IBU increase to accomadate high grav beers

Hey everyone,

I am working on a high grav brown ale recipe, and when I am calculating the recipe the calculator says I shouldn't go over 40IBU (I am currently at 38ish)...but then again, it says I shouldn't be over 1.060 for OG either lol (I am hovering at 1.080).

My question is, should I increase the IBU to match the "bigness" (not a word I know ) of the beer? Or do you think the calculator has already compensated for that? BTW, I am using the hopville beer calculus calculator.

Thank you in advance.

Kyle

You should increase the IBUs in proportion to the gravity. High-gravity Browns tend to drift into the Robust Porter style. You could use those as a guide, just leave out the black patent.

I would try to keep them in proportion. IE, if the calculator says 30-40 for 1.060 or something like that, I'd be looking at somewhere around 40-66 IBU at 1.080.


Try to keep the IBU:OG ratio the same.

right now I am sitting at a BU:GU of .48, but I don't see how I can just add appox. 15IBU without significantly altering my BU:GU ratio. When I finally got my IBU to 50, it jacked my BU:GU ratio to .64

any suggestions?

I think he meant to keep the style BUGU (0.5-0.67) the same as your brew, so 50IBU at 1.08 should be fine.

edit: FG is pretty important to this too since it has a lot to do with the perceived sweetness. IMO, balance value is more useful than BUGU http://beercolor.netfirms.com/balance.html

looking at it, if I go with the increased hops I end up with....
OG-1.080
FG-1.019

50 IBU @ .64 BU:GU. I think that falls within the accepted guidelines.

Thanks everyone!