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The thing about hop teas is that they contain negligible bittering levels. They do, however, contain a ton of hop flavor & aroma. If you're looking to boost IBUs but not flavor and aroma, a tea is not the way to go. In order for hops to bitter a beer, they need to be boiled to isomerize the alpha acids. Hop teas are typically made by steeping the ...

Keep in mind that published "standards" have little to do with commercial beer. The BJCP guidelines that most of us know are are for comparing one beer to another in a homebrew comp. They have little to no bearing on the commercial beer world, where the brewers can call their beers whatever they like and brew them however they want to. So, there's really ...

American IPAs are supposed to have from 40-70 IBUs. Many commercial examples stick to the lower end of this spectrum, Brooklyn IPA has 45 IBUs for instance. IPAs with lower IBUs (40-50) are more likely to do better commercially since most people don't like crazy amounts of hoppiness in their beer. However, many beers do well on the higher end of this ...

In your position, I'd just brew it, and see how you like the outcome. Many factors affect perception of bitterness - it's far from an exact science. For instance, if the recipe has been stored for any length of time at room temperature, the hop alpha acids in some hop varieties will have deteriorated up to 50% in 6 months. But let's look at the theory all ...

Between myself and my co-brewer Scott and his father we have a total of nine plants, of mostly different varieties. We get a nice crop of hops out of it. But to be honest, not enough to bother having them analyzed. In a dried state, we get a few of ounces of dried hop flowers per plant, enough for a few beers each. Coupled with the fact we are growing ...

I like the IBU calculator in Beersmith. Available at www.beersmith.com. the trail version will let you use it for 14 days, and the whole program is only $19.99. It lets you change hop types and times and automatically calculates your IBUS based on those choices. It also calculates for boil size.

This is a tough one to get right as there are a few formulas for calculating IBU's. This site includes a description of the two main ones and an online calculator you can use to get the numbers you need. Note that none of the formulas are perfect and will give different IBU readings. It's important to choose one and adjust to taste from there. Regarding ...