[chinaski]

Kudos to everyone in involved in this experiment & others.  I know its a ton of work and can further our interest in the hobby.  As mentioned earlier in this thread, and in other discussions of experiments like this where there are two variations of one beer and a panel of tasters to gather the data, a truer result probably won't be known until this experiment is repeated with a variety of recipes.  When you have results from just one beer, you can only really draw conclusions about that one beer; what you are really assessing is how well a population of people can taste the difference between that single beer.  What we really need is tasting panels tasting maybe 5 or more recipes brewed by the methods here.  Sounds like a multi-club experiment in the making.

[denny]

If unisomerized AA's are not bitter, there has to be something else in the plant material that is harshly bitter, because it sure tastes that way to me.

Could it be tannins?

Denny, chew on a raw hop and find out.  It ain't tannins.  Non-isomerized alpha acids or something in your raw hops are VERY dang bitter.

I have and that's why I asked.

[dmtaylor]

Maybe they go more bitter when slightly cooked.  The one I ate was in a pickle jar.

[klickitat jim]

Maybe they go more bitter when slightly cooked.  The one I ate was in a pickle jar.

Too funny! Who'd ever guess that a hop that was pickled would only be bitter if slightly cooked

[johnnyb]

I'm trying to figure out how a hop got in a pickle jar.

[dmtaylor]

A good friend of mine makes pickles with hops as flavoring.  The pickles are good.  The pickled hops, not so much.  It all seemed like a good idea when we were drunk.

[BrewingRover]

I bought pickled hop shoots from Hops Direct one spring. We didn't finish the jar, it was like chewing pickled grass.

[stpug]

If unisomerized AA's are not bitter, there has to be something else in the plant material that is harshly bitter, because it sure tastes that way to me.

Could it be tannins?

Denny, chew on a raw hop and find out.  It ain't tannins.  Non-isomerized alpha acids or something in your raw hops are VERY dang bitter.

I have and that's why I asked.

I thought I had read that it wasn't about whether one (iso vs non-iso) was bitter or not, it is about solubility in the solution. iso are soluble and mix into the aqueous solution whereas non-iso are not soluble and essentially drop out (or float up, whichever it may be). Non-iso would be like tossing belgian rock candy in your beer whereas iso would be like pouring in some simple syrup. At least that's been my understanding. Thus, the reason why dry hopping doesn't impart any additional bitterness.