Most hops you've ever put in a batch of homebrew

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Bamsdealer

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Just curious. I have a 5 gallon batch of DIPA on tap that had 4oz of high aa hops added as first wort hops, 6oz in the 0-30 minute range, 3 oz dry hops and 2oz keg hops. That's just shy of a pound. Its truly an amazing beer, but truthfully, I wouldn't be scared to go bigger. The large malt bill and 4 lbs of munich really stands up to them. The level of complexity in the hop profile is amazing. Its layered from the time you open the tap to minutes after you finish the beer.

Cant wait to try an even bigger ipa next time. Eventually I'll work up to something as big as a 120 minute ipa
 
My DIPA recipe had almost a pound of hops in it for a 5 gallon batch. It was about as hoping as I'd ever want a beer to be.

*Just double checked, it was 12 ounces including 3oz in the dry hop.
 
Currently have a 5g batch of DIPA dry hopping on 8 oz (2 each of Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe, Cascade) that had another 16 oz in the kettle.
 
Have a Pliny-esque clone that used 28 oz of hops in a 10 gallon batch. Wish I'd have used more honestly.
 
The most I've used was yesterday. I brewed a 6 gallon batch of Double IPA. I used 13 oz and will dry hop with another 3 oz for a total of 1 lb.
 
osagedr said:
Currently have a 5g batch of DIPA dry hopping on 8 oz (2 each of Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe, Cascade) that had another 16 oz in the kettle.
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Wow... pound and a half total. Impressive.

I acutally came up a little short on my volume due to hop loss. At a lb in the kettle i'd definately have to compensate with more wort
 
18-20 oz of 6 different hops in our 10 ABV, 7 gal house IPA. Just finished dry hopping a batch last night. We dry hop 1 oz of 3 different hops every other day times 3-5...
 
brewed 3.5 gal of IIPA with 1 lb of whole leaf centennial (10.5% A.A.) with 6 in dry hop, unfortunately I overshot the alcohol by 1.5% (total 9.5%ABV) so it came out more balanced then I would have liked.
 
I've used 16 ounces in 5 gallons, but I don't like to do that if I don't have to. I started buying higher AAU bittering hops, so that I use less for bittering than with a lower AAU hop. But I do tend to load up the late additions on IPAs and IIPAs.
 
Yooper said:
I've used 16 ounces in 5 gallons, but I don't like to do that if I don't have to. I started buying higher AAU bittering hops, so that I use less for bittering than with a lower AAU hop. But I do tend to load up the late additions on IPAs and IIPAs.
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I've been wondering about that. Calculated out, my beer should have come out to several hundred ibus. I know that theres a saturation point where a beer will be as bitter as its going to get in the 120 ibu range. Were my 4 oz of fwh wasted? Would I have gotten the same beer with an ounce and a half of high aau fwh or a bittering addition? If they were just a 60 or 90 minute addition I might agree, but I would like to think I got more than just bitterness from them. Would i have gotten more out of my hops by shifting a portion of my bittering addition to later in the boil? Still experimenting and trying to figure all this out...
 
Bamsdealer said:
Wow... pound and a half total. Impressive.

I acutally came up a little short on my volume due to hop loss. At a lb in the kettle i'd definately have to compensate with more wort
Click to expand...

Yes, from what was reciped-out in beersmith as a 6.5 gallon batch will end up with something like 4 in the keg. Live and learn. Pretty interested to see what this tastes like. Basically just a ridiculous competition beer--last year's pound-of-hops IIPA got comments like "lacks the big hop flavour and aroma characteristic of the style." Okay, fockers, we'll try this again!
 
Geez. And the guys on the Cooper's forums thought I'd lost my sense using 6oz of hops in a 6 gallon batch of my session IPA. But one pound in 5 gallons? That oughta make yer smucker pucker...:drunk:
 
osagedr said:
Yes, from what was reciped-out in beersmith as a 6.5 gallon batch will end up with something like 4 in the keg. Live and learn. Pretty interested to see what this tastes like. Basically just a ridiculous competition beer--last year's pound-of-hops IIPA got comments like "lacks the big hop flavour and aroma characteristic of the style." Okay, fockers, we'll try this again!
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Whole or pellet? I purposely used pellet figuring I'd lose less volume.

Funny about the comments from the competition. Even if you didn't get the best extraction you could have, I couldn't imagine them knocking you on lack of hop characteristic. Good luck this time around.
 
Bamsdealer said:
Whole or pellet? I purposely used pellet figuring I'd lose less volume.

Funny about the comments from the competition. Even if you didn't get the best extraction you could have, I couldn't imagine them knocking you on lack of hop characteristic. Good luck this time around.
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A few oz of whole, but mostly pellet. A gravity sample out of the primary tasted pretty good (nice and hoppy ;) ). I should rack it off the dry hops, it's been about 10 days. Even though some cloudiness would be okay I think I'll clarify with biofine. Also have an IPA and CDA made the same day dryhopping.
 
Bamsdealer said:
I've been wondering about that. Calculated out, my beer should have come out to several hundred ibus. I know that theres a saturation point where a beer will be as bitter as its going to get in the 120 ibu range. Were my 4 oz of fwh wasted? Would I have gotten the same beer with an ounce and a half of high aau fwh or a bittering addition? If they were just a 60 or 90 minute addition I might agree, but I would like to think I got more than just bitterness from them. Would i have gotten more out of my hops by shifting a portion of my bittering addition to later in the boil? Still experimenting and trying to figure all this out...
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Not "wasted"!

Pliny the Elder calculates out to 200 IBUs +, but it's been tested and it's more like 80 IBUs.

Still, the IBUs may max out but the flavor of the hops oils is in there, and it makes a difference. How much of a difference, I can't say.
 
I'd be interested in seeing a total weight of hops to gravity units ratio for these. For example, I've made a 4% ABV session beer with over a pound of hops, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
28 oz in ~15 gallons (likely slightly smaller as we undershot volume on the batch).

Works out to 3.6 lb/barrel, or somewhere between Stone Ruination (2.5 #/bbl) and Stone 10th Anniversary Ruination (5 #/bbl).

*Extremely* hoppy at the start. But due to the maltiness needed to stand up to all those hops, the beer faded too quickly. By the end (~ 5 months after kegging), the sweetness was taking over.

So the key? Drink 'em fresh!
 
Stan Hieronymus' new "Hops" book has some interesting feedback from brewers about the law of diminishing returns when it comes to things like IBUs and dry hopping. The takeaway is that, at some point, more isn't better, or even adding anything. It's an interesting read if you're looking to nail down a best practice, especially for the cold side additions.
 
bmick said:
Stan Hieronymus' new "Hops" book has some interesting feedback from brewers about the law of diminishing returns when it comes to things like IBUs and dry hopping. The takeaway is that, at some point, more isn't better, or even adding anything. It's an interesting read if you're looking to nail down a best practice, especially for the cold side additions.
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Its on the table at home. Just have to finish his yeast book first!
 
ocluke said:
I'd be interested in seeing a total weight of hops to gravity units ratio for these. For example, I've made a 4% ABV session beer with over a pound of hops, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
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I think you'd see that most of the crazy hopped beers are higher gravity brews. I could see the hops standing out more in a low gravity beer. You wouldn't have a bunch of sweetness or booze getting in the way and you would get better utilization from the boil.
 
I just brewed a batch last weekend that used 3 pounds of hops, 2 in the kettle and 1 more pound for dry hopping. This was a 25 gallon batch of Black Rye IIPA with 85 IBU's.
 
My highest out the ordinary beer...5 ounces in the the boil and 1 ounce dry hop for an American Wheat :rockin: Think about that for a while you hopheads :mug: I was looking to brew something close to Three Floyds Gumball Head and came up with that.
 
L1truckie said:
My highest out the ordinary beer...5 ounces in the the boil and 1 ounce dry hop for an American Wheat :rockin: Think about that for a while you hopheads :mug: I was looking to brew something close to Three Floyds Gumball Head and came up with that.
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How'd it turn out?
 
thood6 said:
How'd it turn out?
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It was hop bomb for sure! Drinkable....However, after tweaking this recipe Im now at .5 oz first wort, 3 oz in the boil and 1.5 oz dry... Ive scaled it back and redistributed the hops, much better and closer to Three Floyds gumball....Its a beer now, not a hop bomb ;)
 
A pound of fresh hops (cascade) from my hops garden in a DIPA. Don't ever do this, it tasted terrible.
 
10 ounces in a Black Rye IPA. 8oz were added to the boil and 2oz were. OG was just over 70pts and final ABV was 7.35 with an IBU rating of 165... (Based on Hopville.com's calculations).

Tasted excellent. The hops tasted more like something in the 60 IBU range probably because there was so much malt flavor.
 
rexbanner said:
A pound of fresh hops (cascade) from my hops garden in a DIPA. Don't ever do this, it tasted terrible.
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I did an all cascade pale ale and it literally tasted like grapefruit. Not bad but it just didnt have much complexity. Those hops came in a ziploc bag from Victory though
 
Bamsdealer said:
I did an all cascade pale ale and it literally tasted like grapefruit. Not bad but it just didnt have much complexity. Those hops came in a ziploc bag from Victory though
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I like cascade and agree that it lacks complexity, I just meant all fresh hops. It gets a really strong vegetable/tobacco taste that ruined the entire beer. You've got to go easy on the fresh hops, apparently. I'm going to release a fresh hop IIPA next year at my nano, and do it right. Half fresh hops, and no dry hop fresh hop. Calling it Force of Nature.
 
gotcha. I love me some wet hopped beer, but I have no idea on the ratio of wet to dry hopped additions or when to add them. I know for bittering, you have to use a lot more due to the water weight in the fresh version... but that's about it
 

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