missed OG, too many IBU?

Hello all,

I tried to brew an IPA a couple weeks ago, but I screwed up the mash (mashed in @ 180 instead of 165 like I planned) and ended up with a 1.054 OG--a fair bit off what beercalculus said my OG was supposed to be, 1.067. It has been in the primary for 20 days now and the gravity reads at 1.016.

So will my beer be too bitter for the amount of alcohol that will be in it? According to the recipe, beercalculus says my hops should give me around 67 IBU. Can I boil up some candy sugar or something and add to primary to take the ABV up a notch?

Thanks in advance!

It depends on how you like your beers. I personally think it'll do great as-is.

Raising the ABV by adding some dextrose would accomplish nothing in terms of how balanced the beer is. The point of Dextrose is that it ferments very clean and pretty much completely... so it won't change the malt/hops balance at all at this point, it'll just make the beer stronger. Normally dextrose will be added to an IPA to boost the ABV w/o boosting the malt profile to let the hop flavors really come through. You're worried about the opposite, so it'd be counterproductive to add it.

I say just go with it as is, I think it'll be great.

Honestly, I wouldn't mess with it. Yes, you missed your target OG a little bit and it might be slightly more bitter than planned, but it doesn't look like it was going to be a crazy bitter IPA to begin with at only 67 IBU. Besides, balancing the bitterness has less to do with alcohol content and more to do with the malts and sweetness, so if you just threw in something that would basically completely ferment out and only give you more alcohol you won't really do much in the way of counteracting more bitterness.

EDIT: looks like jaobrien had it covered while I was typing

cool, I'll let it sit then. thanks a bunch!

Your .007 difference could even be a temperature difference. You pointed out the issue you had, keep a note of it and mash in at target temp next time, see what happens.

Pretty sure your beer will be just fine though. I agree with leaving it alone and proceeding as is.

CHEERS!