Hopping To Bitter An Already Conditioned Keg?

[Mitcho89]

Hi guys, I was just thinking again... I kegged a batch of beer (Muntons Gold Lager) and it tastes beautiful but the next time I make a batch of it, I'd like to make it a bit more "aussie". It's not quite bitter enough for me. Is there a chance I could boil say 20grams of PoR hops for 60 min and add it to the keg now? Would it still have the same effect as hopping during the initial making of the beer or do hops "mature" like the beer it's in? The keg is only a day old if that helps.

Cheers and kind regards!

Edit - Sorry, I meant to say in the title "Conditioning" not "Conditioned"

 

[argon]

Hi guys, I was just thinking again... I kegged a batch of beer (Muntons Gold Lager) and it tastes beautiful but the next time I make a batch of it, I'd like to make it a bit more "aussie". It's not quite bitter enough for me. Is there a chance I could boil say 20grams of PoR hops for 60 min and add it to the keg now? Would it still have the same effect as hopping during the initial making of the beer or do hops "mature" like the beer it's in? The keg is only a day old if that helps.

Cheers and kind regards!

Edit - Sorry, I meant to say in the title "Conditioning" not "Conditioned"

yep you can do that... i'd be straining the hop matter out and just adding the water though. Or you could buy some isohop and add the right amount to adjust the bitterness

 

[Mitcho89]

I've got myself a hop bag that's really, really fine so no crap should find it's way in. for an 18L keg, how much and how long of a boil would you recommend?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Yeah, you can do that.

It will take a bit of time to smooth out though... Maybe 3 or 4 weeks. Normally, an active fermentation helps to smooth out the harsher characteristics. You're going to have to wait fory it to smooth out via cold conditioning.

I would be more inclined to head down to the LHBS and buy a little bottle of hop extract and add some of that. Then all you need to do is mix it in and it's ready to go.

 

[Mitcho89]

Yeah I was thinking that it could take quite a long time no even itself out. I might not worry about it for this batch incase I ruin it. I'll just add more hop next time!

 

[argon]

Yeah I was thinking that it could take quite a long time no even itself out. I might not worry about it for this batch incase I ruin it. I'll just add more hop next time!

That's usually the best strategy... anytime i've tried to rescue a beer, invariably i've made it worse. Just learn for next time and make future batches to your tastes.

 

[Mitcho89]

Thanks for the wise words mate. Cheers.

 

[[email protected]]

I'm wondering if a small ammount of liquid can absorb enough bitter. I'm not sure how much bitterness water will hold before it stops absorbing anymore. I don't know what the hops saturation of water is. This is just a thought. You will probably be alright. But does anyone know if this wil be an issue?

 

[brendo]

I'm wondering if a small ammount of liquid can absorb enough bitter. I'm not sure how much bitterness water will hold before it stops absorbing anymore. I don't know what the hops saturation of water is. This is just a thought. You will probably be alright. But does anyone know if this wil be an issue?

Not so much a saturation issue, but rather a taste threshold issue. Theorectically, it tops out at around 100 IBUs... whether you agree with the theory or not is another issue.

The other thing to remember is that two beers can be measured to have the same level of bitterness (IBUs), but will be percieved very differently by the taster depending on the other components that make up the beer - malt profile, alcohol/gravity, etc.

 

[[email protected]]

Not so much a saturation issue, but rather a taste threshold issue. Theorectically, it tops out at around 100 IBUs... whether you agree with the theory or not is another issue.

The other thing to remember is that two beers can be measured to have the same level of bitterness (IBUs), but will be percieved very differently by the taster depending on the other components that make up the beer - malt profile, alcohol/gravity, etc.

So if you wanted to up the IBU's by 10 then you would need to put 2 L of hoppy water into a 20l batch. Not a good trade off I don't think.

 

[brendo]

So if you wanted to up the IBU's by 10 then you would need to put 2 L of hoppy water into a 20l batch. Not a good trade off I don't think.

Sorry, misread your meaning I think...

A couple of issues there:

1. hop utilisation (extraction of bitterness, flavour/aroma compounds) is not as good in plain water, so you would need to allow for that in your IBU calcs
2. you would need to work the IBU's based on the volume of the whole batch
3. you would be watering down your beer

At the end of the day, it is a learning process. I would go with the feedback given above - at the end of the day, personally I would just up the additions next time around - assuming the current version is acceptable, which according to the OP it is, just falls a bit short.

 

[[email protected]]

This is not something I would do. I was just commenting on the thread that adding bitterness post fermentation as suggested probably wouldn't work because you would have to add a lot of liquid to get any difference in IBU. But wasn't really sure if I was correct in my reasoning. Probably should have written this more clearly.