Greg Hughes Vienna Lager Recipe Errors

[MyQul]

I'm making GH's Vienna (pseudo) Lager this weekend. I've noticed some errors in the recipe so for anyone else making this;

The IBU's are 26.5 overall but the bittering lower down the page says 20.1 IBU. There are no later additions appart from two 0 min addions (which of course wont add any IBU's). The bittering addition for the reciepe is Northern Brewer 8% @ 60min. This does come to 26.1, so the error is stating the bittering additon is comes to 20.1

There are two 0 min additions of 15g each of Hallertau Hersbrucker and Tettnang. Doing a bit of reading on style guidlines for vienna lager I think this is too much. I think one 0 min 15g additon is enough. Either Tettnang or the Hersbrucker. Or perhaps 7.5g of each. I've went or15g grams of Savinjski Goldings for my late addition for this beer

 

[Brew_DD2]

Is it not the case that isomerization occurs even you add the hops at 0 minutes? I've never really bought into the idea that you add no bitterness if you add right at the end of the boil.

I suppose that could account for the missing few IBUs but if it's not printed then it does leave you guessing. Good call on the late hops. Sounds like a very tasty brew indeed.

 

[mike-os]

does it make a difference to ibu if you put in at flame out or after chilling to 80c?

 

[Sandimas]

There are two 0 min additions of 15g each of Hallertau Hersbrucker and Tettnang. Doing a bit of reading on style guidlines for vienna lager I think this is too much. I think one 0 min 15g additon is enough. Either Tettnang or the Hersbrucker. Or perhaps 7.5g of each.

Yes. I've only made this style once and the 0min hop was 10g Hersbrucker. You could certainly push that to 15g but double the amount sounds way too much.

It was a great beer, meant to be similar to Sam Adams but it was way better :)

 

[MyQul]

@mike-os & Brew_DD2 tbh I'm pretty sure adding hops at flame out (unless you add them below 80C) does add ibu's but brewmate doesnt account for this so I have no idea how much extra IBU's it add's. Does anyone else use brewing software that add IBU's as flame out

 

[mike-os]

i am fairly certain it must add at least a little until chilled below 80 or so, OK for those with no chill it may even add a good bit...

just used brewers friend, adding hops as boil or aroma adds the hops to the ibu even if at 0 minutes... and ups the ibu a lot... i did a lager from 8 up to 12ibu adding 15g at 0 min as boil or aroma rather than the other options so guessing that if the wort is still at 99c it contributes to the ibu to some degree

 

[MyQul]

The thing is though in the receipe the 0min additions are listed as having 0 IBU's so not very helpful if you've got to guess the IBU's

 

[IainM]

I don't understand where this 80C figure comes from. I've been looking into using hops as an ingredient for cooking (imagine that pungent new world / US aroma in a lime sorbet, mmmmm.....), and stumble upon this blog post by a research chef from Nordic Food Lab. Pretty much all their experiments turned out very bitter, even cold steeping:

One of the first thing we tried was to just infuse hops in water. We tried boiling water, warm water and cold water. All samples were incredibly bitter, but the cold one was much easier to accept. That is why we did most of our food trials with cold infusion.

The theory I read about in brewing forums and books is that bitterness is determined by isomerisation of insoluble alpha acids during the boil, to soluble iso- forms. The above is in stark contrast to this. Even looking at studies where they actually measure the alpha acid and iso-alpha acid over time to determine the rate at which isomerisation occurs, such as this one and this one, it is pretty clear from the figures that lowering the temperature only slows isomerisation, and doesn't stop it, and they put to rest the idea that flame out or sub-80C addition don't contribute to the bitterness.

I think the root of this misconception is that people always go back to the most accepted equation used to estimate bitterness, the Tinseth equation, because this is the one used by most brewing software. This equation is awful. It is purely empirical, and not based on the underlying physical chemistry. It ignores the temperature dependence of isomerisation. It ignores the fact that there are multiple alpha acids which isomerise at different rates. It ignores the fact that chilling is a process that takes time. It ignores the fact that the volume of the wort changes during the course of the boil. It ignores the fact that even cold hops add bitterness. It leaves the brewer to resort to intuition. Surely someone can come up with something better than this. Sure it will involve a bit of calculus, but this is chemical kinetics, not rocket science, and all the underlying theory was developed 120 years ago!

 

[F00b4r]

Tinseth is even worse than that, as it can show massive errors normally, but gets even worse with multiple late hop additions, oh and actually only calculates copper bitterness not bitterness in the bottle/keg (something very few people seem to be aware of and another reason why calculated IBU's can be so far out to real world values when tested; a Brulosophy XBMT where the measured IBU's were about half calculated values shows that most people seem unaware that it calculates copper bitterness and not that of the packaged beer). Graham Wheeler and a couple of others discussed this recently (read through the whole thread) on another forum and it makes for a very interesting read. If you have access to a spectrophotometer then you could make some much needed tweaks to regularly brewed recipes but they are not exactly common (experience along with your palate will hopefully bring about similar tweaks to recipes anyway given time and more brews).

 

[Covrich]

calculating ibus at flame out is tricky because the pace your wort chills will determine how much bitterness is extracted?

IN the winter ground water is colder so chillers are more effective I find maybe my immersion chiller isn't big enough for my 50 pot so a bigger one for example would cool it faster.. or if you no chill then , well I wouldn't add them at flame out for a no chill.

 

[Notlaw]

Jesus, sh*t just got really complicated... I need more coffee before I try to absorb these last couple of posts... :-?

 

[F00b4r]

Jesus, sh*t just got really complicated... I need more coffee before I try to absorb these last couple of posts... :-?

Lol true, although time and drinking the results of similar recipes should let you get a feel for adjusting to your taste without the head hurting too much and really having to think too much about the chemistry behind it [emoji3]

 

[F00b4r]

calculating ibus at flame out is tricky because the pace your wort chills will determine how much bitterness is extracted?

IN the winter ground water is colder so chillers are more effective I find maybe my immersion chiller isn't big enough for my 50 pot so a bigger one for example would cool it faster.. or if you no chill then , well I wouldn't add them at flame out for a no chill.

Some people also wait a time before chilling etc. Biabacus specifically has a section around flameout and chilling to try and bring consistency to recipes for this part of brewing as most seem to ignore and information around this and just assume everyone does the same thing.

 

[MyQul]

I agree that trusting your own tastes is a good idea. I make a concentrated wort and because you get a lower hop utilisation you need to add a few more IBU's. There's calculators for that kind of thing but when I tried them my beer came out to bitter. So after a small amount of trial and error I settled on an extra 5IBU per brew. This works well for me an my set up.

 

[Halfacrem]

I wonder how much the average person can detect small changes in IBU's? For instance, would a change of 2 IBU's be readily detectable by your average drinker?

 

[MyQul]

I wonder how much the average person can detect small changes in IBU's? For instance, would a change of 2 IBU's be readily detectable by your average drinker?

I think it might depend on how sensitive to bitterness you are. I've got a really sweet tooth and dont really like bitter things at all so I think I might have a particular sensitivity to bitterness.
For me when I upped the IBU's by 10 I could really taste the bitterness but if I didn't add any extra IBU's I found my beer was too sweet

 

[Brew_DD2]

Brewersfriend gives you the IBUs if you put the hops as whirlpool.

 

[MyQul]

Brewersfriend gives you the IBUs if you put the hops as whirlpool.

I'm making the beer now so I'll stick to the reciepe I'm using but I think I'll put it through brewers fiend to see what it comes out as when I've finished later. Thanks :hat:

 

[Brew_DD2]

I'm making the beer now so I'll stick to the reciepe I'm using but I think I'll put it through brewers fiend to see what it comes out as when I've finished later. Thanks :hat:

I think they have a wee guide on what % utilization to put in. To be honest, I think a lot of it is educated guesswork as opposed to an exact science.

 

[MyQul]

I think they have a wee guide on what % utilization to put in. To be honest, I think a lot of it is educated guesswork as opposed to an exact science.

I strongly suspect your correct in this :thumb: