What's your best "fix" for a beer that finished too sweet?

[Hoochin'Fool]

That calculation does not seem to add up, pun intended.
You're going to dilute your hop tea, and its bitterness, by a factor 3 / (3-2.8) = 3 / 0.2 = 15!

IOW, to add 30 IBUs to 2.8 gallons by means of adding 0.2 gallon of a "bittering potion," it would need to be 15*30 = 450 IBU !

Am I just using the IBU calculator wrong (see comment #6 in this thread)?

 

[IslandLizard]

Am I just using the IBU calculator wrong (see comment #6 in this thread)?

No, apparently your calculation is fine.

I took a slightly different approach, calculating the IBUs using 0.4 gallons of plain water simmered down to 0.2 gallons over 30 minutes with your 1/4 oz of 16.1 AA hops. The result is similar to yours, yielding 461 IBU:

Now, I don't know if it's possible to actually make a 461 IBU bittering potion. Never tried.

The calculator uses Tinseth's IBU formulas. I'm not sure how accurate they are when used in more extreme cases such as these. At least you will add some hard-needed bitterness, perhaps even the right amount, nothing to lose.

 

[VikeMan]

Now, I don't know if it's possible to actually make a 461 IBU bittering potion. Never tried.

~110 IBUs is the cosmic speed limit.

The calculator uses Tinseth's IBU formulas. I'm not sure how accurate they are when used in more extreme cases such as these. At least you will add some hard-needed bitterness, perhaps even the right amount, nothing to lose.

Tinseth is pretty good up to 65 IBUs or so. Above that, real life utilization curves flatten out considerably.

 

[mac_1103]

Tinseth is pretty good up to 65 IBUs or so. Above that, real life utilization curves flatten out considerably.

So how should one go about estimating IBU for a quart of water with a quarter ounce of high alpha hops and 3 ounces of priming sugar?

 

[IslandLizard]

~110 IBUs is the cosmic speed limit.

Does that mean we can't create a higher IBU by boiling down 1 gallon of hop water at 110 IBU to a quart of 440 IBU?

 

[VikeMan]

Does that mean we can't create a higher IBU by boiling down 1 gallon of hop water at 110 IBU to a quart of 440 IBU?

My guess is that the isomerized alpha acids in excess of ~110 IBUs would come out of solution. I don't know how hard it would be to get those excess acids into the main batch from there.

 

[Miraculix]

~110 IBUs is the cosmic speed limit.



Tinseth is pretty good up to 65 IBUs or so. Above that, real life utilization curves flatten out considerably.

It's not. If there are no proteins in solution, the upper limit is much much higher. I've overbittered a pilsner once because I thought I'd need to use some correction for the above calculation. I used a similar water/beer ratio at that time. Did it again afterwards without the correction I made up, worked like expected.

 

[VikeMan]

So how should one go about estimating IBU for a quart of water with a quarter ounce of high alpha hops and 3 ounces of priming sugar?

Using the original Tinseth formula ...
Starting with 0.45 gallons of water, adding 0.25 oz of 16.1 AA pellet hops, and boiling for 30 minutes down to 0.25 gallons (not incl water absorbed by the hops), Tinseth says 468 IBUs.

BrewCipher's modified Tinseth says 98 IBUs for this same hop water.

I didn't include priming sugar in the above, just the "hop water."

 

[VikeMan]

It's not. If there are no proteins in solution, the upper limit is much much higher.

Sounds plausible. So what's the limit without worty compounds?

 

[tracer bullet]

only being 4 weeks old, and warm, and flat)

I just want to point out that warm and flat will have an effect - cold and carbonated will help all by itself.

I second the idea of adding chocolate, maybe graham cracker, or some other extract and going with it. Your beer is actually something some people aim for. It doesn't mean it's what you aimed for, but it is something entirely fine to have.

If you just can't take it, I like the hop tea idea, but mind the hops you use. Fuggles and Willamette are often Stout hops but not very high AA, it's hard to see them working well. Perhaps Magnum, boiled for an hour, will basically just be bitter water?

 

[Miraculix]

Sounds plausible. So what's the limit without worty compounds?

I have no idea. I can only say that I have not reached a limit with my raw ale experiments where I routinely must have hit 400 ibu and above hopped water levels. How much higher it can go, I don't know.

Obviously no way for me to measure, expect for judging the taste of the resulting beer.

 

[IslandLizard]

Your beer is actually something some people aim for. It doesn't mean it's what you aimed for, but it is something entirely fine to have.

Exactly!

We just had our yearly campout, and aside from a plethora of kegs, many of us had brought (mostly commercial) craft beer bottles with high gravity, mostly dark/black beer to share. The majority of those bottles were well over 10% ABV and 1.023 FG, pouring like used motor oil from the sump on a cool morning. Delicious!

Truly, events or (small) gatherings are best for sharing those precious liquids. Everyone brings a bottle and let them make the rounds. We call it Big Beer, it's become a tradition!

 

[Miraculix]

Exactly!

We just had our yearly campout, and aside from a plethora of kegs, many of us had brought (mostly commercial) craft beer bottles with high gravity, mostly dark/black beer to share. The majority of those bottles were well over 10% ABV and 1.023 FG, pouring like used motor oil from the sump on a cool morning. Delicious!

Truly, events or (small) gatherings are best for sharing those precious liquids. Everyone brings a bottle and let them make the rounds. We call it Big Beer, it's become a tradition!

Oh man, thank you so much for your on point description of the stout I've brewed and which I meant to put a bottle of in the fridge so I can have the first of this batch tonight! Totally forgot that! What a disastre that would have been!

Thank you for saving my evening good sir!

 

[IslandLizard]

Oh man, thank you so much for your on point description of the stout I've brewed and which I meant to put a bottle of in the fridge so I can have the first of this batch tonight! Totally forgot that! What a disastre that would have been!

Thank you for saving my evening good sir!

Glad to oblige.
Enjoy your evening, it has all the promise of being sumptuous and rewarding!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You can also add tetra hop to increase the ibu's, many breweries do this just before bottling.

You can, but tetrahop is not generally available in retail packaging (although I see Geterbrewed in Ireland now do it). "Ordinary" isomerised hop extract is fairly widely available in Europe (eg THBC) but weirdly is pretty hard to find in the US, the major retailers only sell unisomerised "hopshots" and the like.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Well now you all got me thinking about recreating precisely this same beer, just so I can mix it with some chocolate and graham cracker flavoring/tinctures!

Spoiler for the eff-up in the first place: failure to notice that the AA percentage on a pack of Magnum hops were only 9%, not the 16% that I'd used the last time I'd printed this particular recipe.

Spoiler for hop-tea: do not ever, under any circumstances TASTE a high ibu hop-tea! OMG thought I was gonna die!

 

[Miraculix]

...

Spoiler for hop-tea: do not ever, under any circumstances TASTE a high ibu hop-tea! OMG thought I was gonna die!

I have never ever done that for the fear of what you probably might have just experienced .

 

[tracer bullet]

Spoiler for the eff-up in the first place: failure to notice that the AA percentage on a pack of Magnum hops were only 9%, not the 16% that I'd used the last time I'd printed this particular recipe.

Been there. I figured it out before I brewed, but after I'd already done my shopping. Thankfully had some leftover hops in the freezer I could use.

There are a few things that are good to have as backups (amounts may vary depending on how much you brew at once):
* An ounce of Magnum hops
* A pack of S-05 yeast
* A pound or three of some light DME