Wai Iti as an Amarillo Substitute?

[Jambo]

Hello

All my usual suppliers are sold out of Amarillo hops at the moment. Brewuk is suggesting Wai-iti as an alternative, anyone tried them? Was planning an Amarillo single hop ale.

Cheers.

[WalesAles]

Jambo,
Look in here viewtopic.php?f=71&t=65236
Amarillo show different substitutes but Wai iti is not one of them.

WA

[Jocky]

I had the same issue recently for a recipe. I went with Ahtanum, and the recipe already had Centennial in it.

[Rookie]

Hello
All my usual suppliers are sold out of Amarillo hops at the moment. Brewuk is suggesting Wai-iti as an alternative, anyone tried them? Was planning an Amarillo single hop ale.
Cheers.

I haven't used it yet, but it sounds like it would be pretty good.
I have some in my freezer to use with wakatu in a wheatwine.

[Sadfield]

Probably require a combo of hops the get close. Comet may provide the citrus, orange notes. http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... ductId=763. I'm led to believe that Comet are now only grown in Hallertau region, so some older descriptions (of US variety) may not be accurate. http://www.barthhaasgroup.com/johbarth/ ... _Comet.pdf

[simon12]

Wai-iti is my favourite hop but its not much like amarillo.

[Rubbery]

Wai Iti is lemon and lime, not like amarillo at all. But, good for a single hop pale ale. It is a lighter taste, so I would go for a dry session pale ale myself.

[Jambo]

Well I bought some and chased them around the freezer for a while...

Then just before Christmas got fed up looking at them and decided to do a brew based on Greg Hughes' single hop recipes.

Except I didn't have enough Wai Iti to use for bittering - just 200g at 4% AA - so used Challenger instead.

Used the following for a 23L batch:

4700g Pale
250g Carapils

70' 19g Challenger 10.5%
18g Wai Iti 4%
15' 34g Wai Iti 4%
5' 34g Wai Iti 4%
0' 114g Wai Iti 4%

Fermented with WLP051 from a 1L starter at 18 degC.

I'll soon find out the easy way but anyone any thoughts on how this will end up!? Particularly mixing a bog standard UK hop with such an exotic modern one seems to be something that would be frowned upon, but since it is the bittering addition, AA is AA right? Maybe need to read more in this area...

Also - dropped the hydrometer in the other night and it came out covered in small yellow floaters. These looked a bit like the yellow stuff contained within hop leaves and I guess that's probably what they were since I had made such a huge late additon. I don't often brew this type of beer - is it normal? Also is it an indication that these hops haven't been well incorporated into the beer and is there anything I can do/could have done?

As an aside... losses with such quantities of hops are absurd, the cost per pint of hoppy brews is madness!

Cheers

[BrannigansLove]

If you were planning a single hop, and the planned hop is unavailable, I'd look at it as a chance to try anything else. Wai-iti sounds nice, although with such a low AA level, you'd need a lot of them to get the same level of bitterness as Amarillo (or bitter with something like Magnum, and use the Wai-iti solely for aroma/dry hop).

[alix101]

It's an amazing hop in its own right and I'm sure you've made a good beer with it.
simcoe is also amazing but some don't like it's( to coin an American phrase ) dank character which is often a down side to the hop. Mosaic was developed to get over the problems with the simcoe flavour.
its a really good hop if your looking to replace simcoe but it's also not like simcoe in terms of pine.

[Jambo]

Thanks for the feedback. Done with antibiotics now so should be able to have an early sample tonight!

[orlando]

didn't have enough Wai Iti to use for bittering - just 200g at 4% AA - so used Challenger instead.

I've stopped using delicate and expensive aroma hops as a bittering charge. Once you've boiled a hop for an hour you have pretty much lost any influence it is likely to have on aroma and possibly flavour too. I now put whatever high alpha hop that comes to hand in the kettle first and leave the good stuff to the end or for a dry hop if I am after aroma.

[Jambo]

didn't have enough Wai Iti to use for bittering - just 200g at 4% AA - so used Challenger instead.

I've stopped using delicate and expensive aroma hops as a bittering charge. Once you've boiled a hop for an hour you have pretty much lost any influence it is likely to have on aroma and possibly flavour too. I now put whatever high alpha hop that comes to hand in the kettle first and leave the good stuff to the end or for a dry hop if I am after aroma.

Orlando thanks for that - with my layman's hop knowledge I have formed the same view.

Beer tastes great! Lovely flavour off these hops and it really is lemony. Obviously needs a bit of time to condition and I'll taste it again but promising so far. My first go at re-writing a recipe so I'm quite chuffed!

On the down side, it lacks much body, by that I mean that it tastes a bit thin and watery. I wonder if it may be a result of this yeast and/or if I need to modify the grain bill.

[orlando]

On the down side, it lacks much body, by that I mean that it tastes a bit thin and watery. I wonder if it may be a result of this yeast and/or if I need to modify the grain bill.

You could do that of course but you could mash a little higher, what was the mash temp? Changing the yeast to WLP007 would attenuate a little lower, again achieving the same effect. Fun this recipe tweaking lark, isn't it?

[Jambo]

Hi Orlando - it was 65 degC so room to go up a bit for sure.. Thanks for the yeast recommendation.