by Graham_W » Fri Sep 25, 2015 15:17
As an addendum to my major diatribe on page 2:
Where I mentioned that Crookedeyeboy's beer was tested at 48 EBU and that the Tinseth prediction was 80EBU, well I forgot to say that it now seems clear that anything above about 60 EBU will just not happen with conventional brewing, no matter how many hops are added. The maximum achievable seems to be somewhere around 60EBU. I have long suspected that something like this was going on and that the bitterness claims of the beers of some micro-brewers was pie in the sky. The Basic Brewing Radio IBU Ceiling Experiment confirms this and data supplied to me by Wallybrew, upon analysis, also confirms it.
There is a paradox inasmuch as a beer that had an obscene amount of hop pellets steeped after the boil, a kilogramme in 20 or 25 litres, produced a beer that measured around or above 100 EBU. This is so unconventional that it may be a measurement artefact. The common absorbence method of measuring bitterness is not very selective and just measures hop "stuff". It is also highly subject to interference by other things incidentally present, certain chemicals particularly, and in this case, I suspect, bits of hop powder floating around. Until an explanation is elicited for this apparent parodox, and because a kilogramme of hops is so unconventional, it is probably better to disregard it. It apparently did not taste like a 100EBU beer, not that anybody knows what a 100EBU beer should taste like.
So it is fair to assume that if Tinseth says anything above 60EBU, you can be sure that he is telling fibs.
G.W.
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