[toby]

I matched amounts.  here are the results from 2 different analyses....

Gas Chromatography by Scott Bruslind at
Analysis Laboratory
• Beer IBU
• A (FWH) 31
• B (60) 28.7

Here are the HPLC (High Pressure Liquid
Chromatogrpahy) results of the brews: The alpha-acids
are not bitter though they contribute to bitterness units
value. The humulinones are oxidized alpha-acids and
are slightly bitter.
• Beer Iso-alpha-acids Alpha-acids Humulinones
• A (FWH) 24.8 3.5 1.9
• B (60) 21.8 4.7 1.8

Did you add the blind triangle tasting aspect?  That basically confirms the IBU numbers calculated.

[denny]

Until someone figures out how to quantify something as subjective as taste, I don't see how it could be done.

That's exactly what these trials are doing, though. We'd just have to conduct another triangle test, but with FWH vs 20 min instead of 60 min additions.

Mind you, I'm not volunteering to do the work...

Once this book is done, that's what I intend to dive into.  You're off the hook!

[denny]

I matched amounts.  here are the results from 2 different analyses....

Gas Chromatography by Scott Bruslind at
Analysis Laboratory
• Beer IBU
• A (FWH) 31
• B (60) 28.7

Here are the HPLC (High Pressure Liquid
Chromatogrpahy) results of the brews: The alpha-acids
are not bitter though they contribute to bitterness units
value. The humulinones are oxidized alpha-acids and
are slightly bitter.
• Beer Iso-alpha-acids Alpha-acids Humulinones
• A (FWH) 24.8 3.5 1.9
• B (60) 21.8 4.7 1.8

Did you add the blind triangle tasting aspect?  That basically confirms the IBU numbers calculated.

Yep.  Rather than copy pages of data to here, just go to http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2008/DennyConn.pdf and start on pg. 29

[toby]

Yep.  Rather than copy pages of data to here, just go to http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2008/DennyConn.pdf and start on pg. 29

Ah, remember reading it previously.  That seems to still be in the relatively low IBU range.  I guess I'd be curious as to how a ~70 IBU IPA would come across.

[denny]

Yep.  Rather than copy pages of data to here, just go to http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2008/DennyConn.pdf and start on pg. 29

Ah, remember reading it previously.  That seems to still be in the relatively low IBU range.  I guess I'd be curious as to how a ~70 IBU IPA would come across.

Me, too, and I hope to find out!

[brulosopher]

I'm not convinced the 5g difference skewed the results, as my point was to do something a bit different than what had already been done, the goal being to evaluate bitterness smoothness and aromatic carryover. Another dude who has experimented with FWH matched predicted IBU like me-- triangle tests were insignificant, IBU tests revealed the beers were within 1.0 of each other.

Until someone figures out how to quantify something as subjective as taste, I don't see how it could be done.

That's exactly what these trials are doing, though. We'd just have to conduct another triangle test, but with FWH vs 20 min instead of 60 min additions.

Mind you, I'm not volunteering to do the work...

I got you covered.

Yep.  Rather than copy pages of data to here, just go to http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2008/DennyConn.pdf and start on pg. 29

Ah, remember reading it previously.  That seems to still be in the relatively low IBU range.  I guess I'd be curious as to how a ~70 IBU IPA would come across.

Me, too, and I hope to find out!

Me too, and me too!

[johnnyb]

Has anyone printed a "I Get Drunk for Science" t-shirt yet?

[HoosierBrew]

I'm also interested to see if (and if so,how much) the differences would be magnified using IPA type hops and IBU range. It seems like the differences would be more apparent in the IPA realm, but who knows. Guess we'll see.

[a10t2]

From my own testing (not blind, but at least it was side-by-side), any differences are negligible in a beer with a lot of late hopping.

[klickitat jim]

Bingo! Its a hopping experiment. I would expect the trial beer to be a hoppy one. You wouldn't try to debunk or prove a malt related issue, like decoction, in an IPA, right?

I'm also interested to see if (and if so,how much) the differences would be magnified using IPA type hops and IBU range. It seems like the differences would be more apparent in the IPA realm, but who knows. Guess we'll see.

[hopfenundmalz]

I purposefully matched IBU to test the smooth bitterness and aromatic quality hypotheses.

I would be curious to see the difference matching amounts and not theoretical IBUs, with the addition of using something a little more potent than Spalt.  IOW, if the harshness of the bitterness is going to be detectable or discernible, give it the potential to _really_ be harsh. 

Definitely planned!

I love reading the exbeeriments, but I'm starting to feel that they all end with the same "there was no statistical significance/both beers tasted the same".

Changing just one variable doesn't seem to make much difference. I guess you have to change multiple things to compound differences to notice. This should give us hope. It must take more than one mistake to make bad beer

Multiple variable xBmts are coming

I'm wondering if a lack of sense of smell that day was an advantage for me with these two experiments or if I was just lucky.

You're just good!

I was doing some DFSS work before retirement. It is a powerful tool. More work should go into setting up the experiments than it (sometimes) takes to do the experiments. Results are sometimes pretty straight forward, other times the interactions give you insights you would not normally see. It is a powerful tool if you have the right software.

[erockrph]

That, and I think a lot of IBU calculators overestimate utilization at the homebrew scale. By calculating FWH as a 20-minute addition you may just be compensating for this overestimate and ending up with the IBU level you had intended in the first place.

FWIW, the analysis of the beers I did was almost spot on with what was predicted by Promash.

Interesting. I've heard a few experiments over the past few years on some of the homebrewing podcasts, and they all seemed to fall under the predicted IBU by 20-50%. There are probably a lot of variables affecting this, though. I'm not sure which equations they were using, though.

The only beer I've had tested was predicted in the 400's IBUs and only measured 98. I don't think that's a good representative sample, though 

[hopfenundmalz]

That, and I think a lot of IBU calculators overestimate utilization at the homebrew scale. By calculating FWH as a 20-minute addition you may just be compensating for this overestimate and ending up with the IBU level you had intended in the first place.

FWIW, the analysis of the beers I did was almost spot on with what was predicted by Promash.

Interesting. I've heard a few experiments over the past few years on some of the homebrewing podcasts, and they all seemed to fall under the predicted IBU by 20-50%. There are probably a lot of variables affecting this, though. I'm not sure which equations they were using, though.

The only beer I've had tested was predicted in the 400's IBUs and only measured 98. I don't think that's a good representative sample, though 

The beer was saturated, can't get much higher than 100 IBU.

[toby]

The beer was saturated, can't get much higher than 100 IBU.

I thought it was more that more than 100 IBU was just beyond the detection capabilities of our tastebuds.  IOW, we just can't taste the additional bitterness (although I suppose there may be other senses that would 'feel' it similar to how we can't hear below ~20Hz, but can still feel it).

[denny]

Bingo! Its a hopping experiment. I would expect the trial beer to be a hoppy one. You wouldn't try to debunk or prove a malt related issue, like decoction, in an IPA, right?

why not?