My several year old hop sacks were starting to show some wear, so I decided to give paint strainer bags a try. I bought a couple of 1 gallon sized bags from Lowes and have been using them the last few times that I brewed.

I've noticed that my latest beers didn't seem to be as hoppy as before, so I upped the quantities on a recipe that I've made several times. When the wort had cooled I took a quick taste and I was surprised to find that it wasn't all that bitter. I went back and checked my recipe and and my fridge to make sure that I had added all of them, which I had. I then pulled out the hop sack from the kettle, which was quite large and it hit me. Because of the larger sized hop bag, I've been dumping additions into the same sack and my utilization has dropped, significantly.

Now I have ten gallons of lightly hopped pale ale that I need to fix. I guess brewing a hoppier beer and blending is about my only hope, unless anyone can offer other suggestions.

Just when you think you've got all your brewing steps down, Murphy pays you a visit.

are you lacking bitterness or flavor and aroma?

if the former, you might try re-boiling, say, a gallon, with a ton of magnum or the like.

if the latter, i'd say just dry hop it.

or, as you say, brew up another and blend. that's no doubt the most controllable.

It's lacking bitterness. It's all fermenting right now. I suppose that if it hasn't gone to far, I could pull a gallon from that or I do have some wort frozen from a previous batch that I could use. Is there a trick to achieving maximum bitterness?

Hop sacks are cheap...I use one for each addition.

Is there a trick to achieving maximum bitterness?
Yup... throwing your hops straight into the boil... the old fashioned way!

It wasn't the cost of the bags, but rather my laziness in not wanting to clean more than one. Small price to pay for good beer.

High AA hops in water-Hop Tea

Are you saying the bag size is at fault? Are the new bags of the same material as the old bags? I just purchased a 10x24 JD Carleton hop bag. Not sure how I should use it or if it is too big for the 1-3 oz of hops I normally use.

Bigger is better in this case...you want to give the hops as much space as possible for wort contact. Jamming too much into a small bag means that some of the surface area won't be exposed.

I'm not blaming the bag at all. The strainer bags are plenty big, but I just put too much in there. This was a 10 gallon batch and the hops swelled to about the size of a softball. The ones in the middle didn't get exposed to the wort.

I should have known better.

Whew! I was starting to scratch my cabeza. So for pellet hops what is the optimum amount per bag by size? Thanks.

I make sure the bag gets pushed around a lot by the spoon. Gets the wort to flow thru the bag better. We did a brew at the brewery saturday and I had jeff williams beat the bag with the spoon every few minutes.

You could also switch to using a hop taco like Bryan Perreto uses. I made one just like his but I'm waiting to update it with a finer mesh. There is also a commercially available version that you can buy. A bit expensive, but it works.
http://www.ihomebrewsolutions.com/TheHopStopper.html
http://www.ihomebrewsolutions.com/TheHopStopper.pdf

I use the bags, because I recirculate the wort around an immersion chiller. I'm afraid that the hops would jamb the pump.

radtek, I don't think there's an empirical answer...just be sensible.

When I bought my turkey fryer pot it came with a big lift out strainer basket but the holes are like 3/8" or so. I've been trying to figure out how to line the thing with a finer mesh so that I can just throw the hops in there then lift it out after the wort is cooled.

Maybe a big cotton bag to put the strainer in? Cheesecloth? Window screening? I got one too with my 10 gal. Wondering what the hell I'll use it for.