Confusion with bittering units

[yeasty]

I recently did the below TTL recipe:

This is the recipe that I use for my TT - never had a problem yet and have done it 3 times. The only change I have made is to caramalise the first runnings to give it a bit more colour - the Golden Promise is excellent but it is very pale compared to the original TT.

Recipe for Timothy Taylor Landlord

Assumes 80% mash efficiency
Assumes Styrian Goldings @ 7.9% (I cant get my hops AAC this high however), Fuggles @ 4.5%, Goldings @ 5.3%


OG: 1042

25L 23L 5 Gal

Golden Promise pale malt 4660g 4280g 7.75 lb

Start of boil
Styrian Goldings hops 42g 39g 1.1 oz
Fuggles hops 35g 32g 1 oz

Last fifteen minutes
Goldings hops 15g 0.45 oz
Irish moss or use Whirlfloc 10g 0.3 oz

Mash schedule: 66oC (151oF), 90 minutes
Boil time: 90 minutes
Racking gravity: 1009
Alcohol content: 4.4% by volume, 3.4% by weight Bitterness units: 35

I have been tweaking a spreadsheet I have been building and calculated that my TTL is way too bitter. The above recipe uses 42g of Stryrian goldings at 7.9%. Mine were 4% so using this sites hop replacement calculator I needed 83 grms. My fuggles are 4.5% so I used 35 grms.

My spreadsheet works this out to be 55 bittering units with a 1.043 OG. The recipe should be 35 bittering units!

I have only just worked this out after the brew has been kegged for 1 week so I had a quick taste and yes it made my tong numb it was that bitter.

I am after a 2nd opinion.. Did I work it out wrong in the first place or is my spreadsheet way off? I know it is only a week old and will mellow but I want to make sure I get future brews correct.

[Jim]

There are several fiddle factors to take into account when you work out hop bitterness - try using Wheeler's Beer Engine for the calculations and see if it agrees with your spreadsheet. There are a few different settings even on that which can produce quite different bitterness from the calcs.

[yeasty]

Thanks Jim,

I have had a look and it looks like I have added way too many hops. Did I do the wrong thing adjusting the hops according to the information on the recipe? Again, I just want to make sure I do the right thing in the future.

[Jim]

Using the values for 25l in Chris's hop rate calculator, I get the correct IBU level of 35 with a utilisation of around 17%:

42g at 7.9% (17% utilisation) = 23 IBUs

35g at 4.5% (17% utilisation) = 11 IBUs

(Total = 34 IBUs, near enough)

However, 17% is a very low utilisation factor - you're more likely to get upward of 25% for which that recipe would give a total of 33+16 = 49 IBUs (quite high).

Your substitution for the Styrians is correct as far as I can see, so it seems the recipe is wrong (or at least assumes an unrealistically low utilisation).

[alefric]

Going off at a tangent a bit.......Yeasty mentions pale colour of Landlord clone compared to the real thing,i wonder if Taylors when giving out information fibbed about or omitted the inclusion of crystal as used in best bitter.....any thoughts?

Andrew

[Graham]

That's something that i've speculated before, I can't see that that level of caramelisation happening personally, they may add crystal or brewers caramel.

Almost all of the larger brewers colour-standardise their beers, because, according to them, many people drink with their eyes. In order to standardise the colour they have to darken their beer somewhat in order to give them some latitude to play with. This was traditionally done with caramel, but some types of caramel were outlawed by the EEC about ten or twelve years ago, but not all of them. Many breweries now use colour-standardised black-malt extract to darken their beers. However, it is rare for breweries to admit to caramel or malt extract colouring and the only clue is when their specified colour is a lot darker than the colour that can be attributed to their specified grist; even so it is not easily possible to determine what they actually use as a colourant.

[GBH]

On the colour front, im going to attempt this brew next weekend (if I get me boiler )

And I thought it was funny that every recipe Ive seen doesnt include Crystal malt.

Ive had a play with the calculator on the Recipe database and Ive decided to use Crystal malt (for colour)

Im going to add some and i aim to get 1:1 grain to Hop utilisation

Im sticking with the measurements I think!

[lordnoise]

I thought I'd read that brewers caramel hadnt got much flavour to it or was added in such relatively small quantities that there was little flavour pay off. I may have thunk wrong however !