IIPA Recipe - Continuously Hopped

This is based off of a 2 gallon batch that I did that turned out really well. It was undrinkably hoppy until about 2 weeks after bottling, at which point it became delicious. This recipe is my attempt to turn the smaller recipe into a larger batch, and, well, my beer friends and I like hops.

I ran the recipe through BeerSmith, and it does appear that it will take me an entire pound of hops to get the IBUs up where I like them.

Type: Extract
Size: 5 gallon
Est OG: 1.081
Est FG: 1.018
Est ABV: 8.2%
Est Bitterness: 104.8 IBU

Boil: 90 minutes

9lb Light DME
1lb Carapils - steeping
1lb Crystal 90 - steeping

1oz Warrior - 90min
1oz Warrior - 85min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook - 80min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook - 75min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook - 70min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook - 65min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook - 60min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook - 55min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook, .5oz Cascade - 50min
.5oz Warrior, .5oz Chinook, .5oz Cascade - 45min
.5oz Cascade - 40min
.5oz Cascade - 35min
.5oz Cascade - 30min
.5oz Cascade - 25min
.5oz Cascade - 20min
.5oz Cascade - 15min
.5oz Cascade, .5oz Chinook, Irish Moss - 10min
.5oz Cascade, .5oz Chinook - 5min

WLP001 California Ale yeast starter

5-6 gallons spring water

Since I can only do partial boils, I plan to do a boil just for all the hops, then heat up water to steep the grains so I can have a break, then heat water for the DME, then top off as necessary, with each batch of liquid just going into the fermenter as it's ready. I also plan to rack the hop boil into the fermenter once it's cool in an attempt to avoid the massive amount of trub that I'm going to have.

What do you think?

Well, to me there is no point in adding hops every 5 minutes for bittering hops. It doesn't provide flavor or aroma, just bitterness, so I don't see the advantage. And a combined ounce of warrior/chinook every five minutes for 8 times plus the bittering hops makes me think that the enamel will come off my teeth.

Don't get me wrong- I LOVE big IIPAs and lots of hops. But that recipe looks horribly bitter with not much in flavor or aroma at all.

I'd do the opposite, bitter with the amount of hops you need for balance, and then load up the end of the boil with hops. The late addition hops give flavor and aroma and that distinctive "hoppiness". Many of my late additions are at 10, 5, 1, 0 minutes.

Oh, and add the DME at the end of the boil. That will give you more bitterness in your calculations (you claim you need like 11 ounces of hops to get enough bittering? Recalculate with the DME ended at 0 minutes) plus be a far more accurate count. Keep in mind that it's impossible to get more than about 100 IBUs in solution, no matter how many hops you use.

I was planning to add the hops on that schedule in imitation of the Dogfish Head IPA brewing process. I like Dogfish Head, a lot, so figured it was worth a shot.

The 2 gallon batch that I've based this off of used 3 ounces of hops; as I said, it was utterly undrinkable until about two weeks after bottling, at which point it became amazingly delicious. It was very crisp, clean, and of course very, very hoppy.

I've only used the amount of hops listed - 16 ounces, not 11 - because BeerSmith indicated that I simply could not get an IBU in the range I wanted without it. Based on the information I've been able to find, this is at least partly due to the fact that I can only do a partial boil; I don't have the money for the forseeable future to upgrade my brew pot.

Therefore, what I'm guessing as educatedly as possible is that either I'll end up with a lower bitterness due to the partial boil or a lower bitterness due to aging, or both. I'm also guessing that this is what happened to batch #1, and that I can use this to my advantage on batch #2, that is, the recipe listed above.

I mostly want to make sure that there are no glaring technical problems with the recipe I posted, as this is going to be an expensive beer, not least because I want to pick up a carboy for a secondary for it, as well as for an eventual barleywine.

Well, the beer you posted will be undrinkable, in my opinion, for the reasons I mentioned. I love the continuous hopping idea- check out my DFH clone recipe- but not the way you have it set up. You don't get much flavor or aroma in those hops before 15 minutes, so you have TONS of bittering. But no flavor or aroma. I'd change it up and have more flavor and aroma hops.

Like I said, change it up in Beersmith. Check the box for "late extract addition" and change it to a 1 minute (or 0 minute) addition and watch those IBUs shoot through the roof.

Software can only calculate so much, and getting more than 100 IBUs in solution is impossible no matter how many ounces of hops you use.

The beer you posted will be ungodly bitter, with no flavor or hoppy aromas to speak of. I'd seriously consider late hopping, instead of all those bittering hops. You only have 2 ounces of hops for flavor and aroma, and like 13 for bittering! That's totally backwards.

Yooper is right about Warrior...the stuff would be ungodly bitter in those amounts! I'd say keep the Warrior at 90 & 85 minutes as bittering hops, but lose the rest and replace with an aromatic hop like Amarillo or Simcoe (or switch between each!).

I likes me some bitter brew, but as it is right now, that stuff would cause someone's face to implode.

Ok, after checking off "add after boil" for the DME, this is the revised hop schedule:

Total hops: 3oz
Est. IBU: 97.8

90 min - 1oz Centennial
30 min - .25oz Chinook
25 min - .25oz Cascade
20 min - .25oz Chinook
15 min - .25oz Cascade
10 min - .25oz Chinook
5 min - .25oz Cascade
0 min - .25 Chinook, 9lb light DME

Sounds better, yes?

97.8 IBU from 3 oz. seems impossible. It'd be awesome if it was possible though....