Post boil hopping?

I have an IPA that ended up without enough bittering hops in the long boil ( overstated alpha acids most likely). What I'm thinking of doing is a small boil with an ounce or two of hopps for 60+ minutes, filtering or straining, and adding the water to the keg of IPA. I also thought about using a half gallon or so of the IPA for this reboil. I haven't heard of anyone else doing this, what are the problems? The boil should deplete any free oxygen, so oxygenation shouldn't be an issue. Any thoughts?

Don't reboil your beer- just make the hop tea as you describe.

I've never done this, but I know that quite a few others have. If you post your recipe, I could probably give you more specific advice.

12 lbs. CMO
.5 lbs Cryst. 60
1 lb Cryst. 20
1 lb. Munich
.5 Victory
.5 lb. white wheat

SG 1.058
FG 1.011

2 oz. Willamette 60 min.
1 0z for 30
1 oz. for 15
2 oz. for 1 min
2 oz. at flame out.

The only thing I can figure is either the AA's were not up to par or some dumb arse put the 1 oz bag in instead of the 2oz. for the 60 minutes. I don't know. I'm pretty sure I stepped the hops right. I used the default IBU calculater on Promash I believe it's Rager.

The problem you will have is that the amount of bitterness you can extract from your hops is dependant on the volume of water you boil them in. Making a tea will only get you a handfull of bitterness units. Some have mentioned using hop oil in similar situations. Otherwise I would call it a pale ale and make another batch...

GT

Thats what I'll probably do. I have 400 lbs of grain to use up anyway. The question came up after being disappointed after the first tasting. It just went into the keg last night, better carbonation might change the pallate also. I'm still interested in stories of anyone trying to adjust their IBU's.

If you boil 2 quarts of water to maximum IBUs (90) and add it to 5 gallons of ale you'll increase the IBUs of the batch by 8-9, which is at the edge of detectability for most people. I did the math and decided not to bother. You can do a little better using a pressure cooker as the solubility of the alpha acids rises with temperature. Making a new batch & mixing is a better approach.

Willamette wouldn't be my choice for bittering an IPA. It maxes out at 6% AA.

I've done hop teas before and can tell you that they can get pretty bitter.

Start off with 1/2 gal of water and 1 oz of bittering hops, the higher AAs the better. Boil for 1 hour. Check at the 1/2 hr mark to make sure too much water is not evaporating. If so, add some water. You could also start at about 3/4 gal if you want.

Add 1 C of tea at a time let sit a few minutes and sample. Add tea to taste.

I added 3 C of tea to one batch and really saved it.

Thanks for the input 99. This makes me think again about adding hop tea.

IMHO the hops might have also been old or stored improperly.

Also, you may consider getting some iso-alpha hop extract to add to the beer.

Hops were directly from LHBS. They rotate their stock pretty rapidly. There is no tellin how old they were before they got them though. I always freeze my hops in their vacuum containers. I would expect Willamette hops to be pretty fresh here in the Willamette valley.