Hop Advice Needed

[Barr]

I'm trying to develope a Caramel Corn ESB. Have heard of popcorn pilsners made with real popcorn in the mash so I decided to try this with caramelized brown sugar. I'm planning a basic bitter recipe but replacing 500g of marris otter with popcorn. My big question here is how much hops? I don't want to overpower the delicate flavour of the popcorn and caramel but want it to be a "bitter". I bought 60g fuggles for bittering and 30g of EKG for flavouring. (5gallon batch) Wondering now if I should scale those back some. Any ideas?

[mr x]

Need ibu numbers.

[Barr]

Looks like I need to finally give in and get brewing software.

[mr x]

You can do it by hand, but you should be doing some kind of calculation, as opposed to just weight.

[Barr]

So do I need the alpha acid %? I didn't write them down.

[CorneliusAlphonse]

you do. but you can get a good handle on it just by using standard values (like probably 4-6 % for both of them, see here: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/hops" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) so if you use something in the middle of the range (4.5-5%), it will get you ballpark. it's not as important for some styles (getting 40 ibu instead of 25 in a bitter will make a difference, but it would be drinkable either way, just the balance could be off). something to consider next time you buy hops.

[spears104]

I found it really helpful to learn how to do the ibu calcs by hand before using brewing software. It really increased my understanding.