I have a recipe that i've built up from one of my favorite beers i like to clone...I turned one into an imperial version of it and the estimated OG is 1.091 at 65% efficiency. My IBUs are estimated at 49 with 3 oz of northern brewer at first wort and 2 oz of strisselspalt at 15 minutes. Is the IBU count too low? I will add that i do like/prefer sweet finishing beers. So that's not much of an issue for me. (planning on making a 10 gallon batch this sunday). Cheers!
If you like sweeter beers, you could even go lower on the IBUs. 49 would not be out of place in a 1.091 English barleywine, and I would assume you'd like more "blonde" than "barleywine" for this. Also, as I'm sure you're planning on, pitch plenty of yeasties, give them plenty of O2, and keep them cool. Just out of curiosity, what does your grist look like for this?
Given that this is a super-sized Blonde, and that you prefer sweet beers, I'd say 49 IBUs are plenty. Maybe even a bit high.
2 row - 64% white wheat - 16% flaked oats - 5.33% flaked rye - 5.33% honey malt - 1.33% lactose - 2.67% honey - 5.33% I backed down on the 3.00 oz of northern brewer to 2 oz and it brought down the IBUs to 35.
To target the correct level of balance in a beer I'm designing, I like to use the advice found here: https://klugscheisserbrauerei.wordpress.com/beer-balance/ Basically, it factors in OG, FG, and IBUs to come up with a balance factor. The link also has example balance factors for each BJCP category (well, categories as they existed a few years ago). When I'm making a recipe, I'll think of style of beer that has the level of sweetness I want, find it's balance value, and use that (along with the FG/OG values) to solve for the target IBUs. If your expected FG was 1.014 and 35 IBUs, your balance value would be ~1.00, or somewhere around a Vienna Lager. So, very balanced between bitter and sweet. I hope that helps!
Just how I like my blondes - big and sweet I expect to see a label designed for this if you go about brewing it
oh i did brew this! 1.086 is what my OG came in at. after my honey addition at high krausen, it should be around 1.091-1.095, (depending how much i add).
