The Truth About Hops And IBU For HomeBrewers

The Truth About Hops And IBU For HomeBrewers
This is an educational video that shares the truth around hops and IBU for HomeBrewers.
I am sure that you will find this to be educational, interesting as well as in some places surprising.
Channel links:-
Facebook group :- groups/Brewbeer
Channel store :- www.teespring....
Introduction music:- Drink Beer (Till The Day That I Die) by Dazie Mae

[@alanman5328]

Pure gold content as usual. Many thanks David Heath!

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

May thanks Alan, glad you enjoyed it! 🍻🍻🍻

[@TSATMA]

Excellent info, thanks! I was brewing back before brewing software was a thing, and then, like everyone else, ended up spending large amounts of time and effort micromanaging every single dose of everything down to two decimal points after adopting it. I quit all measuring and all testing (including gravity) a few years ago and it's vastly improved my relationship with my beer. I now eyeball hop additions using a measuring cup and don't worry too much about varieties (I only really brew 4 or 5 boring styles these days and I'm >200 brews in on my current system). I never A/B them so I don't know nor worry if batches taste completely different, and if I make a bad batch then it's only me that drinks it. I don't think I've had a bad batch yet... Like sound engineers say, use your ears 😉

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Great, I am glad you enjoyed it. Yes indeed some very good points in your text there.

[@tommann1025]

I had no idea about freezing hops. Very helpful chart. Thanks

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Great to hear and much appreciated 🍻🍻🍻

[@davidmorgan4284]

Excellent info! Since I'm 8000' in altitude, I was very interested in this. I use Brewfather and it converts for altitude. I usually end up increasing a little, if I brew the same recipe again.

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Thanks David. Yes certainly altitude plays a big role.

[@rbal-101]

Great video again, Thank you David. Did you ever try out CO2 extract or other liquid hop extracts?

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Great to hear. Yes I quite like them though they are very pricey and not so useful for homebrewers really.

[@SCROWMD]

Thanks David. Lots of food for thought here. I have adjusted my Hop Utilization in Brewfather to 50% ( was 100%) and await my latest brew to ferment so as to determine if things taste a bit more " on point" now. I have been disappointed in a few Pale Ale recipes lately that tasted watery, wherein calculated IBU was near 30 units. Trial and error is never a bad thing.

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Hey Sean, I would suggest brewing some smash beers with the same ingredients but change the bittering hop on each to different IBU levels. As much as it is unlikely to be accurate it will allow you to understand the variations of bitterness more clearly.

[@johnstevens8601]

Brewfather has a hop freshness tool.

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

@johnstevens8601 yes, very true

[@A2an]

Great, more of that Thanks very much David❤

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Thank you, much appreciated 🍻🍻🍻

[@patrickburke5523]

More great stuff. Thank you.

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Many thanks Patrick, great to hear 🍻🍻🍻

[@paulrobertson9439]

Another excellent video thank you :)

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Cheers Paul, great to hear 🍻🍻🍻

[@Alattos]

Thanks for the video 😊 The hand written graph with 2 points per line makes it hard to draw any conclusion though

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Yes the graph could of been better but the data was explained in that section. Cheers 🍻🍻🍻

[@geoffdickinson1310]

Another great video for information. Tks. What are your views on using a hop spider as opposed to bareback additions into the kettle.?

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Hi Geoff, many thanks. Personally I avoid hop spiders as they throw in another curveball. If I am using a system where a pump can get clogged with hops then I will use a whirlpool to free things up. Though the easiest way is to have a false bottom within the system and then you avoid this additional step.

[@1over137]

So what you are telling me is, that all the flak I took for "Yolo'ing" ingredients wasn't just? The way I looked at it, right at the start, based on all these measures for grain and hops and density and what not, that they will all have considerable error bars for me as I was a beginner. The more I heard people drumming out numbers and predictions, the more I heard other brewers point out their brews often end up way up no matter what numbers they used. There is just so much variability in the processes and trying to aim for a perfect reproducible (at home) recipe without 10s of thousands of pound in equipment is going to be near on impossible. SO... why bother. Just Yolo it and experiment. Just write it down as you go and if you like it, you have at least a basic skeleton to refine from.

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Haha in a word Yes! Experiment and have fun, thats the truth of brewing as I see it.

[@Azathoth67]

On a related subject I am planning to brew a session NEIPA/juicy pale ale in a few weeks but I have only found 2021 harvest hops on line so far for the varieties I want to use. Do you think that they are too "old" or or would it be ok ?

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Hi, it really depends on how they have been stored. If in a freezer then losses will be minimal and you could factor some in.

[@grahamhawes7089]

I personally think that basically all software vastly overestimates the bitterness contribution of whirlpool, flameout, and late-addition hops. Similarly I don’t really trust IBU estimates for additions made with less than 30 minutes to go. I try to get the majority of my bitterness from a very early addition because it’s just the most predictable way.

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Hey Graham, our best guide is for sure our taste buds.

[@petersmith3931]

Very interesting - and worrying - as it seems to be a crap shoot as to whether one is brewing to the stated IBUs. And there's me carefully measuring out my hops to a decimal point (following the recipe) on a jewellers digital scale - am I a mug...

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Hi Peter, there is no need to worry, nothing has changed except now having this knowledge. Judge your beers on how they taste as im sure you previously did.

[@jpsion]

hops are plants vulnerable to environment and processing conditions. 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@DavidHeathHomebrew]

Exactly.