So I checked and didn't find a thread. You can point me there if this is redundant:
I decided to move from kit brewing to homemade recipes and all grain to boot. I bought the book Beer Craft by Bill Botswick and decided to take a crack at his recipe in the back. I started with a Pale Ale. While waiting these weeks for fermenting, I have been creating my own calculators in excel to help me next time understand the profile of the brew (i.e. IBU, OG,FG, IBU/OG, etc). I have determined that the IBU (following his recipe) was off the charts high. Now normally this might have been ok if there was a large amount of sugar (high OG) to balance it, but this was not an imperial recipe, just a pale ale. The Apparent Bitterness (IBU/OG) was like double what most beers are reccommended to be.
So bottling day came and sure enough when I did a little taste test, the beer was beyond bitter. I have had enough experience to know that the taste will change over time, but has anyone ever heard of something just being too overhopped (for bittering)? I am just wondering how much should I even bother to keep knowing that given the little amount of initial sugar it will probably never balance out.
Side note, has anyone ever looked at this book's recipes? Am I the only one who thinks they are overhopped (For bittering)? (i.e. >100 IBU for 1.05OG beer)
I decided to move from kit brewing to homemade recipes and all grain to boot. I bought the book Beer Craft by Bill Botswick and decided to take a crack at his recipe in the back. I started with a Pale Ale. While waiting these weeks for fermenting, I have been creating my own calculators in excel to help me next time understand the profile of the brew (i.e. IBU, OG,FG, IBU/OG, etc). I have determined that the IBU (following his recipe) was off the charts high. Now normally this might have been ok if there was a large amount of sugar (high OG) to balance it, but this was not an imperial recipe, just a pale ale. The Apparent Bitterness (IBU/OG) was like double what most beers are reccommended to be.
So bottling day came and sure enough when I did a little taste test, the beer was beyond bitter. I have had enough experience to know that the taste will change over time, but has anyone ever heard of something just being too overhopped (for bittering)? I am just wondering how much should I even bother to keep knowing that given the little amount of initial sugar it will probably never balance out.
Side note, has anyone ever looked at this book's recipes? Am I the only one who thinks they are overhopped (For bittering)? (i.e. >100 IBU for 1.05OG beer)