There's no real question here, just a story about what happens when you absent mindedly start throwing hops into the boil with no regard to AAU or qty.
A few months ago, I had been playing around with hop quantities and boil times, and wound up with the bitterest IPA I have ever tasted. At the time that I brewed this, I didn't really understand alpha acids, or how IBU's were calculated. I was strictly going off the advice that I was given that "Most brewers don't consider a beer to be an IPA until it has a least 7 oz of hops in it." The SG was 1.060 in a 5 gal batch.
I think this was about the hop sched. This is apparently what I wrote down during the boil.
2 oz Northern Brewer - 80 minutes
1 oz Northern Brewer - 60 minutes
2 oz cascade - 30 minutes
1 oz Amarillo - 0 min
1 oz centennial - 0 minutes
1 oz amarillo - dry hopped
So, the IBU's came out to 125! and to top it off, I under pitched it, so the FG was 1.020. I tried it for the first time last night with a buddy. His comment was "All I taste is bitter." and he was right. There was so much hoppiness to it that I could have brewed this with the cheapest malt ingredients and you'd never have known. Don't get me wrong, I love a bitter IPA, but this...is rediculous.
Knowing what I now know, I would have done things differently, have since. Oh well.
I have heard that hop bitterness will level out with age... even a SG 1.060 that is 125 IBU?
A few months ago, I had been playing around with hop quantities and boil times, and wound up with the bitterest IPA I have ever tasted. At the time that I brewed this, I didn't really understand alpha acids, or how IBU's were calculated. I was strictly going off the advice that I was given that "Most brewers don't consider a beer to be an IPA until it has a least 7 oz of hops in it." The SG was 1.060 in a 5 gal batch.
I think this was about the hop sched. This is apparently what I wrote down during the boil.
2 oz Northern Brewer - 80 minutes
1 oz Northern Brewer - 60 minutes
2 oz cascade - 30 minutes
1 oz Amarillo - 0 min
1 oz centennial - 0 minutes
1 oz amarillo - dry hopped
So, the IBU's came out to 125! and to top it off, I under pitched it, so the FG was 1.020. I tried it for the first time last night with a buddy. His comment was "All I taste is bitter." and he was right. There was so much hoppiness to it that I could have brewed this with the cheapest malt ingredients and you'd never have known. Don't get me wrong, I love a bitter IPA, but this...is rediculous.
Knowing what I now know, I would have done things differently, have since. Oh well.
I have heard that hop bitterness will level out with age... even a SG 1.060 that is 125 IBU?