Did I add too much hops?

[PartTimeJedi]

So I used a recipe for a pale ale from this app I downloaded on my iPad called iBrewmaster. Somehow I think the green bullet hop addition on the recipe got scaled way to high. Unfortunately, I did not catch this until after brewing the beer.

Here's the recipe:

Pale Ale

Type: All Grain. Calories: 147
Rating: 3.5 Efficiency: 70 %
IBU's: 170.10 Boil Size: 3.90 Gal
Color: 7.6 SRM Batch Size: 3.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Estimated Actual
OG: 1.045 1.048
FG: 1.011 1.011
ABV: 4.45 % 4.85 %

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
4.81 lbs 88.89 % Pale Malt (2 Row) UK 60 mins 1.036
0.60 lbs 11.11 % Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L 60 mins 1.035

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
1.80 ozs 160.69 Green Bullet 60 mins 13.50
0.15 ozs 5.72 Challenger 30 mins 7.50
0.15 ozs 3.69 Challenger 15 mins 7.50
0.15 ozs 0.00 Challenger 0 mins 7.50

Yeasts
Amount Name
1.0 pkg Safale US-05

Is this beer going to be entirely too bitter? I don't remember ever messing with the amount of hops when I scaled it down to 3 gallons from 5 gallons so I'm unsure what happened.

 

[terodox]

This is going to be extremely bitter. In general most people can't taste anything over 100 IBUs. I'm interested to hear how it tastes at the end.

 

[Dwain]

Did I add too much hops?

The answer to that is always - No. If it's too bitter, you can always cut it with Miller Lite!

 

[PartTimeJedi]

The answer to that is always - No. If it's too bitter, you can always cut it with Miller Lite!

That actually almost sounds reasonable....instead of miller lite could I brew another batch of this and significantly lower the ibu's and mix the batches to bring the bitterness down? I've never actually done this before so how would I do this?

 

[scottland]

If it ends up bracingly bitter, brew up another batch, drop the 60min addition, keep the others.

Blend the two together, and you'll have 6 gallons.

 

[samc]

Dry hopping can help balance bitter brews. Try that first.

 

[rzup]

scottland's blend method is the probably your best bet if your not a hop junky or like your beer cold.
However, I am going to say if your a hop head, just bottle it up and call it a day. It will be too bitter and with your ABV maybe seem a bit watery initially. I have brewed something close to IBU/ABV this intentonally trying push my IBUs up on a low gravity. Its not the greatest, but its not the worst I have brewed. I intially was using them whenever I I had some beer I didn't care for.... just blend by the bottle. After some conditioning and being sure to drink at ~ 55F I have been enjoying them, the aroma is fantastic and frankly they don't taste as harshly bitter as some commercial hop bombs. I will warn you that if you drink one straight out of the fridge the bitterness cuts through you. Though most of my beers calculate over 100 IBUs(with a higher OG (1.065-1.075), so take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

[PartTimeJedi]

If it ends up bracingly bitter, brew up another batch, drop the 60min addition, keep the others.

Blend the two together, and you'll have 6 gallons.

I think this is what I'm going to do. Can I just brew up the other beer, rack over the one that is fermenting now to a secondary, and then throw the new batch on top of the current yeast cake? Or will that yeast cake still contain the hops from the original batch?

 

[scottland]

I think this is what I'm going to do. Can I just brew up the other beer, rack over the one that is fermenting now to a secondary, and then throw the new batch on top of the current yeast cake? Or will that yeast cake still contain the hops from the original batch?

You don't want to use the entire yeast cake. That would be grossly over-pitching. Mrmalty.com has a good calculator that will help you measure the correct amount of yeast to re-pitch.

The less scientific way would be to sanitize a big spoon, and move about 1/6 of the yeast to a sanitized jar or something, clean and sanitize your fermenter, and then pitch that yeast. 1/4 to 1/6 would roughly the right amount

 

[PartTimeJedi]

This may be a dumb question but if I'm leaving out the 60 min hop addition would I just boil the new batch for 30 min?

 

[scottland]

I'd boil it for 60min still. I never do less than 60 minute boil.

 

[PartTimeJedi]

Thanks for the advice everybody. I think I'm going to call the final product of this "My Bad IPA"

 

[Dwain]

Whichever way you go, be sure and let us know and how it turns out. I would also do a 60 min. boil. - Dwain

 

[PartTimeJedi]

How would I go about calculating the new ibu of the blended final product?

 

[PartTimeJedi]

Just a quick update...
Just bottled this yesterday. I made another batch without any bittering hops to mix with the overly hopped one. Tried both separately before mixing. The one without bittering hops was actually really good. I was fairly surprised. The one with the bittering hops wasn't crazy bitter but was a little on the extreme side. I tried the beer after mixing both and I felt as though it tasted very well balanced.

Still needs to bottle condition but so far I'm pretty happy with it!

 

[scottland]

Awesome! Glad it worked out.

 

[BrewThruYou]

Me add to much hopz? That's unpossible!