How may IBUs is this Irish Red Ale?

I am trying to get a handle on the whole bitterness of beers. I made this a couple of months ago and would like to attach a number to the taste so to speak.

Specialty Grains


* 0.5 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils
* 0.25 lbs. Briess Special Roast
* 0.125 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit
* 0.125 lbs. Simpson's Chocolate

Fermentables


* 6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup

Boil Additions


* 1 oz. Willamette (60 min)
* 1 oz. Kent Goldings (30 min)




* Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast. Optimum temperature: 57-70° F.


Also this is a sort of a stupid question, but do specialty grains have any sort of impact on IBU? I know malt does.

What size boil did you do? That impacts the IBUs the most, due to the lower hops utilization of a partial boil.

If you didn't use any base malt, the specialty grains you steeped would not add much in the way of fermentables, although biscuit malt can be mashed to provide some fermentables.

Also, what were the AAUs of the hops? You need that number to accurately calculate the IBUs.

Assuming a 5-gallon batch, basic extract brew with specialty steep method, and average AA% for these hops, BeerSmith (Rager method) gives you approximately 30 IBUs

Oh stupid me I should have mentioned I did a 2-3 gallon boil, Probably around 2 1/2. I don't know the AA%, so I guess the average %. Northernbrewer didn't say.

Patton191 said:

Oh stupid me I should have mentioned I did a 2-3 gallon boil, Probably around 2 1/2. I don't know the AA%, so I guess the average %. Northernbrewer didn't say.

Click to expand...

did you ferment only 2-3 gallons or did you top off to ~5 when you put your wort into the fermenter? (my above post assumes the latter)

Sorry again, Yeah it was a 5 gallon batch, I just topped it up with water.

I get 18.6 IBUs with a 2.5 gallon boil, and an OG of 1.048, using the Willamette at 4.1% AAU, and the EKG at 6.2%. The AAUs are on the package you get, so next time jot it down in your notes. If you like this recipe and want to make it again, it's good to know what the % is on the hops so you can recreate it.

YooperBrew said:

I get 18.6 IBUs with a 2.5 gallon boil, and an OG of 1.048, using the Willamette at 4.1% AAU, and the EKG at 6.2%. The AAUs are on the package you get, so next time jot it down in your notes. If you like this recipe and want to make it again, it's good to know what the % is on the hops so you can recreate it.

Click to expand...

Can I ask how you came up with 18.6? It's much different than what I got using BeerSmith. Which method did you use?

YooperBrew said:

I get 18.6 IBUs with a 2.5 gallon boil, and an OG of 1.048, using the Willamette at 4.1% AAU, and the EKG at 6.2%. The AAUs are on the package you get, so next time jot it down in your notes. If you like this recipe and want to make it again, it's good to know what the % is on the hops so you can recreate it.

Click to expand...

Ok, yeah I will definitely do that next time, thanks a lot.

Here this will help

http://beercalculus.hopv ille.com/recipe

JLem said:

Can I ask how you came up with 18.6? It's much different than what I got using BeerSmith. Which method did you use?

Click to expand...

I ran it through my own calculator and came up with 17.5 which is as close as makes no difference to Yooper's 18.6
I used the Tinseth formula
Here's the low down:
Starting boil volume 2.5g
Ending boil volume 2.0g (wild guess)
Starting OG 1.095 (assumes all fermentables added at start of boil)
End of boil gravity 1.119
1 oz 5.00 AA% for 60 minutes = 25.9 IBU
1 oz 4.75 AA% for 30 minutes = 17.9 IBU
Total IBU = 43.8

43.8 IBU's diluted from 2g to 5g = 43.8 * 2 / 5 = 17.5

-a.

JLem said:

Can I ask how you came up with 18.6? It's much different than what I got using BeerSmith. Which method did you use?

Click to expand...

I used Beersmith. I always use the Tinseth scale, and then made the boil size "2.5 gallons". The same beer is 32 IBUs with a full boil.

YooperBrew said:

I used Beersmith. I always use the Tinseth scale, and then made the boil size "2.5 gallons". The same beer is 32 IBUs with a full boil.

Click to expand...

Not sure if you were a part of or saw this post from a couple of weeks ago, but there is some confusion over using BeerSmith to calculate IBUs and which method to use. The whole thing started when I used the Tinseth scale on a brew and then when people saw my hop schedule they immediately thought I overhopped. WHen I used the Rager scale, it seemed to come out closer (i.e. higher) to what was expected given my ingredients. If you use the Rager method with a 2.5 gallon boil, you come out with somewhere near 30 IBUs.

I've also read somewhere (can't recall where though) that the Rager method is more appropriate for extract brewers. Anyways, I'm still not sure what is best, but I've switched over to the Rager method for my partial-mash brewing.

JLem said:

Not sure if you were a part of or saw this post from a couple of weeks ago, but there is some confusion over using BeerSmith to calculate IBUs and which method to use. The whole thing started when I used the Tinseth scale on a brew and then when people saw my hop schedule they immediately thought I overhopped. WHen I used the Rager scale, it seemed to come out closer (i.e. higher) to what was expected given my ingredients. If you use the Rager method with a 2.5 gallon boil, you come out with somewhere near 30 IBUs.

I've also read somewhere (can't recall where though) that the Rager method is more appropriate for extract brewers. Anyways, I'm still not sure what is best, but I've switched over to the Rager method for my partial-mash brewing.

Click to expand...

Whatever works for you is fine. I've been using the Tinseth scale, and that's what I'm accustomed to. If this beer comes out with 30 IBUs and tastes like it, I would be shocked. It's a malty recipe, with more malt than hops, and I don't see how a partial boil can give you the bitterness of 30 IBUs. If that's what you use to decide what you like, though, that's fine. An IBU of 30 would be high in this beer and even be out of style.

Not that I'm a style Nazi, but you want balance in the beer and you want to approximate a certain OG/IBU ratio in a beer. An overly bitter Irish red ale would be a bit weird.

YooperBrew said:

Whatever works for you is fine. I've been using the Tinseth scale, and that's what I'm accustomed to. If this beer comes out with 30 IBUs and tastes like it, I would be shocked. It's a malty recipe, with more malt than hops, and I don't see how a partial boil can give you the bitterness of 30 IBUs. If that's what you use to decide what you like, though, that's fine. An IBU of 30 would be high in this beer and even be out of style.

Not that I'm a style Nazi, but you want balance in the beer and you want to approximate a certain OG/IBU ratio in a beer. An overly bitter Irish red ale would be a bit weird.

Click to expand...

I get that - I'm so new to the idea of IBUs I really don't know what the taste difference is between a 20 or a 30 or a 40, so picking a scale and using it will help us/me be consistent in our brewing. What bugs me though is that the IBU you get is different depending on what algorithm you use - and, I assume, there is only one "true" bittterness to each brew - in competition for example (not that competition is the necessary goal), some set of experts is going to place a bitterness value on your beer - it would be nice if when crafting a beer, you could have some way to hit the target that the "experts" are looking for in that style. You say you would be shocked if the IBUs were as high as 30 in this brew, but anyone who uses Rager would be shocked if this brew were under 30. It's frustrating.

Just for fun, I changed the IBU scale to Rager in the recipe. It came out to about 25 with a 2.5 gallon boil. That's a difference of 6 IBUs or so, so it's not a huge difference but I agree that it's frustrating!

One important factor to consider is the IBU/SG ratio when you're talking about bittering and balance. Of course, a higher SG beer can use more hops to give it more IBUs to balance it. A lower OG beer needs less hopping and a too-high bittering addition will cause it to be too bitter. Having the right balance for the recipe is really more important than how many actual IBUs are in a particular beer.