Weak bitterness

I've been having problems lately with my brews, the bitterness of my ipas seem to be pretty weak, Even tough I do the same recipes I did before, same amounts but with diferent results, does the fact that I let my wort cool over night and not using a chiller afect my bitterness?

Never mind your cooling method; I'll leave that a separate discussion...

Duplicating bitterness takes more than just recording the type and boil length of hops... you've got to record alpha acid content.

A decent resource for you: http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/04/20/calculating-hop-bitterness-how-much-hops-to-use/

Another one: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-4.html

Cheers!

MartinV said:

I've been having problems lately with my brews, the bitterness of my ipas seem to be pretty weak, Even tough I do the same recipes I did before, same amounts but with diferent results, does the fact that I let my wort cool over night and not using a chiller afect my bitterness?

Click to expand...

It shouldn't. You'll likely have more problems with chill haze for lack of a good cold break.

Checking the alpha acid levels is a good step. I'd also make sure you're using good fresh hops every time. If you're using hops that have already been opened, they start degrading a whole lot faster than fresh sealed hops in the package. Also, make sure you're buying hops from the 2012-2013 harvest that haven't been sitting long in the LHBS. They should be dark green and healthy looking, not light yellow and dusty.

I'd also check to see that nothing has happened with your brewing water. Are you having a lot of rain in your area? Have you switched to using R/O or distilled water? Sometimes a lack of TDS can have an adverse effect on alpha acid isomerization and your brewing water might need some buffering (burtons salts, etc.).

Thanks for your help guys, really apreciate it, I've checked everything and my conclusion is that I'm having water issues, brewed an IIPA with 2.5 oz Of warrior hops for bittering, and it was nowhere near the bitterness Of an IPA

I think you need to do a lot more research before you come to that conclusion. 2.5 oz of bittering hops and no flavor or aroma additions won't make a good IPA.

Forgive me my fellow brewer, I forgot to mention that by that, I was only referring to the bitterness hop part Of my hop bill, without mentioning the aroma or flavor ones, tought it was not that relevant.

See, I came to that conclusion because, since I live in México, water has to be bought in distribuitions centers, there are so many Of them, now, the problem is, that al Of them sell water with diferent mineral, ph values, does that affect hop isomerization in my recipes?

Brewing water can certainly make a difference in perceived bitterness. Google Brewing Water and the online resources are nearly endless. I'll list just a couple here:
http://www.winning-homebrew.com/brewing-water.html
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter4-2.html

Also poke around in the Brew Science section of this forum, there are some good water posts there.