Looks great! How many IBUs did that calculate at?
I tried to do a ‘hoppy wheat’ last summer and ended up making one of my worst beers. Too much columbus hops made it taste like drinking perfume. That was quite a learning experience…
I’m not positive. I think I figured a rough estimate based on a half oz of Columbus at 60, but the rest was just by feel. I’m never happy with with setting an IBU target and calculating for it and never reach the desired bitterness. For instance, the zymurgy Pliny recipe has a measured IBU that is considerably lower than it would be if calculated. After that experience, I just sorta go by feel or instinct with hops. In saying that, this beer a very pleasant hop flavor. It’s not overkill, but rather what I was kinda looking for. I suppose it’s 40-50 IBUs?
Got ya. I am not very good at doing things by feel or calculations at this point really…haha. Maybe eventually…
Not a thing wrong with that. It’s a good idea to work out your IBUs with software at least until you’ve brewed a style a time or two. Then you can fine tune your hops by feel afterward for the next rebrew if you like. It’s what I do. That’s where taking really good notes comes in - I write down recommendations after tasting each beer I brew on how to improve it the next time I brew it. Beats trying to remember if you brew a lot of styles !
+1
Yeah, what I do is not best practice by any means. If I came off towards you in a negative manner, I apologize, because that wasn’t my intentions. I was more or less covering up my tracks to why I didn’t have an exact number on IBUs 
No, no, no ! Wasn’t even thinking that way. All good. ;D
No I wasn’t offended whatsoever either. I was jealous because I have issues getting the intended outcome in a lot of my beers in regards to hop balance. Somehow I overcomplicate matters and seem to miss more than hit…
Just made me think of when I was getting a handle on hops - I always overshot or undershot my hop levels. Wish the good software had been around then ! For a while having really good notes on past beers was my best friend to duplicate something !
Actually makes me look forward to getting a lager fridge soon, to replace the one that burned out over a year ago. I haven’t brewed a lager since. I could’ve but didn’t want to tie up the fermentation fridge with lagering time. It’s fun to brew lagers with a hop schedule like that -IPL style. Gonna make the first one in the new fridge a BoPils though !
Haha this has only been my third or fourth lager and I think the one that was truly done correctly. The other ones were grain kits too. I actually fermented this one with a heat blanket on it. I took advantage of the relentless polar vortex and fermented this in the garage. I lagered it a little higher than I should have. My keezer is set at 38, so that’s where it was lagered at.
This was the winter to do that, for sure ! Relentless.
I’m still relatively new in this hobby. I’m coming up on my 2 year anniversary her in a couple weeks. For some reason I feel more comfortable with hops than other aspects of brewing. It’s the part where you can let your imagination take over and put your thumbprint on a brew. I guess start familiarizing yourself with identifying the hops that are present in beers. I drink a lot of IPAs so there is a lot if practice. If I’m at a bar or restaurant, I try and pick a beer that I’m not familiar with and try and guess the hop combination in it. Then I’ll pull my phone out and look it up to see how close I am. Thus really irritates the hell out of the old lady if you can start doing this well, then you’ll start gaining an idea of what you want in a hop combination in a beer.