Why isn't my 75 IBU IPA bitter?

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

The title basically sums it up. I've tried searching for an answer in the forum and google but I couldn't find anything. I brewed up Edwort's Stone IPA clone. Beersmith calculated it at 74.9 IBUs. Recipe looked like this:

5.25 gallons - partial mash
OG: 1.070
FG: 1.016

5.5 lb XL-LME (added with 15 min left in boil)
4 lbs 2 row
1 lb crystal 20L
1 lb munich

.95 oz Warrior - 60 min
1 oz Centennial - 15 min
1 oz Centennial - 5 min
1 oz Centennial - dry hop

It spent 3 weeks in the fermenter and its been 4 weeks in the bottle. This beer has very, very little bitterness to it at all. My 40 IBU pale ale has more bite. I've never heard of it but, is bitterness affected by conditioning and perhaps it just needs a few more weeks in the bottle? I'm kind of at a loss here and don't know what to think of it. Any ideas?

 

[Surfman]

its because most of the hops were added late in the boil as to maximize flavor and aroma without making the beer to bitter, my IIPA is the same way. i actually prefer my IPAs this way.

 

[Bobby_M]

Someone put Saaz in a bag and put a Warrior label on it? Warrior is upwards of 18% alpha and even at 1oz, it should be ripping bitter.

 

[malkore]

did you really hit FG of 1.016?

bitterness has a lot to do with residual sweetness. if the FG is high, theres a lot of sweetness in the beer, and that will decrease the perceived bitterness, even if its at 74.9IBU.

Can you post the alpha acid levels of the hops you used...I'm wondering if your calculations were off. 0.95 oz of warrior would need a very high AA% to yield 74.9 IBU, regardless of the late extract addition.

 

[Beerrific]

What kind of water did you use?
What was the boil volume?

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

OK I was checking my notes and I subbed the .95oz Warrior with .95oz 15.00%AA Millenium. The Centenials were 9.1%AA.

I did a 4.5 gallon partial boil with a late extract addition at 15 minutes.

I'm using spring water that I get at one of those "fill a gallon jug for 25 cents" places because my town water is pretty hard. I've only been doing it for my last 5 or 6 brews to try it out, but I've had good results with the rest of my beers.

I also included the boil volume and late addition into Beersmith.

The beer tasted pretty bitter in every hydro sample - the most bitter I've ever had a beer taste in those stages. I've been cracking a few open within the past week. My buddy tasted the first one and when he said it was great I knew something was wrong because he really doesn't like bitterness and IPAs.

Oh and yeah I did hit 1.016. It was 1.017 when I racked it to secondary and it dropped another point after a couple of weeks. That's not too high of a final gravity, right? I thought it was right where it should ferment out to.

 

[mew]

1.016 is a bit sweet for an IPA. Either that's it or your utilization suffered for some reason (did you use a hop bag?).

 

[henrychinaski]

how vigorous is your boil?
i started out all-grain brewing a couple of years ago, making use of a natural gas hook-up in our sun room. not having heard of brewing software, i was guided by experimentation and experience with my setup. when some experienced brewers tasted an ipa of mine, they couldn't believe that i had added a total of 8oz. of whole hops (chinook and amarillo) to the 5 gallon batch. after a brief q & a session, we determined that my boil was too weak. i switched to propane with the same burner and was shocked by the difference. <oh, that's what a potential boil-over looks like...>
i just brewed a 1.068 ipa and used a total of 4 oz. (warrior and centennial) and the bitterness was just right.
by the way, i do the same for water. it's called "windmill express" at the station near me.

 

[Coastarine]

I made a double IPA a while back which is crazy delicious now and I used a hop tea. That might give you better utilization. Things that I look at when planning bitterness are the Bitterness Units to gravity units ratio (BU:GU) and the final gravity.

 

[stever]

That should still be pretty darn bitter even with Millenium. My guess is maybe a little bit of hop under utilization and old hops.

 

[McKBrew]

Maybe it's just a case of this.

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

My boil probably isn't as vigorous as it could be. It's done on a brand new stove top. It's a pretty diesel stove and served me well so far but its time to move on. I'm doing my first all grain/full boil/kegging on my next batch Friday. Though, I think if my boil was a problem then all my beers would be affected. Same goes for my utilization - I didn't do anything different this batch than any other and was shooting for a BU:GU number around 1.

It might be a case of old hops. Everything I get at my LHBS has been good so far. I've been going there for over 6 months, but there is always that one time.

Ha, it might be lupulin threshold shift, but I doubt it. I just had the Stone IPA (77 IBUs) at the Blues 'n Brews fest this weekend and that bitterness totally kicks my beer's a$$. I don't get it, because its not like it is just falling short of what I was shooting for but it is waaay off. The best way to describe it is WEAK. Even swmbo said it was weak and she's definitely not a dedicated hop head.

 

[mew]

You say you haven't been doing full boils. Have you been adding all the extract right at the beginning? If so, the concentrated wort will severely hamper hop utilization. A good method is to add a small amount of extract at the beginning (maybe a fifth of it) and the rest with 10 or 15 minutes left in the boil.

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

You say you haven't been doing full boils. Have you been adding all the extract right at the beginning? If so, the concentrated wort will severely hamper hop utilization. A good method is to add a small amount of extract at the beginning (maybe a fifth of it) and the rest with 10 or 15 minutes left in the boil.

I've been doing partial mashes lately. I collect my runnings and bring the wort to a boil. I add my hop additions as I normally do and add my extract with 15 minutes left in the boil. Check my first post for the recipe.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

The only thing I can think of here is older / stall hops.
This is the great thing about kegging, you could boil up a hop tea, cool and add to keg.

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

The only thing I can think of here is older / stall hops.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking too at this point. How old do hops, mainly Millenium, have to be to not bitter a beer?