I do, and it bugs the crap out of me sometimes. So I decided to brew some "single" hop beers (I'll explain the quotation marks in a sec...) with the same base recipe to help me determine the flavor profiles of a bunch of different hops.
The base recipe I started with is for a plain jane American Pale Ale:
10 lbs Pale 2 row (American)
1 lb Crystal 40
0.5 lbs Flaked Wheat
With my typical 69% efficiency, that brings me to a 1.052 OG. Looking at the style guide for APAs (http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style10.php#1a), I am right in the middle for OG, and maybe a little light on color, but still well to style. The recipe is simple, and easy to duplicate. I mash at about 150 dF to keep the beer on the dry side. The lack of residual sweetness should help the hop flavors come out a bit more.
Now for the hops. 35 IBUs is near the middle of the range in the style guide. I chose that number because it's a nice round number (The true middle of the IBU range would be 37.5), and should be easy to reproduce. However, Centennial at 10% alpha acid and Cascade at 5% AA have very different bittering properties. In order to both cut down on the amount of vegetal matter in my kettle and fermentor and keep the flavor and aromas as consistent as possible, I decided to hold both the weights of my hops and the IBUs as constant as I can.
This is where the quotation marks at the beginning of the post come into play. I will make hop additions to the beer of 1 oz at 15 min, 5 min, and flameout regardless of the AA of the hop. From there, I will determine the IBUs that I need to add as bittering, and toss in some Magnum at 60 min to cover the difference. I use Magnum because a) I have a lot of it and b) it is a very unobtrusive bittering hop, and should stay out of the way to let the flavor and aroma hops shine through.
Use the same yeast for all the brews, and attempt to keep the temps the same and conditions the same. I use California Ale yeast (WLP001 from White Labs) because it's clean, and doesn't get a lot of esters in the way of the hop flavor. I always use a starter for beers above 1.040, and using the Yeast Pitching Rate Calculator on MrMalty.com is your best bet.
So for my first test APA, I used the perennial favorite: Cascade.
Here's what my BeerSmith printout looked like:
BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Base APA
Brewer: Andrew Goode
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) Great aroma. Not sure if I like the flavor portion of the hop character coming from Cascades. Great head retention.
Recipe Specifications
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Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 7.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 35.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 69.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
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10.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 86.96%
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) 8.70%
0.50 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) 4.35%
0.50 oz Magnum [12.90 %] (60 min) 26.3 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] (15 min) 5.4 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] (5 min) 3.4 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] (0 min) 0.0 IBU
1.10 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
1.6 L Starter California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)
Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 11.50 lb
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My Mash
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Step Add 20.00 qt of water at 158.2 F 150.0 F
10 min Step Add 13.00 qt of water at 204.0 F 170.0 F
Notes:
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Mash in: 150 End of Mash: 149 Mash Out: 162? Sparge: 165
3 gal first runnings. 3 gal 2nd runnings. Only 6 gal collected. Lots of evaporation?
Down to 70 dF in about 20-25 min. Woo.
Pitched at 62 dF. Good krausen at 7am the next day. Must have been a 12-18 hour lag. Go Go Gadget Starter.
1.012 final gravity
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So as you can see by my tasting notes, I was a big fan of the aroma and not so much of a fan of the flavor component of the Cascades, which I have taken into account for when I plan other brews. Next up in this series of beers will be a Columbus APA.
Cheers. Na zdrowie. Gun bae.
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