effects of overly long boil

I had a few mishaps with an IPA batch today. A couple of beersmith settings I had incorrect really threw me off. No big deal, I'm still tuning my all grain process.

I had the "Set Boil Volume Based on Equipment" checkbox unchecked, had a slightly too large value in the boil volume, and had for some reason not set "Lost to trub and chiller" value to .75 gallons like I intended (massive loss of wort to trub on previous all grain batch). After the mash, I suspected I had too much wort, but the pre-boil gravity reading was consistent with the beersmith brewsheet, so I pressed on. After the boil (including bittering and flavor hop additions at 60 minutes and 30 minutes), I removed the hop bags, started the batch on the immersion chiller and checked the OG, which was 1.061 instead of the 1.076 that it was supposed to be. I then checked Beersmith out and realized what I had done. Essentially, I had used way too much sparge water, making my post-boil wort have too much volume and not enough gravity. Since I did not have any DME or LME lying around, I instead made a decision to boil off the excess volume to get to the gravity I originally wanted. This took about an extra hour once I got the wort back to a boil, so I got a total of a two hour boil.

I'm now wondering what the effect will be. I assume my aromatics from the 30 minute hop additions will be lost to the extremely long boil. I considered adding some more aromatic hops when I was getting close to the correct volume and gravity, but thought that perhaps since this recipe uses dry hopping (.5 oz simcoe and 1.0 oz amarillo for 7 days each) that most of the aromatics will come from the dry hopping, so I didn't add any more aroma hops. I expect the beer won't have exactly the same character as it would have if this hadn't happened, but who's to say that's a bad thing? I don't believe the bittering levels will be affected, since the hops did stay in for the prescribed amount of time in the recipe, just not at the end of the boil, and since I removed the hop bags, all bitterness extraction from the bittering hops (and the IBU's that came from aroma hops) would not be affected by boiling longer. That said, I'm not a chemist or anything, so I'm not sure how boiling longer will affect the bitterness.

You will have more IBUs. The 60 minute additions will have added some more bitterness, but not too much. Your 30 minute additions will have doubles their IBU contribution. Hopefully they were low AA hops and it will not have much impact.

Flavor and aroma: You should have added them at 15 minutes and in. Dry hopping will give some character, but it is not the same.

So IBU's will continue to go up if you continue to boil *after* you take out the hops? Crazy.

In case you want to know more about the recipe:

Recipe: IPA
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.076 SG
Estimated Color: 10.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 83.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
12.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 85.71 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 14.29 %
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [10.80 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Chinook [12.70 %] (60 min) Hops 42.1 IBU
0.50 oz Simcoe [14.10 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.50 oz Simcoe [14.10 %] (30 min) Hops 16.2 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [10.80 %] (30 min) Hops 24.8 IBU
2 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 14.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 17.50 qt of water at 170.3 F 154.0 F


Notes:
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bad beersmith setting caused me to boil first as directed, then I realized I had too much wort and not enough OG, so I boiled for an additional 90 minutes to get OG to correct level. This probably blew all my hop aromatics from the Amarillo and Simcoe, but I'm not sure how this will affect bitterness or anything else. We'll see.

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Even though you "removed the hops", what you are removing is the remnant, the oils/acids etc were already infused into your wort, so what you remove is akin to a tea bag - it doesn't remove the tea after it's been brewed, just the spent leaves.

Ah well, live and learn. I'll just have to see how it turns out. Sounds like I may have some bitter beer face in my future.

I'm not exactly sure what the effect will be since you said you took the hops out. However, if the IBU's are affected just as much as if the hops were still in the boil, the IBU's will be around 120. In the grand scheme of things that's not all that high for an DIPA. Hopefully the dry hops will add enough flavor and aroma to help counteract all that bitterness.

I had a "Hop Stoopid" the other night. It was around 104 IBUs and was very tasty

And anyways, isn't it hard to perceive bitterness above 100 IBUs? Going from ~80 to ~100 (perceived) I would guess it won't be too bad, but I am not sure.

I'm curious about how this comes out. Please make sure to come back and post tasting notes.

My prediction is it will be pretty bitter without the flavor and aroma characteristics you hoped to get from Simcoe Amarillo but it still may be interesting.

This is why I tend to do my early hop additions (all of boil additions) as planned in my recipe but then boil to volume / gravity target. My late additions get added based on how much time is really left, not how long since I started boiling. My nominal addition times that I use in building my recipe are 60/20/5/0, but in reality the 60 is "all of boil" for however long that ends up being. The 20 is when I am about a quarter gallon from target which starts the actual count down clock for the other additions.