Hop Utilisation

[nala]

I refer to the nomograph in John J Palmer's - How to brew.

Page 58 gives a nomograph of hop utilisation based on time and gravity of wort.

The factors indicate that a higher OG will lessen the effect of the hop potential, can it be assumed that if hops are boiled in water as opposed to wort that a greater utilisation of the hops will be achieved ?
If this is the case an amateur brewer would be able determine with greater accuracy the beer profile they were aiming for.
I understand that commercial brewers add hops during the wort boiling process to achieve lower processing costs, an amateur brewer - like me - is looking for an achievable beer profile without over consideration of cost.
I think that I missing some other factors in my assumptions, does anyone have a view on this ?

 

[mika]

Forget the science behind it, but boiling hops in water actually results in a pretty poor extraction. You'd want a slight sugar solution, probably around 1030ish (at a guess) to achieve the best extraction.
But otherwise your brewing software will automagically account for the Preboil and postboil SG in the hop calculations. So unless you're trying to be extremely tight fisted and use 2gms less hops in a 1060 beer, I wouldn't stress it.

 

[felten]

I believe pH also comes into play, can't remember how though.

 

[MHB]

Ok your both right and wrong (don't you just love brewing) yes you can get better extraction in a lower SG solution but the beer will taste different.

In fact what you are talking about is making Iso, you can buy it in bottles and quite a few commercial breweries use exactly that. It allows very precise control of bitterness minimises losses and no surprise can be quite a lot cheaper. Strangely enough they are also the ones that get slaged off at the most.

I'm wholly in agreement with your sentiment that that cost isn't the issue, in which case stick with the one (or more) hour boil at full gravity to make the best tasting beer.

MHB