Late Extract Addition Causing Higher Bitterness?

[DeBAD]

We recently brewed an IPA and although we were shooting for a pretty high IBU (about 70) with a high ratio of that IBU being driven by the bittering hops (about 70% of total IBU), the IPA tastes even more bitter than expected. Don't get me wrong, it's dang good. We knew it would be bitter and we wanted it to be, but like I said, it's maybe a little more bitter than we wanted.

Looking back through our brewing notes and reading a few other posts I'm wondering if our late extract addition might be the reason? When I entered our recipe into Brewers Friend I didn't specify we were making late extract additions.

When we brewed, we dropped in 1/3 of our LME at the beginning of the boil, then dropped in the remaining 2/3 at flame out.

Do late extract additions increase the actual IBU? I drink a lot of IPAs and this one tastes much higher than 70 to me.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[unionrdr]

Since you didn't list it as a late addition,your hop utilization was pretty high with all that bittering. I use BS2.1 & list them as such when added to the recipe. But partial boils with late extract additions will allow for greater hop utilization. Just don't forget to list the late additions next time. I do think recipe calculators are a lil heavy on bittering calculations,though.

 

[flars]

I have detected no additional bittering with late extract addition. The beers brewed were both Northern Brewers American Amber ale.

 

[DeBAD]

We did a side-by-side taste test with our IPA that I thought was a 70 IBU with a commercial IPA that's a 99. Ours is hoppier BY FAR! The late addition most definitely must have made a lot of difference.

I was curious so I ran our recipe through another calculator with the late additions specified and the IBU came out at 125! Judging by the taste of our IPA I'm not surprised at all.

We then blended ours approx 50/50 with a APA that's about 30 and it tasted about right.

I guess as we drink this batch, when we want a super hoppy beer we will drink ours straight but if we want to mellow it out a little we will blend it. On the bright side, ours has a really good taste and smells great.

"Beer problems" are never real problems. Haha!