Late Extract Addition Double Check

[pudland]

Hello All,

So I've read quite a few posts here and other forums about this subject.
I understand that a lower SG during the first hop addition makes for more hop utilization. Lower SG = more bitter = less hops needed, higher SG = less bitter = more hops needed. I also understand that there are many other variables that come into play.

I use BeerSmith V2.2... I read that the calcs are off for late extract additions(as with other software).

In the forums I read, the info was scattered all over the place. The questions asked offered little information on the recipe from the beginning so I'm including as much as I can.

The recipe: Generic IPA.
Batch Size = 5 gal.
Pre Boil Vol = 4 gal.

Steeping in 1 gal H2O @ 150-170 for 30 min.
Crystal 20L = 8 oz.
Crystal 60L = 8 oz.

Add H20 to make 4 gal.
Bring to a boil.

Add 3 lbs Extra Light DME for 60 min boil.

Add 1oz Nugget @ 13.3% AA for 45 min boil.

Add 4 lbs Extra Light DME for 10 min boil.

Add Irish Moss for 10 min boil.

Add 1oz El Dorado @ 15% AA for 10 min boil.

Flame out.

Chill to 150-170.
Add 1oz Citra @ 13.3% AA & 1oz El Dorado @ 15% AA. Steep for 15 min.

Chill to 65*F.

Top Off to make 5 gal. Est top off H2O = 1.75 gal.

Pitch Nottingham Yeast.

Primary @ 65*F = 4 days

Secondary @ 65*F = 2 weeks.

Dry hop for 4-7 days before bottle with:
1oz ea El Dorado & Citra.

Cold Crash @ 32*F for 24 hrs

Bring up to 65*F.
Bottle with 4-5oz priming sugar.
Est Bottling Vol = 4.25-4.5 gal
Carb 2-3 weeks @ 65*F. AIM = 2.7 vols.
Age = 30 days.

Est Pre-Boil G = 1.082
Est OG = 1.059
Est FG = 1.015
Est IBU = 69.5
Est Color = 9.2 SRM
Est ABV% = 5.8

Questions:
1) Est IBU = 69.5 } Top off H20 is less than half the boil vol... So, If the calcs are off I would expect and ending IBU of 50 ish?

2) Est Pre-Boil G = 1.082 } Should this be that high with the steeped grains + 3 lbs DME in 4 gal H2O?

Thoughts / Feelings / Questions are warmly accepted!

Thanks,
Adam

 

[unionrdr]

you don't need to chill the wort down to steep the El Dorado hops? The cooler temp will likely lower usage of the oils. A 15 minute hop addition would be for flavor anyway. Boil additions for aroma are about 3-5 minutes left in the boil.
The remaining 4lbs of DME doesn't need to be boiled, just add it at flame out & stir till it dissolves. And since you're dry hopping for aroma anyway, & that chilled 15 minute addition was intended for aroma, just dry hop it & save a step. And leave a beer in primary till it's at a stable FG, & definitely not after a mere 4 days. After four days, on average, only initial fermentation is done. It'll still have some points to knock off after 4 days, more often as not.
Those numbers are just estimates, but your results may vary. And be sure your fermenter is market, at least, for 5 gallons so you don't over-fill.

 

[pudland]

you don't need to chill the wort down to steep the El Dorado hops? The cooler temp will likely lower usage of the oils. A 15 minute hop addition would be for flavor anyway. Boil additions for aroma are about 3-5 minutes left in the boil.

Hmm. OK. I was under the impression that boil temps will extract oils and the amount of time adjusts the utilization. The El Dorado addition @ 10 minutes shows 15.3 IBUs. The zero minute additions show 0 IBUs.

The remaining 4lbs of DME doesn't need to be boiled, just add it at flame out & stir till it dissolves.

Yes, that I did know. I basically have the DME in at 10 minutes to help lower the IBU's. Putting it in at flame out bumps the IBU's from 69.5 to 72.3. A some what small margin, i know. To what degree will the addition of 1.5 to 2 gallons of top off water lower the IBU?

And since you're dry hopping for aroma anyway, & that chilled 15 minute addition was intended for aroma, just dry hop it & save a step.

Understand... That does make sense to me now. Duh me!

And leave a beer in primary till it's at a stable FG, & definitely not after a mere 4 days. After four days, on average, only initial fermentation is done. It'll still have some points to knock off after 4 days, more often as not.

All the brews I've done(about 6 + a hard cider) a have left in the primary 4-7 days before going to secondary. My thought is that I want to take it off the yeast cake and trub, but allow enough fermentation left to create a C02 layer on top of the beer and void the oxygen from the carboy. Leaving it in the primary longer may cause the yeast to impart more of its flavor into the beer and I don't know that I personally want that. Heh, I may not even be able to tell what flavors are actually coming from the yeast anyway!

And be sure your fermenter is market, at least, for 5 gallons so you don't over-fill.

I use a 6 or 6.5 gallon glass carboy for the primary, you can see it in my avatar.(That's a cider in the pic from my neighbors trees.) That came out great!
I use a 5 gallon glass carboy for secondary fermentation.

Thanks for the help!

Thoughts?

Adam

 

[peterj]

I understand that a lower SG during the first hop addition makes for more hop utilization. Lower SG = more bitter = less hops needed, higher SG = less bitter = more hops needed.

This is not actually true when it comes to malt extract. There is a correlation between SG and hop utilization with all grain brews because the alpha acids from the hops adhere to the proteins (hot break, etc.) and grain dust from the grain. The higher the gravity, the more protein and grain dust will be in the wort. But it's not actually a result of the sugar concentration itself. So with extract you aren't getting the grain dust and you get much less protein because the extract is boiled during processing. So the gravity derived from extract has very little effect on hop utilization. So late extract additions will not in fact increase IBUs.

Chill to 150-170.
Add 1oz Citra @ 13.3% AA & 1oz El Dorado @ 15% AA. Steep for 15 min.

Chilling to this temp for a hop steep is a valid practice. I've heard of a lot of people having good results with it. And it will not add to the IBUs. Alpha acid isomerization stops at around 180F or so.

Cold Crash @ 32*F for 24 hrs

Bring up to 65*F.

You don't need to bring it back up to 65F before bottling.

Primary @ 65*F = 4 days

Secondary @ 65*F = 2 weeks.

All the brews I've done(about 6 + a hard cider) a have left in the primary 4-7 days before going to secondary. My thought is that I want to take it off the yeast cake and trub, but allow enough fermentation left to create a C02 layer on top of the beer and void the oxygen from the carboy. Leaving it in the primary longer may cause the yeast to impart more of its flavor into the beer and I don't know that I personally want that. Heh, I may not even be able to tell what flavors are actually coming from the yeast anyway!

Agree with unionrdr about not transferring to secondary after only 4 days. You don't need to worry about the beer sitting on the yeast cake and trub. There's no off flavors or autolysis that occurs from this. It's very common practice for people to not use secondaries at all. I almost always leave my beers in primary for 2-3 weeks. And I usually dry hop straight in the primary too.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that I also agree that you should add the late extract after flameout. That way you don't kill the boil with 10 minutes left.

 

[unionrdr]

Huh. This is the first time I've ever heard of a chilled hop steep. New one for me. And yeah, autolyzing yeast is virtually extinct on our level of brewing these days, what with higher quality ingredients we have now. I rarely use a secondary anymore, & dry hop in primary as well. But I wait for the beer to finish fermenting & settle out clear or slightly misty before dry hopping 7 days. This way, there's little or no yeast/trub settling out for the hop oils to coat & go to the bottom. And in my experience, late extract additions are compensated for by the increased isomerization in the lighter wort.

 

[Sailingeric]

I noticed the same thing in IBU and late extract on Beersmith and my one blonde ale did not come at a puckering 90 IBU like Beersmith said it would, I would say it came out closer to the 20 IBU taste that it gave me if I had put all the LME in the start. I am sure there is some difference in IBU if you late add or not but without sending to beers to a lab to see what it is, it would be hard to taste the difference.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, I've had similar experiences with BS2 myself. It's my considered opinion that late extract additions compensate for the increased isomerization of a lighter wort when all is mixed together after the boil, then topped off in the fermenter. It's one of the reasons partial boils are so popular, especially with beer kits.

 

[peterj]

Huh. This is the first time I've ever heard of a chilled hop steep. New one for me.

Yeah I think it's a fairly new practice that is gaining some popularity. I've done some hop stands before but I usually don't pay that much attention to the temperature. I'll turn my chiller on for a minute or so to chill it a little so there won't be too much isomerization and then throw in the hops. The thinking is that the lower temperatures will not volatilize as much of the hop oils and you'll get more of the flavor and aroma out of them. There was a BYO article about it a little while ago: https://byo.com/hops/item/2808-hop-stands.

 

[unionrdr]

I'll have to see if I have that issue? Seems i missed at least one in the beginning of the year.

 

[pudland]

There was a BYO article about it a little while ago: https://byo.com/hops/item/2808-hop-stands.

Thanks for the link! I'm reading the article now. I see he has a Longmont Pale Ale recipe there. I'm going to plug it into BeerSmith and see what comes up. I believe I can convert the all-grain to extract, then see what that says as compared to his profile for the brew.
I'll post what I find.

Thanks!

EDIT:
Just messing with my recipe and when I changed my 1oz 10 minute boil El Dorado addition to "0", I clicked the drop-down and saw the "Steep/Whirlpool" option. I chose it, set steep for 30 minutes and the IBU went up by over 1 IBU. I have 2 more oz's to change and see what happens.

3oz whirlpool for 30 min and the IBU's jumped to 113.

 

[pudland]

Here are the changes I made to my recipe. I'm mobile, the wifey has us food shopping.

View attachment 1431122821178.jpg

View attachment 1431122831965.jpg

 

[unionrdr]

A pound of crystal will leave some sweetness, moreso than the 1/2 pound I was using.

 

[pudland]

A pound of crystal will leave some sweetness, moreso than the 1/2 pound I was using.

Ya know... I was wondering about that since the IBU's are going to be 1/2 - 3/4's of what BS2 says. I was liking the 7-8 SRM range. I have 2-row caramel 60L, 20L, carapils, caramunich type 1, black patent & chateau-chocolate on hand. I'm going to look at the grain profiles and toy around with some combinations.

Mild sweetness, the kind that is just noticeable when it hits your mouth but doesn't linger, is what I would like. I may get some sweet flavor from the El Dorado but I just don't know. Experimentation is great, isn't it!

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[unionrdr]

Cut the crystal to 1/2lb. That make for some sweetness, but not a lot.
** I also found this posted on facebook; http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/how-malt-extract-is-made/

 

[pudland]

Ok...

Hows this look? Any glaring issues?

Thanks!

 

[unionrdr]

Looking at the bar graph at the bottom, your bitterness is out of range for the style. What style did you set it at? Try cutting the bittering addition to .3-.5oz & see how that looks according to the range given. You can use a digital scale to measure these amounts in 3oz bathroom dixie cups.

 

[pudland]

I thought the IBU would be lower due to the late extract addition and the top off water. It could be cut in half. Thats what I keep hearing. I'm getting ready to steep the grain now.

 

[unionrdr]

There are times when a 1oz bittering addition is too much.

 

[pudland]

I went with 1/2 oz at 30 minutes. Brought it to 82 IBU. I'm running out to get more stuff. I'm brewing another batch. The remaining 1/2 oz nugget at 15 minutes, removed 1 oz El Dorado from whirlpool, with everything else the same it brings it to 54 IBU. I'll compare them side by side when done.

 

[unionrdr]

That sounds like a good experiment to learn from. Beersmith does seem a little heavy-handed on the IBU calcs.

 

[pudland]

Well POOH ON ME....... Left the store without getting Citra. This brew is now going to have Mosaic in place of the Citra. Funny thing is this recipe started out with Mosaic and El Dorado hop, but I used all the Mosaic in my last fruit beer. And so will be born "El Mosaic Toronado V1". So much for IBU comparison. Anywho, I'll keep this page posted on the progress and outcome of the original "El Citranado" recipe.

Here is the original thread for the beginning recipe concerning El Dorado & Mosaic hops in the recipe. I'll keep that one posted for the "El Mosaic Toronado V1".
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=524805

 

[pudland]

Update with pics are here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=6875546#post6875546