could just ferment here and be able to keep the vessel in my loving sights. You know, to keep her company and read her poetry and such...