Screwed up hops timing

I don't think you destroyed your beer. I'd finish the batch and see how it turns out. It'll likely be much more bitter than the recipe intended, but probably not a loss.

 

Cool screw up...You'll never do that again...unless the beer turns out great...

 

That's really just a minor blip in your brew session, and it's likely that you provided a good fix. It's good that you had more hops on hand. If your recipe was to clone a specific beer you may be a bit off from the expected hop flavor, but you're going to have a beer from this.

 

Pretty sure this is how dogfish head came up with the idea for Hoo-Lawd.

 

Your beer will be more bitter than intended and will have less hop flavor and aroma than intended (if your 2 oz impromptu aroma addition was less than what should have been added late). Did you taste the wort before it went into the fermenter? If it didn't shrivel your tongue, there is hope.

 

I would not give up on this. It's possible that your beer will be more bitter than you like, but if you sanitized well on the cold side, including packaging, I think it has a chance. Your beer may not be to your liking three weeks after packaging, but hop bitterness mellows over time. You may not get the beer you thought you were making, and it may not be ready to drink for the big party you had planned, but it could eventually win your heart.

 

Time travel is the only right solution.

As others have said, your beer will be more bitter this way, but it will still be beer. Use this first batch as an educational experience. Perhaps brew it again and compare tasting notes in reference to differences in hop schedule.

 

It sounds like you used 6-7oz of hops and boiled them for 60 minutes, then added a couple ounces at flame out. Is that right? If so, this will be the most bitter beer of all time. 6 months from now, it will be the second most bitter beer of all time.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm not going to be Pollyanna and sugar coat it.

 

@KirstinStone, do you intend to dry hop this batch?

Cheers!

 

There's no reason to be unsure. See the utilization curve (etc.) at this link...
http://realbeer.com/hops/research.html

There are many standalone IBU calculators and general brewing software packages to do the calculations that are described at the link above.

 

I would run what actually happened through a calculator like Vikeman suggests, and see how different the expected final result will be. There's nothing else to do while you are waiting for the beer to finish, anyway. If your flavor and aroma hops weren't very strong, the difference may not be exceptionally profound. For example, I have some Saaz hops in the freezer right now that are labeled as only 2.7% AA. If your initial target IBU was 70, a mistake with lower AA aroma hops won't throw that number off too much to call it fatal.

 

One option that you could pursue if you have another fermenter is to brew a similar batch with no bitter but double the late hops and blend the two batches in the bottling bucket.

 

IMO that is a 'good thing' here. Dry hopping will provide aroma and much of what we refer to as "flavor" comes from aroma. I would strongly recommend that you proceed with dry hopping. Hop aroma/flavor will provide some 'balance' to hop bitterness.

Cheers!

 

What were the actual hops and how many ounces of each that you used? That will give a much better idea of how much more bitter this beer will be.

 

Now Betty, could it be that yer being a bit harsh? Some other brewers have given some fine ideas like pweiss.
Might be that this brew could be salvaged.

 

Yeah, Centennial, Columbus and Chinook are usually relatively high AA hops, this is definitely going to be bitter. I would not dump it, if nothing else, the hops will fade over time.

What was your grain bill? If this is APA territory, you might want to think about brewing a similar beer with many fewer hops and then blending at bottling time. I would taste a sample before I bothered to dryhop.