Totally Messed up Hop schedule

[VTBrewer]

Was making MW ESB. Recipe called for 2oz Kent (5.2%) at 60 mins and 1.5 oz Fuggles (5%) at 2 mins.

I copied it into my brew software horribly wrong. Did 1.5 Kent at 60, .5 Kent at 2 and no Fuggles. This was Sunday night. Should i dry hop the Fuggles? If so when....in primary? Or should i just make a liter of 1.040 (OG was 1.055) and boil the fuggles for 2 mins, cool and throw in primary. Its starting to ferment well this morning.

 

[bsteele]

I would dry hop for 7ish days in primary after fermentation is complete, or if you have a secondary I suppose you could dry hop there... but I don't have a secondary... so... yeah.

That's just what I would do.

And I don't think you totally messed up the hop schedule. I think it'll still be dandy, just not as bitter

 

[TipsyDragon]

well your beer is not going to be as bitter as it is supposed to. dry hopping wont fix this. boiling the hops in water will get you way more bitterness out of them than if you boiled them in the wort because of the low SG. when you add them to the wort you will be diluting the wort and get a lower ABV. my suggestion is just to leave it be and chock this up to a learning experience. next time try to be more precise with your copying and measuring.

 

[weirdboy]

I wouldn't worry about it. You made more of a mild or ordinary bitter than an ESB, but these things happen. You might even like how the beer turns out.

 

[Grinder12000]

I'm with weirdboy - don't worry about it. Chalk it up to a learning experience and see what happens. If you start to try to correct it then you are still not FIXING the problem, just changing it.

Leave it, taste it, smell it and them compared THAT to when you do it correctly the next time. Your learning will grow and with growth your beer will be better. Long run dude.

 

[DavidSteel]

Hell yeah, toss those fuggles in for a week. It's all good

 

[cvstrat]

Don't feel bad. I've brewed probably 30 batches and last week I was supposed to hop 60, 15, and 0. I hopped 60, 30, and forgot the 0 min addition. It's an american stout, so I probably won't dry hop it. The 15 going to a 30 is going to add significant IBUs and I'm guessing dry hopping is going to take it over the top a lot.

The good news is that I'm still pretty confident it will taste great anyway. My suggestion when hopping is that if you miss something, just leave it out. Better to underhop than to way way overshoot it. Then again I suppose it depends on the style. If it's an IPA or something you'd probably just bump up the dry hops a bit, but whatever.

Just leave it as is IMO and enjoy!

 

[VTBrewer]

I was more worried about being at the very low end of the style guidliens for category 8C and was just unclear as if I can up IBU after I dump in primary, typically i would'nt mess iwth it but this is for competition.

I did 7 5 gallon batches in the last 7 days, and was just reading off the wrong sheet on my marathon week. It tasted great going into the primary anyway, but think i may chuck that fuggles in just for ****s and giggles.

 

[weirdboy]

If it's for competition then just enter it as an ordinary bitter or maybe special bitter. They are all lumped together into the same judging flight anyway, usually, and the styles are remarkably similar.


I wouldn't dry hop it, though because that's not going to end up to style IMO.

 

[VTBrewer]

I probably over thought this mistake....

I don't change my brews after I brew. What I get is always fine. I just know that the way to win competitions is to adhere to 3 things.

1. style guideline
2. style guideline
3. style guideline

I still meet all of them right now as it is for an ESB, squeaking in on IBU's. (and correct me if I'm wrong, but no BJCP judge can really differentiate at +/- 5 IBU). I'm definitely out on OG for an ordinary or special, and my SRM will be pushing 18 which hurts the first two categories...so yeah...what I did is what's getting entered.

Can you get penalized for entering an 8C that's really an 8B?

 

[weirdboy]

Your beer will be subjectively judged on how it compares qualitatively to the style descriptions. Keeping in mind that a judge is not going to be able to tell the OG, FG, IBUs, or any other numerical values associated with your beer.

What I would do is just keep the beer as is, and taste it while reading over each of the style descriptions for 8A-C. Then enter it into the sub-category which you think it best fits. Qualitatively, there is plenty of overlap in those three sub-categories, much more so than in many other categories. Moreso between 8A and 8B, but also between 8B and 8C there's a lot of range where beers could probably be entered into either one.

Another thing you might do is pick up commercial examples of those three styles and do a side-by-side tasting vs. your own beer, to see where it fits along that spectrum.

 

[david_42]

Submitting it in 8B would be a bad idea, as an Special Bitter shouldn't have any alcohol bite, whereas this is common in an ESB. Since you are looking at a competition, I'd draw off a couple liters of the wort and boil the Fuggles. If you boiled 1 oz for 60 minutes and 1/2 oz for 2, you'd bump the IBUs and keep the aroma from being too high as well.