Mighty Zeus IIPA

[akr71]

Since the hop freezer is stuffed to overflowing with homegrown hops, here's what I have planned for Friday. I figured I'd kick my usuall Might Zeus IPA up to Imperial levels - anywhere you see Zeus hops in this recipe, multiply the amount by 5 since I'm using fresh(ish) hops.
Feel free to critique.

11.5 # 2Row
3 # Munich
2 # Biscuit
1.5 # Crystal 15
1.5 # corn sugar

Mash @ 152 for 60 minutes

Boil for 90 minutes
1 oz Zeus (FWH)
2 oz Zeus (20 minutes)
1.5 oz Zeus (10 minutes)
1.0 oz Zeus (10 minutes)
1.0 oz Zeus (5 minutes)
1.0 oz Warrior (5 minutes)
1.0 oz Zeus (5 minutes)
1.0 oz Zeus (0 minutes)

113 IBU
1.079 OG

Ferment with Wyeast 1056 American Ale

[mr x]

Looks good to me.

[jeffsmith]

That's going to be a tasty one!

[JohnnyMac]

Looks good Andy. Wouldn't mind trying that when she's ready.....

[akr71]

Looks good Andy. Wouldn't mind trying that when she's ready.....

That should be do-able. I should mention (if the IBU & OG look low), this is was put together as a 7 gallon batch in BeerSmith. I figured with all those hops, I might have trouble getting enough wort out of the kettle.

[mr x]

Difficult to say on the wort loss. The wet hops are already saturated with moisture, and for all the hops I threw into my kettle (over a third full of packed wet hops), my wort loss wasn't as bad as I thought, maybe a half gallon extra over a 'normal' beer on a 10 gal batch, but YMMV....

[akr71]

I usually build my recipes as 6 gallon recipes so that after trub & racking loss I'm still getting 5 gallons (or at least close to) of finished beer. If I don't have to worry about all that hop material, then I've built myself a little buffer towards efficiency loss of a large grain bill

[NASH]

Why not do what I do and multiply by 10??

Seriously though....

When I brew with fresh hops I always take into account the extra 'water' added. I generally use ~ 5x - 6x as the weight factor knowing that all the extra weight is water.

So on the H&T scale, last year I used 40kgs in a 600 L batch, at 6x that's equivalent to 6.66 kgs dry weight leaving me with 33.4 kgs or 33.4 L of extra water I'm adding. That's over 5% dilution to my overall wort so plan accordingly if you have any intention of hitting your formulation numbers.

Have a boo here at the recipe I posted for my 2009 batch with calculations included for hop-water added:
http://hartandthistle.blogspot.com/2009 ... ecipe.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[akr71]

I kegged this last night. I'm not sure what went wrong, but it sure as hell doesn't taste like a IIPA - not even an IPA. The hydrometer sample right after brewing was nice and hoppy, but now the bitterness has all but disappeared. It still is quite resinous - and it should be after adding all those hops, but I'm confused where the bitterness disappeared to. Could be that I used home grown hops and the AA% is lower than expected (they're only 2nd year plants) - I know some of the cones were harvested before they were prime.

I'll see what its like once it is carbed - I think it will still be drinkable, but not what I was aiming for.

[mr x]

I stopped using my homegrown for bittering. Waaayyyyy too low on the AA.

[wortly]

I am thinking that people are picking their hops a little too early, and as a result the alpha acid is too low. We harvested ours late, but they went in late. Our Cascades were late, but we were too busy in the field and pulled the trigger and picked them before they were fully mature. As a result the AA% is about 3.5%.

We had 2 different harvests that we 1.5 weeks apart on the same plants for the Newport. The AA% on the early harvest was 1/4 of the later harvest.

[akr71]

I am thinking that people are picking their hops a little too early, and as a result the alpha acid is too low. We harvested ours late, but they went in late. Our Cascades were late, but we were too busy in the field and pulled the trigger and picked them before they were fully mature. As a result the AA% is about 3.5%.

We had 2 different harvests that we 1.5 weeks apart on the same plants for the Newport. The AA% on the early harvest was 1/4 of the later harvest.

Oh, I know I harvested some too early. It was harvest early or risk them get scattered by hurricane winds.

X, I've learned my lesson - home grown for late additions and dryhopping only from now on. I plan to re-brew this with commercial hops for bittering and see what I think then.