How Hoppy can a Beer get?

[u/Yourge23]

In short, I have about 4lbs of dried and vacuum sealed hops that I harvested from nearby my house, stored in a refrigerator. I have used some in the past few months, but I am about to loose the storage space, so I need to use them asap.

I was pondering what is the maximum amount of hops by volume could use in a single brew, assuming that I am not overly concerned with the alpha acids or flavoring? My brewing equipment allows mean to work with about 5 gallons (20 liters) of wort at most.

Would appreciate any input!

[u/warboy]

There's actually a decent amount of research on this. 

You can put as many hops as you want in a beer but there are diminishing returns. For example, the human palate can only taste up to 100 or 120 ibus before overloading. After that everything just kind of tastes the same. 

On the flavor side, it's been found that dry hopping past 1.1 oz per gallon is largely just wasting hops. So you would reach flavor threshold at like a 5.5 oz dry hop. Keep in mind though that this research was performed with commercial pellets. If you are home drying cones I doubt the data would be one to one here.

Please keep in mind the point of brewing beer is generally to make something actually drinkable. The ibu wars of ten years ago did not really make good beer. Additionally, pushing past that flavor threshold with dry hopping is mostly going to just extract some less desirable flavors and ruin your end yield.

[u/RumplyInk → u/warboy]

Bump this comment

[u/Shills_for_fun → u/warboy]

I'd go a step further and say that the IBU wars turned a LOT of people off to IPAs. Every time I share my IPAs with people who don't like IPAs they usually grab a second glass. Some people haven't had a single IPA since they drank whatever vegetal/grassy mess they had a decade ago lol.

[u/barley_wine → u/Shills_for_fun]

If it’s for himself I bet it’s fine. I loved the IBU wars of the early 2000s, but I remember back then no one else would touch my beer. I could leave a 6 pack at a friend’s house come back a couple of weeks later and it’d still be there untouched.

If making to share though yeah you don’t want it super bitter.

[u/Shills_for_fun → u/barley_wine]

For sure, not shaming anyone's tastes. I certainly appreciate the occasional hop bomb!

[u/chino_brews → u/warboy]

The research is all over the place. Malowicki (2019) hypothesized that the solubility limit of alpha acids (non-iso, trans-iso, and cis-iso) is around 200 ppm at boiling temp, ideal starting concentrations of alpha acids, and ideal pH. Suregork notes that the maximum IBU from any single hop addition at 60 min (independent of amount) is about 50 IBU, so you would need to boil more or combine additions to achieve more than that. After two hours of boiling the degradation rate of iso-alpha acids equals or exceeds the solubilization of iso-alpha acids. Adding more hops has diminishing returns on IBU and can actually be a drag on achieving IBU. Ultimately, IBU is practically limited by "poor solubility of the alpha-acids, the reaction rate of the isomerization, and the reaction rate of the degradation of iso-alpha-acids", as well as the limit on humulones in any mass of pellets and the fact that adding more pellets has a counterveiling effect. And, of course, the solubility of IAA drops way down when the beer is chilled, so a lot of bittering compounds drop out. Suregork believes that the limit of solubility if AA and IAA in beer is somewhere a little over 100 IBU.

Interestingly, beers that were stated to be 150 IBU, 200 IBU, and up during the IBU wars were tested and found to have around 70-85 IBU.

I have rules of thumb that work for me and I believe are universal:

• The limit of bitterness in beer in IBU is probably around 100-120 IBU due to mainly solubility but the other natural "speed limits" we've noted.
• Realistically, even the most bitter beers only achieve around 85 IBU, not including iso-alpha extract. I doubt most homebrewers can achieve 85 IBU.
• 6 IBU is the lower limit of perception of bitterness.
• According to Mosher, 6 IBU is also the extreme limit of resolution for people, e.g. some people could tell a 18 IBU beer from 12 IBU beer but no one can can tell between 12 and 15 IBU or between 15 and 18 IBU.
• As you noted, 1.1 oz of T-90 pellets per gal is the point of diminishing returns for dry hopping.

[u/cdixon34 → u/warboy]

Additionally, the hop burn You get from to much hops makes the beer actually uncomfortable to drink. Like mild heart burn and some tongue numbing.

[u/brisket_curd_daddy]

Get some friends (with larger equipment) and brew a 15 gallon batch and split it.

[u/Original_Hopster]

depends on the AA surely? plus I'm sure there is a point when the ibu bitterness can't be pick up by the tongue

[u/Halichoeres_bivittat → u/Original_Hopster]

I believe that 100 IBUs is usually mooted as the limit of human perception. I've made a beer with 1# of pellet hops in 5 gallons and am usually around 6-8oz for 5 gallons of IPA. I think if you put multiple pounds of whole leaf hops into a beer you might get some unwanted vegetal-type character. But as the previous poster noted, any IBUs will depend on the AA concentration of the hops. Since this typically isn't known for wild hops it's why it's generally recommended to use known AA hops for bittering and the wild hops as late editions.

[u/pre_employ]

2 oz.s will make good apple cider

I put like 4 ounces in five gallons of beer. I guess 6 wouldn't hurt.

I could use a pound of hops for 10 gallons of beer and 6 cans of apple juice.

4 pounds is a lot

[u/HumorImpressive9506]

I had omnipollos "the beginning" a while back, dry hopped with 40 grams per liter, some of it cryo. Yeah, it tasted like hops. Like straight up hops but it was in no way too much.

[u/Poseidon_Medusa]

Do it! For science, report back.

[u/rdcpro]

If they're basically whole cone hops, I use at least two pounds for a 10 gallon batch, all of it in the whirlpool. Dry hopping with them leads to a lot of wasted beer, and for bittering it's better to know what the alpha acids are. But in the whirlpool, below 180f, you almost can't use too much.

[u/chino_brews]

You probably don't need to panic-hop any batches.

The degradation of hops that are either vacuum-sealed/inert-gas-flushed or stored at or below 1°C is not much faster than hops that are both sealed/flushed and stored cold.

Image from Yakima Chief Hop & Brew School: https://imgur.com/gallery/hop-storage-index-under-various-conditions-mjU8I1k