Favorite hop for lower bitterness IPA’s?

Probably a confusing title, but let me explain. I’m going to be brewing in IPA later this month. I typically like my IPAs to have low to moderate bitterness, and a high amount of hop aroma. Thus, I go light on bittering hops and go nuts on the dry hop. My last batch used centennial, but it still seemed a bit too much. Is Cascade a good bittering hop? also, I’m thinking of using Mosaic exclusively in the dry hop. Thoughts?

Originally posted by Naven
Probably a confusing title, but let me explain. I’m going to be brewing in IPA later this month. I typically like my IPAs to have low to moderate bitterness, and a high amount of hop aroma. Thus, I go light on bittering hops and go nuts on the dry hop. My last batch used centennial, but it still seemed a bit too much. Is Cascade a good bittering hop? also, I’m thinking of using Mosaic exclusively in the dry hop. Thoughts?

Originally posted by bgburdman9

Originally posted by Naven
Probably a confusing title, but let me explain. I’m going to be brewing in IPA later this month. I typically like my IPAs to have low to moderate bitterness, and a high amount of hop aroma. Thus, I go light on bittering hops and go nuts on the dry hop. My last batch used centennial, but it still seemed a bit too much. Is Cascade a good bittering hop? also, I’m thinking of using Mosaic exclusively in the dry hop. Thoughts?

All of my "northeast" ipas I have made I have used hop extract. You can get 20 ml for $8-9 and use 4-5 ml or so per batch for bittering. It seems to give a smooth bitterness and decreases the hop mass in the boil.

Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin work for me. only add hops during the last 10 mins then a big dry-hop : easy.

How big of a knockout/whirlpool addition do you use? I you use a substantial one, you don’t need a bittering addition. At all. Even a big enough dry hop will provide for some perceived bitterness. Remember there are more variables that contribute to bitterness besides iso-alpha acids.

Originally posted by Naven

Originally posted by bgburdman9

Originally posted by Naven
Probably a confusing title, but let me explain. I’m going to be brewing in IPA later this month. I typically like my IPAs to have low to moderate bitterness, and a high amount of hop aroma. Thus, I go light on bittering hops and go nuts on the dry hop. My last batch used centennial, but it still seemed a bit too much. Is Cascade a good bittering hop? also, I’m thinking of using Mosaic exclusively in the dry hop. Thoughts?

All of my "northeast" ipas I have made I have used hop extract. You can get 20 ml for $8-9 and use 4-5 ml or so per batch for bittering. It seems to give a smooth bitterness and decreases the hop mass in the boil.

That’s a great idea - short of reading a recipe, how do you determine how many ML’s equals an oz of hops?

For the most part, you get low bitterness/high aroma beers from your process, rather than specific hop varieties.

Like James says, your aroma additions will give you all the bitterness you need. I add a small handful of hops (<10g) at the start to help prevent boil-overs and add everything else post-KO. I tend to stagger additions as well so that the bulk is added after the temperature has dropped below the temperature where most isomerisation occurs. With dry-hopping, doing it at warmer temperatures for a short period of time works best to avoid extracting extra bitterness and astringency. I go for 21C for 24-48 hours.

I much prefer whole hops as well. Pellets tend to give you more astringency and a harsher beer.

The variety does make some difference (I find Amarillo to be quite a ’soft’ hop), but for the most part, choose the varieties that give you the aroma you want, and restrict bitterness with your process.

Don’t worry about the variety, just use less alpha. For lower bitterness start of boil additions, variety really doesn’t matter as you are getting no noticeable aroma carryover and the quality of the bitterness will not be noticeable under all of your late hops.

Originally posted by Naven
Is Cascade a good bittering hop?

Magnum

1 vote for Mosaic