# Blending Hops



## kevo (13/6/08)

Hi everyone,

I've read recently about people blending hop varieties for bittering. Have mostly seen combinations of smoother bitterness hops with high alpha varieties like chinook.

Do people combine these varieties based on weight, IBU contributions (eg half bitterness from one variety, half from the other), or according to the character of the hops? Do people place limits on the number of IBUs they will make up from specific varieties of hops? (I've heard people say you should use no more than 20 IBU from POR)

Any suggestions of good combinations(especially for bittering) and proportions would be appreciated too.

Cheers

Kev


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## TidalPete (13/6/08)

kevo said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've read recently about people blending hop varieties for bittering. Have mostly seen combinations of smoother bitterness hops with high alpha varieties like chinook.
> 
> ...



Kev,

I really have no idea?  

With hop prices at a premium these days, for certain beers I just chuck in all my old hops until I get the IBU's I need for bitterness & then boil for 90 minutes to get any remaining flavour out of them.
Not sure if this is the done thing (?) but it works for me.
Have never purposely tried the blending for bitterness but must have a go in the future.

TP :beer:


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## kevo (13/6/08)

I think what people were achieving was to reduce the harshness of some high alpha varieties, thereby using less, by making bittering additions with other varieties. I'veread about people using Hallertau and chinook together to bitter.

any tips?

Kev


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## Inge (13/6/08)

Well, if I'm reading this post correctly...

Some hop varieties, like the infamous (on this site) Pride of Ringwood are high in alpha acid (good) and high in cohumulone (bad). The cohumulone is what creates the impression of harshness. Hops like these can be used to bitter up to a certain number of IBUs, say about 20-25, before the cohumulone begins to become detectable and produce harsh flavours. 

If you wanted a 30 IBU bittering addition, you could mix 20 IBUs worth of high AA%, high CoH hops (i.e. PoR) with 10 IBUs worth of lower AA%, low CoH hops (i.e. Hallertau); in doing so you can use less hops overall but still retain a high degree of smoothness.

OR

You could forget all of this and just use Northern Brewer


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## rough60 (13/6/08)

I sometimes add 20-50% of the flavour addition variety at 60 mins with my regular bittering hop, I haven't done much side by side testing, but if anything, i find it 'links' the bitterness, flavour and aroma together.

For example:
60 min 70/30 Warrior/Cascade
30 min Cascade
10 min 70/30 Amarillo/Cascade
Flame out Amarillo

The 60 min addition probably doesn't change the outcome as much as the later blending does.
Hope this make sense.
Cheers.


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## Dave86 (13/6/08)

Inge said:


> You could forget all of this and just use Northern Brewer



Or Southern Cross  The ones in my freezer are 15.9% :super: Mind you, they're pretty good later in the boil too....


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## Inge (13/6/08)

Completely forgot about the NZ hops.

Use those


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## kevo (14/6/08)

Any resources about stating cohumulone content for various varieties?

Does high alpha _generally _mean high cohumulone?

thanks

kev


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## rough60 (14/6/08)

I got these somewhere on the net, maybe off here.
Cheers. 

View attachment Variety_oil_profiles.xls


View attachment HopSpecs.xls


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## Dave86 (14/6/08)

kevo said:


> Any resources about stating cohumulone content for various varieties?
> 
> Does high alpha _generally _mean high cohumulone?
> 
> ...



Not necessarily, form what I gather, many of the older bittering varieties are higher in cohumulone but a lot of the newer ones (the kiwi ones anyway) are high alpha, low cohumulone. The craftbrewer site has good info for all their available hop varieties, usually with an oil content breakdown

Cheers

Dave


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## Dave86 (14/6/08)

Beaten to the punch!


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## Stuster (14/6/08)

kevo said:


> Does high alpha _generally _mean high cohumulone?



Not really. There are some high alpha hops which have low co-humulone levels. Those are good resources that rough60 posted. I also like Brewrats. There's also a good, clear article on hop chemistry here.


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## Tony (14/6/08)

kevo said:


> (I've heard people say you should use no more than 20 IBU from POR)



This is a load of hopscotch IMO. 

Inge......... have you ever used it past 20IBU to test your (well the tired and old) theory. I have on many ocasions and have found no such problem. I have a stout bittered to around 50 IBU with POR and i put some in late in the boil too. It has a prominent bitterness that quite refreshing but not harsh.

And what is the Definition of "harsh". Ive made beers to masive IBU levels.......... past the point of saturation and they wernt harsh. bloody bitter yes but not harsh.  

here are some interesting specs

POR:
Cohumulone 33 - 39% of alpha acids

Target: The most widly used english bittering hop! Noone calls fullers beers harsh.
Cohumulone 29 - 35% of alpha acids

B SAAZ: This one will shock you! It suprised me!
Cohumulone 36 % of Alpha Acids 

Cascade  Oh.....my.... GOD!  
Cohumulone 33 - 40% of alpha acids

Others like Pacific Gem or Green Bullet, cant remember which one everyone was using as a single hop recently...... they are up around and over the 40% mark.

They will give a harsher bitterness but its not offensive. 

Have you ever heard you can only bitter to 20 IBU with cascade?.......... i think not. I know its not regarded as the best bittering hop out there but people still use lots and lots of it.

Varieties like Sothern Cross, Simcoe, EKG, Perle and most noble hops are around the 20 to 25% mark and make wonderfull bittering hops but in most cases (not Sothern Crosses) you need to use a lot more of them. One of my Faves is Saphire at around 15% Cohumulone. I have bittered a Koelsch with it and you can hardly feel the bitterness in your mouth. 

I would say the reason to blend hops for bittering is to avoid excessive hop chatracter in the beer and to use less hops. I bittered a German Pils (not gremlin) to 37 IBU with nothing but hallertau and it had a massive hop character to the beer with minimal late additions. Its a different hoppiness to late additions. I can only imagine that folks are trying to save some hops for those late additions in APA's.

I too have blended hops for bittering but its usually for a flavour, hop character reason. Not so much to break down Cohumulone levels in the beer.

Cheers


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## Inge (14/6/08)

That was only intended as an example to demonstrate cohumulone levels... I wasn't personally attacking the variety :lol: That being said, I don't use Pride of Ringwood to bitter, I've got a big sack of NB for that. For the record, I have been told by a few people not to bitter with cascade at all, but I don't know if they were referring to harshness from CoH or taking a 'save them for late additions' approach.

Tony, I'm intrigued by bittering with hallertau - what was your schedule? I take it there was a fair bit of crud in the bottom of the kettle. Do you use a false bottom? You never said if the hop character was desired, or indeed even good... Just big. How did it drink?


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## Tony (14/6/08)

I know you wernt persomally attacking it......... its just you se that said so often and its plain old false!

POR's specs are no different to a good 50% of the bittering hops out there. I just think POR gets bagged out here in Aus because 
1. Its used to make comercial swill that home brewers love to bag out for what ever reason.
2. Its flavour properties are different to most hops in thats earthy, not floral. 

It is what it is and i can understand people not liking it as a hop in their beer and thats fine, but saying you cant use more than 20 IBU because you dont like the hop (and using harshness to explain it) is just false information, which im assuming you read somewhere too.

Moving on 

The Pilsner was the one of the best beers i have made.

The hop character is more a deep background presence than an upfront hoppiness. more flavour than aroma, and it lasts longer too. Its like its imbeded in the beer and doesnt fade like late additions tend to.

Pilsner Erquelle (spelling?) aparently doesnt use any hops after 40 min (so ive heard) so that gives you an idea of its effect. Shed loads of low alpha SAAZ in the boil gives that rich, deep hop character.

You dont get the same effect with a small amount of a higher alpha hop.

My dad......... who worked for Tooheys for most of my life, loves to argue the point with me, that Becks made in Australia is as good if not better than the Becks you used to get that was imported. He is my most honest critic and always gives me a strait down the line review. He also has a fine Palate.

I handed him a glass of my pilsner and said............. this is what becks here in Austtralia should taste like. 

HE commented before tasting "I recon the folks at Becks would have something to say about that"

He smiffed and went....oooooo smells great. HE drank the beer without comment, and on handing the empty glass back he gave me an aprooving nod and said "that was a fantastic beer".

I know for a fact that if he thought it wasnt as good as becks, he would have rubbed it in! So i took the quiet point for a better beer that Becks and left it at that! 

Here is the recipe.



German Pils

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 54.00 Wort Size (L): 54.00
Total Grain (kg): 10.90
Anticipated OG: 1.048 Plato: 11.88
Anticipated EBC: 7.5
Anticipated IBU: 37.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
96.3 10.50 kg. Weyermann Pilsner Germany 1.038 4
2.8 0.30 kg. Weyermann Carahell Germany 1.035 26
0.9 0.10 kg. Weyermann Acidulated Germany 1.035 5

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
200.00 g. Hallertauer Mittelfruh Pellet 3.70 35.9 45 min.
30.00 g. Hallertauer Mittelfruh Pellet 3.70 1.2 5 min.


Yeast
-----

S-198

52 deg protein rest for 20 min @ 2l/kg
infuse with boiling water to 65 deg for 60 min @ 3l/kg
mash out at that temp.
batch sparge with 78 deg water (71 deg in the sparge)

2 weeks at 10 deg, 2 weeks at 2 deg.

filtered, gassed and hooked in clear from the first drop 

cheers


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## BoilerBoy (14/6/08)

Some excellent points and descriptions there on POR Tony, I've turned around completely and am a convert now.
I still reckon there is a real skill in using POR correctly, it probably requires more precise attention mainly because (as you aptly described it) its a bittering flavour hop which means the margin for error is not as forgiving as many high aroma hops that are thrown around in many APA styles for example.

As for the 20IBU thing I think there are too many variables for this to be used continually as a standard, pale beers as opposed to darker ales with differing caramel and malt sweetness levels all will contribute to the final outcome (obviously)

I've even dry hopped with it  and been very pleased with the results ,which is something I have read many times was almost a beer crime. 

Cheers,
BB


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## Tony (14/6/08)

Its not what you have got.............. its how you use it  I like it BB........... good one 

I took out the International Ale catagory in the NSW state comp a few years back with an Aussie pale ale. That was just JW ale malt and POR at FWH and 45 min to about 28 IBU and it won over a LOT of APA's

That was and still is my fav brewing moment. That just rings the top line true doesnt it 

I was doing some thinking of this blending hop thing.

I have been thinking of making some ales with blended bittering aditions and not much else to create something different. I think there are flavours that work and some that dont.

I have been thinking of trying a SAAZ/EKG combo and perhaps a Nelson Sauvin/challenger mix.

Ahh so many things to try, so little time.

cheers

cheers


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## newguy (14/6/08)

I did an IPA this year that was a 20/40/40% mix of Nelson Sauvin, Glacier and Target throughout. All additions had this same breakdown, even the dry hop addition. It turned out fantastic. The mix was definitely a case of the sum being more than the parts. But next time I'm just using NS for dry hopping only. I find that it gives a burning sensation, even in very small amounts. I don't know what it is, but it has a burning, almost chili pepper heat to it. I overheard one of the judges at the IPA table at our comp two weeks ago say that it actually burned his throat. 

Cascade and Columbus are another classic mix, as are Cascade and Centennial. The American "C" hops also blend very well with continental European varieties for interesting/experimental brews.


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## kevo (14/6/08)

Did a similar brew recently with hallertau for bittering and a gram per litre of columbus for flavour aroma and dry hop.

The hall was fantastic as it gave a very smooth, lingering bitterness which was subtle enough to let the columbus shine through. Then the hallertau was still there after the columbus had faded.

The success of that brew is what prompted me to ask the questions at the top of the thread.

Kev


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