Theoretical IBU... How high have you gone?

Extremely high IBU IPAs are last decade's model

 

Hopefully this helps answer your question, but I brewed Northern Brewer's '115th Dream' Hopbursted IIPA a few years back (120 IBU) and it was pretty good. Also an extra hoppy version of Stone Ruination (120 IBU) that I enjoyed a lot. I think that's about as far as I'd ever push the envelope for IBUs. Any more, and it's just a waste of money, cuz hops aren't cheap and is it really gonna be that much better? That's just my opinion. Like others have said the lupulin threshold is around 130-150, so any more than that is just overkill IMO.

 

But hasn't that more to do with the aroma and flavor resulting from the additional quantity of the hops, rather than the amount of IBU's? In other words, wouldn't you get the same effect if you just added the additional hops at flameout or dry hopping? What differences does one perceive from the actual additional IBU's, apart from the additional flavor or aroma resulting from the addiitonal quantity of hops?

 

@OldBrewer: Great question. Enquiring minds want to know........ but unfortunately, most Americans (at least) don't have very enquiring minds. I wonder if we could/should get Brulosophy to run an experiment along these lines. Otherwise we'll prolly never get a decent answer.

 

That would be a fascinating study, and finally begin to resolve some of these ongoing questions.

 

Hops in the boil don't produce the same results as dry hopping. Some inquiring minds spend a lot of time fussing over something they will never try.

Do you think Pliny the Elder would be the same beer if they cut the ibu down to 100? If so, they could save a lot of money on "wasted hops". It wouldn't be the same beer. Fact!

 

Send me two bottles of Pliny brewed with the two different methods and I'll let you know.

 

Brew your own beer. Conduct your own experiments. Validate your confirmation bias. Then, contact Russian River and tell them how they can save a bunch of money on hops.

 

A few have said the Pliny the Elder is 65IBUs based on lab tests. See Mitch Steele's IPA book for lab results. Hop extract for the early additions are used, so there is less wasted wort.

 

Everyone tries different things. The great value of a forum such as this, is that we can exchage information and the results of our work and observations without others having to time and expense duplicating everything already tried. I have already greatly appreciated all your observations.

 

Yes, I know. We aren't talking about actual ibu here.

 

Not to long ago, on the recipes he was giving out, it was at 90-95 from lab tests. What happened to the other 30?

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/russian-river-pliny-the-elder-clone/

@bulletrain76 may or may not have input here.

 

Recipes change. Whatever the current recipe is, I'll bet it's still more than 100 theoretical IBU. Wasting hops? No.

 

Waste is a subjective term. As is taste. Blind tasting is the only way to know for sure what effect heavy-handed hopping has, if any. And someone else can run that experiment because many of us don't want to waste hops.

Personally I am open to the possibility that my intuition might not be correct. Maybe there's a huge flavor difference between a theoretical 90 IBU beer and a theoretical 900 IBU beer. I'll admit, I don't know for sure, and maybe never will. And I'm cool with that.

I am also very lazy and realistically will most likely never conduct such an eye-opening experiment myself. I'm so lazy, I don't even run the experiments that I actually want to run! I lazily hope for someone else to run these experiments. Also, I am not a hophead. I'm a malthead. I'd probably have to die and become a zombie born-again hophead before you'd get me to throw "enough" hops into any beer. That's reality, for me. Your reality is no doubt a lot different, and that's cool.

Also..... what formula you use will have a huge impact on your theoretical IBUs. I've little doubt that anyone claiming 900 IBUs (or whatever) is using Rager because it's the least accurate and highest IBU-calculating formula out there. I use Tinseth because it's most reflective of the real universe.... at least right up to that magical 90-100 IBU mark.

Isn't this fun? Arguing with people who don't even care about the topic at hand? But seriously.... just sharing knowledge..... and providing excuses to experiment and drink more..... that's the REAL fun part.

Cheers.

 

Tinseth is great up to about 65 IBUs. After that, it's too generous, and the real utilization curve starts to progressively flatten out, up to about 100 or 110 (real) IBUs, above which the curve is flat. At that point, you can't get more IBUs, but you can make hop soup if that's your thing. I'd be pretty surprised if the addition hops didn't affect flavor, aroma, and mouthfeel in some way.

 

In that case, you're wasting malt and don't have a credible opinion on the subject of high theoretical IBU hop bombs.

Yeee haww!

 

90 IBUs is quite different from 65 IBUs...and Not theoretical...you never waste a lot when over- bittering so concentrate on the late additions, imho

 

I assume you're referring to actual IBUs. With Tinseth calculated IBUs, 90 calculated is more like 70 actual.

 

Made a DIPA called "Stickman" for last years mantrip in june '15... one of the guys just posted that he drank the last one and said it was the best one.. really needed about 6 months to peak even though I brought it at 2!! The one he drank this weekend was bottled about 10 mnths ago... it was about 105-110 ibu's