Where's The Flavor?

I created an IPA recipe that was to have ~105 IBU's. I drank it last night, and though good, it just wasn't as hoppy as I had figured, though it did have a great hop aroma.

Yooper explained to me that because I use a large top off (~2 gals) that it effects the IBU's, and since that is roughly 1/3 of my volume it reduces the IBU's by 1/3. But if I take a third from that I should still have nearly 70 IBU's.

Here's what I did for my 6 gal partial mash/partial boil:

6 lbs golden light LME (FO)
3.5 lbs 2-row
1 lb soft white wheat berries
0.5 lb crystal 20
0.5 lb crystal 60
0.75 lb sugar
0.25 lb carafoam
0.5 Warrior (16%) @ 60 mins
0.3 oz Bravo (15.1%), 0.75 oz Simcoe (13%), 0.75 oz Columbus (15.2%), and 1.5 oz Centennial (10.4%) @ 20 mins
0.3 oz Bravo, 0.75 oz Simcoe, 0.75 oz Columbus, and 0.5 oz of Centennial @ 5 mins
0.4 oz Bravo, 0.5 oz Simcoe, and 0.5 oz Columbus for a 7 day dry hop
US-05

This seems more like a 40-50 IBU beer.

What's your final gravity?

There are a few things to keep in mind here....

IBUs as measured, calculated, and *tasted* are 3 completely different things. A 50 IBU beer with very low attenuation (eg, high finishing gravity) will taste sweet, while a very dry beer at 50 IBU will taste extremely bitter. Apparent bitterness is subjective, and changes greatly from recipe to recipe and person to person.

As a general rule higher lovibond crystal malts should be avoided if you're looking for assertive hop character. This, of course, isn't to say that it *can't* be done...but most of your in-your-face IPAs typically use little to no crystal malt and leave it around the 10-20 lovibond range.

There are a lot of dynamics involved in perfecting an IPA and just "adding more hops" doesn't really trend towards better hop flavor and aroma.

That said, the recipe doesn't look too out of place or anything. I'm not sure what you mean by "white wheat berries" (white wheat malt?)....but the only thing I'd change up for sure for next time is to drop the crystal 60...but that's just my personal preference.

FG was 1.014.

Brewtoad gave me expected readings of 1.067/1.013, but i measured 1.065/1.014. The lower OG may have been my mash and/or the wheat berries.

The soft white wheat berries were bought from a co-op, and are just unmalted raw wheat. Our BlendTec states it can crush grains, but it doesn't so I pulse them. Some is nearly powder and some is barely scratched.

I'm curious how an IPA without crystal comes out as dark as it does. Wouldn't it be closer to 3-5* SRM? Or do they use something else for color?

I had always used a blend of crystal 20 and 40 in my IPA's and pales, and so decided to switch to 60 for my IPA's. I think I'll swap them though since I use more crystal in my pales anyway.

Doing a partial boil tends to isomerize fewer alpha acids. It might also affect the absorption of flavor and aroma.

If you want more bitterness, focus on stepping up the 60 addition. If you want more flavor and aroma, you might try adjusting the timing of additions and focus on a quick chill to preserve the volatile oils.

How are your other IPAs coming out? If you like the hops in them better, you could take one of those recipes and change a variable out to see how your adjustments translate into results.

You have lots of late additions, which IME add flavor but not necessarily bitterness to the degree early bittering hops would.

Formulas for bitterness are not always accurate, add more Warrior early, and maybe less caramel malt, and I am sure you'll get where you want to.

I'd change the two flavor hop additions to 15 & 10 minutes respectively. 5 minutes or less are aroma additions. Since you're typically dry hopping for aroma, moving the two flavor additions as I mentioned will improve things a lot. A half pound of crystal 20L & some plain light DME will get the amber/orange color & lighter malt presence typical of most IPA's as well.

I wanted to focus on flavor and aroma, and have seen a few recipes in which there was no bittering addition, and the brew was boiled only 20 mins or so. I wanted to try a hop bomb.

Typically I've made my IPA's with about 1 oz of bittering hops, and 2 oz of flavor, aroma, and dry hops. Those have all turned out quite good and flavorful, which is why I don't understand how this one wasn't so flavorful.

I get my brew chilled in about 25-30 mins typically, but this one was more like 20-25 mins. I'm looking into building a wort chiller though.

My IPA's have contained 1-2 lbs of crystal malts until I read that a west coast style, the more flavorful to me, don't use much at all, which is why I really turned down the dial as I didn't want a conflict with the hops.

It just doesn't make sense to me that I greatly decreased the crystal malts and greatly increased the flavor addition, yet I seem to have less flavor compared to the other IPA's I've brewed.

Your 60 minute addition was too light. You said you had good flavor and aroma, but sounds like what was missing was that backbone of bitterness. Almost everything I've done lately has had a 1oz warrior at 60 and then any other hops at flameout.

I was lacking on flavor. It was rather nice otherwise.

I've read of IPA's and other beers that have no bitterness additions. But that's about the only thing that seems to make sense, the lack of a substantial bittering addition.

Maybe this calls for a trial...