Let me qualify this question with the fact that I've been brewing for quite a while now and regularly post, but I've never done FWH. I was confused about the process and made a potentially boneheaded mistake with a very expensive batch of beer. I was trying to make an adapted version of veganbrewers Heady Topper clone, except with the addition of Cascade and subbing Summit for Apollo.
So yesterday, I made my first beer with FWH, but only because my hop extract that I had ordered from Brew Brothers did not arrive in time for my brewday. I was hoping to achieve 100 IBUs from the hop extract and so instead I hop socked 12 ozs. of FWH (4 each of Cascade, Simcoe, and Amarillo, tossed them into my kettle while collecting runnings at 170F for 30 mins, and then I boneheadedly removed the hop sock prior to the boil instead of leaving it in there for the entire 90 minute boil. All of the rest of my hops were added at 5 minutes, flameout, and whirlpool (20 more ozs total of 6 hops including the first three and also Summit, Centennial, and Columbus). See veganbrewer's heady topper clone. I adapted quite a bit of his recipe.
The problem is that I was relying on the FWH to create the same 100 IBUs that I would have gotten from 20 mL of hop extract added at 90 mins, but I removed the first wort hops from the BK before hitting a boil. I'd like to get people's opinions on whether all is lost or should I just let this batch ride?
Or is there any way to rectify the bitterness of my beer and get it back in line with what I was expecting? Changing the bitterness post-fermentation with something like isohop is out of the question because Morebeer is out of stock. I was also thinking of making either a small batch of 1.025 DME solution or extracting some of my wort from my fermenter and trying to boil my 20 ml of extract in that and then adding the resulting highly hopped liquid to my fermenters. I haven't pitched my Conan starter yet because my ground water with my immersion chiller could only get my batch down to 80F, so I could potentially boil a portion of my batch and throw the extract in that.
So yesterday, I made my first beer with FWH, but only because my hop extract that I had ordered from Brew Brothers did not arrive in time for my brewday. I was hoping to achieve 100 IBUs from the hop extract and so instead I hop socked 12 ozs. of FWH (4 each of Cascade, Simcoe, and Amarillo, tossed them into my kettle while collecting runnings at 170F for 30 mins, and then I boneheadedly removed the hop sock prior to the boil instead of leaving it in there for the entire 90 minute boil. All of the rest of my hops were added at 5 minutes, flameout, and whirlpool (20 more ozs total of 6 hops including the first three and also Summit, Centennial, and Columbus). See veganbrewer's heady topper clone. I adapted quite a bit of his recipe.
The problem is that I was relying on the FWH to create the same 100 IBUs that I would have gotten from 20 mL of hop extract added at 90 mins, but I removed the first wort hops from the BK before hitting a boil. I'd like to get people's opinions on whether all is lost or should I just let this batch ride?
Or is there any way to rectify the bitterness of my beer and get it back in line with what I was expecting? Changing the bitterness post-fermentation with something like isohop is out of the question because Morebeer is out of stock. I was also thinking of making either a small batch of 1.025 DME solution or extracting some of my wort from my fermenter and trying to boil my 20 ml of extract in that and then adding the resulting highly hopped liquid to my fermenters. I haven't pitched my Conan starter yet because my ground water with my immersion chiller could only get my batch down to 80F, so I could potentially boil a portion of my batch and throw the extract in that.
