why does my 100ibu taste way more bitter than commercial 100ibu?

Check the title.

This beer tastes like I'm chewing on a hop cone. I like a good iipa. This is too much.
Thoughts?

Sorry for the sideways pic. Lil tipsy and using the Android app.

Did I read 14 oz of high Alpha Acid hops in a 5 gallon batch? If so, there is your answer... just too much hops (I can't believe I typed that!)

The most I've ever done is 9 oz of.hops and that was a delicious overkill. 14 just seems wasteful IMO.

I commend you for being daring! Sorry it didnt turn out as you wanted. Next time try about half of the amount and you should be good to go.

Wait... I see now... it was 10 oz. Still a lot of hops at ~14% AA. I would tone it down a bit. Use a few less oz and/or maybe switch in a few lower AA% hops. Maybe Cascade would be a good altenative to mix with the citra... I really like that combo... in fact I'm enjoying a nice homebrew NWPA with columbus, chinook, cascade and citra. Total of 6 oz I believe and it is really crisp and hoppy.

Balance. What was your fg? You need some sweetness to back up the bitterness. A few months of aging will mellow this out a little.

Beersmith should account for the aa right?
This is gonna be my first batch down the drain. Can't do it. Need to clear the keg for another beer in 2 weeks.
Any local drunks want free beer to go?
Local pick up. Your glass.

Bitterness perception depends also on water, especially sulfate level.
Brew two same beers, one with high sulfate water and other with low, 1st one will have stronger bitterness taste.

IBU calculations and measured IBU can be quite different

You get a lot more bitterness from late additions and dry hopping than the calcs tell you as well.

Beersmith isn't the greatest at accuracy with IBUs (calculated vs. reality). As pointed out above, water can be the issue. Also, you should balance your bitterness more with sweetness (higher mash temp or use of crystal malts or something similar). Finally, use this beer as your starting point for understanding how beersmith calculates. Clearly 100 IBU is your top range. You could try the same brew but recalculate for 75-80 and see if that is what you are after. Hope this helps

I made a recipe that was nearly identical in hop schedule. I wonder if that ounce at 60 minutes was a FWH that the perceived bitterness would have been more enjoyable.

Could it also never three flavor of the citra? Its pretty unique in flavor, so maybe thats part of the issue.

All comments above aside, 10 oz of hops is a LOT of hops no matter what else you do or don't do.

You could brew a low hopped beer and add it to tone it down.

Doesn't hop qualities disapate over time? I guess that could be part of the reason for the difference in hop flavor between two 100 ibu beers. Also a good reason to not dump the entire batch because my understanding is the hop flavor will start decreasing pretty quickly.

So if you subtract the 4 oz. that were used for dry hopping, 6 oz. in a boil isn't as overkill as it seems a lot of people think. If you pushed the majority of those additions towards the 15 minute mark I bet your beer would turn out less bitter and more enjoyable.

I recently did a RyePA that I hopped continuously throughout the boil and used about 5 oz. total. The end result was a very bitter beer but that is only because I was adding at least 2-3 oz. before the 30-20 minute mark.

Since that brew I have found that a slight addition at 45-30 to attain a foundation of bitterness is a good start, then ramping up the additions between 15 and 10 minutes really helps add to the flavor and aroma without creating a bitter bomb.

Also, maybe I am wrong, but 4 oz. dry-hopped for 7 days seems overkill. You could probably cut that in half and do 0.5 oz. additions every 3-4 days over 2 weeks and the beer would have a better aroma.

Also the comment about giving it months to mellow seems odd. I was under the impression that IPAs are best enjoyed in a timely manner as the aroma is the first thing to go on them and that happens in the first months of aging. I could be wrong but if you age this IPA long term you may mellow out the bitterness but it won't have the nose on it you were hoping for.

Lastly, seems like your budgetary restrictions are minimal if you are dumping this many ounces of Citra into one beer... mind sharing the wealth

Either way, every beer is an experiment and if you don't learn something, you are doing it wrong! Cheers!

Thanks for the input, guys.
The reason for 4 oz dryhop was to kill a cat piss aroma that was dominant. It worked.
Lesson learned. Every person who brews beer will produce a turd one in a while. This was only my 9th batch. I will get better!

RDWHAHB

Could be water, and a higher mash temp wont help with sweetness. What your lacking is crystal malts to balance out the 100ibus. Any commercial iipa at 100 ibus will have lots of crystals in there for sweetness.

Also should move almost all of those early additions to somewhere in the last 20 mins imo.

seabass07 said:

a higher mash temp wont help with sweetness

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Huh? I think higher mash temps= higher final gravity=more body/sweetness. Lets not confuse this guy on his 9th batch.

Cat piss aroma? Maybe there was an infection. That would be an alarming smell to me, as i haven't noticed that... was it the CO2 that was being released by the yeast?

Komocabo said:

Cat piss aroma? Maybe there was an infection. That would be an alarming smell to me, as i haven't noticed that... was it the CO2 that was being released by the yeast?

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Cat piss is a relatively common descriptor of Citra hops.

somedudefromguam said:

Huh? I think higher mash temps= higher final gravity=more body/sweetness. Lets not confuse this guy on his 9th batch.

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The residual sugars you get from a high mash temp do not taste sweet. It will increase mouthfeel and be a higher fg, but will not solve his problem. You want unfermentable sugars that are sweet to offset the bitterness. So some darker crystal malts would help a lot.

extract brew, guys. mash temp is no concern for me with this.
Cat piss is from Citra.
I was trying to create a hop bomb, so my mid boil additions should have been late(r).
I have 2 fermenting now that will be better. One that I have done 2 other times, and one 2.5g test batch with a bittering at 60, and everything else 10min and later. Smells incredible!!

Awesome! Happy Brewing