Using hop pellets

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marshbrewer

marshbrewer

Out on the marshes, wailing at the moon.
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I'm a kit modder rather than a extract or all grain chap, getting back into brewing after a gap.

In all of my recipes I have used whole hops, in a sort of partial mash - steep any grains, the bring to boil and add hops at the required timings.

So my question is what's the procedure with pellets? Say my recipe notes call for 50g of Saaz for 15 mins of boil, then 50g of cascade for the last 5 mins, would I just directly swap the same amount of pellets at the same timings or do I need to adjust things somehow?
 
I think with pellets you will use approx 10% less. This also depends on the AAU. Put your recipe into the forum calculator and select "pellets" in the hop section,enter your AAU and then look at the result in the IBU section.
 
You'll usually use less pellets for the same IBUs.

Using one of the many online recipe calculators, I'd begin with the recipe in question using whole leaf hops. Note the total IBUs for each addition.

Then, switch the recipe to pellets and you (should) see the IBUs increase. You can then adjust your weights (or timings!) to get back to the intended IBUs of the original recipe.
 
I use pellets for extract brews and for later dry hopping or hop teas. They are more efficient at giving up bitterness, flavour and aroma on a weight for weight basis compared to whole hops due to the much larger surface area they present to the liquid in the brewing process.
However because pellets break up to fine particles you have to have an effective way of filtering them out of wort and beer. So I use a nylon mesh bag for the boil, and for hop teas (which I chuck in after the steep) or a dry hop I use a nylon mesh sock over the end of the siphon tube at packaging time .
And that all works well for me :thumb:
 

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