Saaz hops quantity?

[Greenhorn]

So my first AG is nearly ready to bottle and already tastes flippin awesome. For my second, I'll be using the same ingredients but in different quantities, as a comparison and to use up my first grain order.

Now I'm planning my AGs ready for summer drinking (three so far. getting ahead of myself?), one of which is a Bohemian Pilsner as seen on BYO.com. The hopping schedule, halfed for my 10L batch size ends up calling for about 100g of Saaz hops. Which does seem an awful lot. Is this right?

I've used the calculator on brewer's friend and everything matches up regarding AAUs and the total IBUs etc. I know that Saaz has a very low AAU content, but it still seems a lot of hops for a 10L brew.

As a newb, I'm a bit unsure. Should I just trust the calculator?

 

[MyQul]

Link the BYO article and I'll put it through brew mate

 

[Greenhorn]

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/1929-bohemian-pilsener-style-profile

Cheers.

 

[MyQul]

Well for the full 19L you need 134g of hops so changing the batch size to 10L you need 70.53g according to brewmate

Btw what is your water like? For a pilsner you need extremely soft water bicarbonates at 0-30 ppm/mg per L (this might not mean much to you). Seeing as your only doing 10L unless you have very soft tap water I'd just use bottled water. Use Eden Falls from Asda (I use this for my bitters) which has a bicarbonate value of 30. Tartanspecial says Waitrose bottled water is good but most bottled water from supermarkets has quite a high Alkalinity

 

[Greenhorn]

I got the higher amount of hops from the fact that HBS lists the current Saaz AAU as 2.4% rather than 3.5% which is what brewer's friend has them down as.

I was planning on mixing my fairly hard water with 75% distilled.

 

[MyQul]

If your planning to buy them from there, you will of course need more to replicate the AA% from the BYO reciepe. So yes, you may well need over 100g for a 10L reciepe. You could of course use a higher AA% hop for the 60min additon as it will mostly give bittering only - although I understand even bittering additons can give a little flavour, especially in pale ales- but not much I'd imagine.

mixing your tap water with ditilled will work but without a salifert Alkalinity testing kit you won't know exactly what your Alkalinity will be. But mixing hard tap and soft bought water works well. I do that too to bring my alkalinity down a touch when making some dark beers

 

[Greenhorn]

Thanks. I'll take a look at some bottled and see what is suitable.

 

[BeerCat]

Ive tested bottled water from aldi and it was over 200ppm. I didn't realise you could get it bottled as low as 30ppm. Wish they would put this on the bottles.

 

[MyQul]

Ive tested bottled water from aldi and it was over 200ppm. I didn't realise you could get it bottled as low as 30ppm. Wish they would put this on the bottles.

According to TartanSpecial (who I imagine has done the research) only Waitrose bottled water and the Eden Falls from Asda is as low. Can't remember who posted the alkalinity or what exactly it was but the stuff from Iceland is harder than a Viking with an Uzi

 

[Greenhorn]

Waitrose bottled water? Cheap....

Thankfully we have a local ASDA.

 

[MyQul]

Waitrose bottled water? Cheap....

Thankfully we have a local ASDA.

Tbh I have no idea how much bottled water is in waitrose. The only thing I every get from Waitrose is a daily free cup of coffee. :mrgreen:

 

[GlentoranMark]

Regarding your hops, make sure you check the AA's on the packet as they can vary greatly from what is in the calculators.

Hops vary vastly, I have hops as low as 2.3 and as high as 16. The higher hops are usually bittering and low for aroma. Some like Saaz are dual purpose and why your recipe works.

 

[Greenhorn]

Regarding your hops, make sure you check the AA's on the packet as they can vary greatly from what is in the calculators.

Yeah, I've been tweaking the AAs listed on the calculators because they don't match the hops actually on sale.

After using about 15-20g on my first two brews, over 100 just seemed like an awful lot. Can't wait to get onto some different styles though.

 

[VillageBrew]

Basic Lidl spring water is also very low