What do you bitter with?

Get advice on making beer from raw ingredients (malt, hops, water and yeast)
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jmc
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by jmc » Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:40 pm

Recently home grown Cascade and a bit of First Gold

During the summer I used Columbus 14.5-16.5% (pellets) for hoppy ales and Tettnang for Wheat beers

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dcq1974
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by dcq1974 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 2:47 pm

Challenger/Goldings/Fuggles/First Gold/Styrian/Summit

All have their uses :lol:
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DeGarre
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by DeGarre » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:00 pm

Mostly Target.

super_simian
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by super_simian » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:11 pm

Was First Gold (got a deal on a half kilo) but now local Cluster (for the same reason, plus I like the low mileage aspect...) Before that, various other varieties. I always go for a 7-8%AA type though. Decent bang for buck level, but an overly liberal hand or extended boil won't skew overall flavour too badly.

weiht

Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by weiht » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:23 pm

I like my bitterness to have some earthy and herbal notes as compared to a clean neutral bitterness. For that reason, I like fuggles northern brewer perle and nugget recently for my main 60min addition.

booldawg

Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by booldawg » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:02 pm

I suppose it depends on the brew. If its a darker one then I'll use a high AA variety such as Northdown to balance out the malt.

On a light brew I'll go for something a bit more delicate like Fuggles, Goldings etc.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist and not too adventurous in my recipes; mostly because I dont brew as much as I'd like to so tend to stick to what I know!

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zgoda
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Re: Odp: What do you bitter with?

Post by zgoda » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:21 pm

Marynka, Iunga, Magnum, Herkules (all grown locally here), plus what I have in freezer. I'm not picky if it comes to bittering.

Belter

Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by Belter » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:45 pm

so the verdict is... everyone uses different bittering hops

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seymour
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by seymour » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:49 pm

Belter wrote:so the verdict is... everyone uses different bittering hops
Or to summarize it differently...it doesn't really matter :)

Belter

Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by Belter » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:55 pm

seymour wrote:
Belter wrote:so the verdict is... everyone uses different bittering hops
Or to summarize it differently...it doesn't really matter :)
or is it that we all make different beer?

so could we all agree on a high alpha hop to reduce the cost of brewing is the answer?

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zgoda
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Re: Odp: What do you bitter with?

Post by zgoda » Tue Nov 06, 2012 7:01 pm

In my local prices 10 gms pellets cost ~10p, this doesn't make much difference if I use 20 gms or 40. ;)

Belter

Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by Belter » Tue Nov 06, 2012 7:18 pm

I'm not down with pellets. they make me feel dirty

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zgoda
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Re: Odp: What do you bitter with?

Post by zgoda » Tue Nov 06, 2012 8:36 pm

I don't have enough storage space in my freezer for whole hops. :)

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Fuggled Mind
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by Fuggled Mind » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:04 pm

Belter wrote:I'm not down with pellets. they make me feel dirty
They lack the glamour of whole hops, form a sludge at the bottom of your boiler but still manage to make great beer. I prefer whole hops but I can't complain about the results from pellets.

Also, pellets are nowhere near as horrible as hop extract. I can't believe how many German breweries emphasise that they brew according to the Rheinheitsgebot (purity laws) and then chuck in a load of hop extract - now that's dirty!

Cheers

Jason
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Re: What do you bitter with?

Post by super_simian » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:52 pm

Belter wrote:so could we all agree on a high alpha hop to reduce the cost of brewing is the answer?
As I said in my post, only to a point. If you go too high in AA, you have to be very accurate.

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