Attempting The 1000 Ibu Benchmark

[Golani51]

Warmbeer made a top IIPA and you should ask for the recipe. Uses 500gm pellets I think and I wish I had more than just a longneck. It was delicious and bitter. Enjoyed it as much as Mik1000. Good place to begin.

 

[MHB]

I think Mark is getting solubility mixed up with the human threshold. It is true that we can't taste much over 90 BU but it is possible (albeit difficult without extract) to achieve higher (real) numbers.

I've brewed beer (confirmed via iso-octane extraction and mass spectrophotometer) as bitter as 185 BU (using 300 grams of hop pellets in 20L at SG 1.100) and it tasted great. My 1000 IBU clone however was a measly 67 BU and tasted terrible. There is more to it than theoretical (or actual) BU's...

Actually no Im not
There are two approved methods for measuring IBUs and the first one is being phased out.
Solvent extraction followed by UV-Vis absorption, the newer and preferred method HPLC.
The reason UV-Vis is being superseded is that its not all that accurate (give you an example in a minute) Absorption often reports a bunch of other hop products as well as Iso-Alpha.

Without being too much of a nag about it I will repeat that there is an agreed international standard method for measuring IBUs in beer, its described in the Anilitica, note that it doesnt give a frig how much hops you added or when, it reports the amount of Iso-Alpha dissolved in the finished beer, when measured accurately (i.e. HPLC) there is very much a well know and upper limit to the amount that can be dissolved, to describe that as threshold is misleading a threshold is about our ability to sense the human pain threshold is (well the upper one) would be reached by putting both hands flat on a very hot BBQ plate, you pass out from the pain. If we were talking about the ability to taste salt, two things come into play our ability to discriminate and the solubility limit of salt, salt (NaCl) has a known solubility limit of 359g/l at 20oC if I put 500g in a litre of water, 11g will sit on the bottom add more and it to will just sit on the bottom, heat the water and more goes into solution, cool it down and it falls back out.
Whether we can taste the difference between 100g/l and 200g/l would describe the human taste threshold it could be that past 20, 50 or 150 g/l (for example) it just tastes salty and amounts above that are irrelevant to human perception.
If I put 500g of salt in litre of water, then took of the liquid above the salt and bottled it claiming it was in fact a 500g/L salt solution I would be telling a clear untruth (Full of shit, Lying, dumb as dog shit... take your pick).
You can get a lot of hop products into beer but you cant get much over 90IBU (there is measurement error), claiming otherwise is misleading and untrue

This is a snap of the mg/L and IBU measurements of the same 6 samples first by HPLC second by UV-Vis Absorption; I think it clearly shows why one is the preferred method. The results are for samples taken during an ongoing experiment on Cube Bitterness a friend and I are trying to pin down exactly what happens in a no-chill cube, the table shows the rise in bitterness over time in a cube.
Mark
View attachment 56647

 

[bigfridge]

Actually no Im not
There are two approved methods for measuring IBUs and the first one is being phased out.
Solvent extraction followed by UV-Vis absorption, the newer and preferred method HPLC.
The reason UV-Vis is being superseded is that its not all that accurate (give you an example in a minute) Absorption often reports a bunch of other hop products as well as Iso-Alpha.

Without being too much of a nag about it I will repeat that there is an agreed international standard method for measuring IBUs in beer, its described in the Anilitica, note that it doesnt give a frig how much hops you added or when, it reports the amount of Iso-Alpha dissolved in the finished beer, when measured accurately (i.e. HPLC) there is very much a well know and upper limit to the amount that can be dissolved, to describe that as threshold is misleading a threshold is about our ability to sense the human pain threshold is (well the upper one) would be reached by putting both hands flat on a very hot BBQ plate, you pass out from the pain. If we were talking about the ability to taste salt, two things come into play our ability to discriminate and the solubility limit of salt, salt (NaCl) has a known solubility limit of 359g/l at 20oC if I put 500g in a litre of water, 11g will sit on the bottom add more and it to will just sit on the bottom, heat the water and more goes into solution, cool it down and it falls back out.
Whether we can taste the difference between 100g/l and 200g/l would describe the human taste threshold it could be that past 20, 50 or 150 g/l (for example) it just tastes salty and amounts above that are irrelevant to human perception.
If I put 500g of salt in litre of water, then took of the liquid above the salt and bottled it claiming it was in fact a 500g/L salt solution I would be telling a clear untruth (Full of shit, Lying, dumb as dog shit... take your pick).
You can get a lot of hop products into beer but you cant get much over 90IBU (there is measurement error), claiming otherwise is misleading and untrue

This is a snap of the mg/L and IBU measurements of the same 6 samples first by HPLC second by UV-Vis Absorption; I think it clearly shows why one is the preferred method. The results are for samples taken during an ongoing experiment on Cube Bitterness a friend and I are trying to pin down exactly what happens in a no-chill cube, the table shows the rise in bitterness over time in a cube.
Mark
View attachment 56647

 

[Rurik]

I am posting in regards to MHB's last post. I refer the reader to my Sig.

 

[bum]

Awesome post, Mark.

Like many others, I've been guilty of thinking that the 100IBU figure was based around perception rather than a physical limit. Thanks for taking the time to make that post.

I hope you find the time to detail your findings once you're done with your cube experiments. I especially hope your research includes cube-hopping.

 

[GalBrew]

Just listening to Brew Strong on the train and Chris White, from White Labs said that they tested the IBUs of the Mikkeller 1000 beer and it came in at around 150 IBU. They didn't specify how they measured it though.

 

[Kieren]

Kieren brewed something along these lines for our last case swap, here's a pic:

looks fantastic doesnt it? :icon_vomit:

It was a challenge to get through and I only had 1/2 a pint. It was certainly an interesting experiment and I'm glad he brewed it and I got to try it.....it taught me that I'd never be interested in brewing such a beer.

As others have suggested, it certainly didnt taste anywhere near 25x the bitterness of a 40IBU beer, but there were other 'interesting' flavours, though my memory is a little hazy from that night. Very oily as well and obviously very thick

I brewed this beer a while ago for an Over-The-Top case swap that never went ahead. I think people became scared to try it? It was never brewed to a specific IBU number (most of my IIPA's aren't as well, they are generally over 80 IBU's and thats all I need know). But like it has been mentioned you do get more hop characters added to the beer if you keep adding hops over the IBU perception/Iso-AA solubilty limits.

The above beer was only 1.080ish from memory (don't have the recipe in front of me), 3kg+ (I kind of lost count after finding other random bags of hops in the freezer and adding them as well). I scaled up the recipe by 5L and still only collected ~17L in the fermenter. Expect it to be pretty hazy at best, most likely sludgy. I filtered my beer twice and it still looked as sludgy as the photo suggests. Some sort of bag(s) for the hops will be essential. If you have a pulley system then even better, if will be hot and heavy when you pull it out and you won't want to be holding it up yourself for to long. Gloves!

Do you want to make the most (perceivable) bitter beer you can just hit that 1000 (calculated) IBU mark?

I say try it. It really is something to experience.

 

[gravey]

It was very interesting to have the oppurtunity to try it, like I said I'm glad you did this kieren.....but once was enough for me

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I don't think your filter worked hey.

 

[the_new_darren]

MHB,

What are the scales on the graphs?

The "errors" in the BU graphs look like dilution errors to me.

tnd

 

[MHB]

Dr D, fair observation, I really cant answer because I didnt do the tests, a friend took the samples to a brewery lab; the samples were all randomised, just labelled a, b, c...
The report is as per the scale mg/L Iso-Alpha from the HPLC and BU from the Absorption method, returned as a table, Z axis is the De-Randomised sample number, I suspect they were spat out of an automatic analyser
With the following note
Note:
Isohumulones was tested on the HPLC. It specifically measures Isocohumulone, isohumulone and isoadhumulone, and totals their amounts.
BU is a wet method that measures all substances that dissolve into 2,2,4-trimethylpentane and adsorbs on the spectrophotometer at 275nm. Typically, our worts, that do not have hops added, give a BU of 2.5 to 4.5.
I know I will be using the HPLC results in future work
Mark

 

[MHB]

Sorry meant to post this earlier, just been busy:-

Just to clarify the solubility limit for iso-alpha is 14 ppm, it is often said that 1mg/l is 1IBU, in fact its is closer to 0.7-0.8 than 1, not really important when we are talking low alpha beers, so 14 * 0.7 = 98 IBU
However that is at 20 oC, most (probably all commercial) beer gets well under this temperature at some point in the production so unless there is some Iso-Alpha added post chilling the IBUs will be lower than 98IBU.

And yes the research we are doing is in part going to give an equation that should predict very accurately what happens in a cube, as well as in a kettle, what it cant and wont be able to do is predict what happens in the fermenter, we know the bitterness form the same wort can vary by up to 30% depending on type of yeast, pitch size ferment temperature and a bunch of other variables, predicting what is in the wort before fermentation is looking relatively straight forward.
Mark

 

[SJW]

I tasted Doc's 1000 IBU berw a few years ago. While it was a sensational beer, it was very drinkable and only slightly more bitter than an 70 IBU IIPA I had previously brewed.
My 2c worth, dont waste your money on all those hops. If it was me (and its not) I would be using some isomerised liquid hop extract in an attempt to blow your mind.
Just think if 1000IBU was possible, it would be undrinkable. If 100IBU's is max that can be disolved, and Docs 1000IBU Brew was every bit of that, there is no way you could drink a brew 10 x more bitter.
Also I would be working out some way of pressing the wort of of all those hops to.

 

[Malted]

Z axis is the De-Randomised sample number,
Mark

I see, so the X axis represents the samples that were taken at differing time periods to represent how Isohumulones concentration and bitterness units increases over time.

 

[Muscovy_333]

So based on the artistic license for naming a beer as 1000IBU, you might as well up the anti to "infinity IBU" and brew it to the maximum percievable hop utilisation.
Save your dollars on over engineering and get the badge for the highest possible 'named' IBU's in a beer. Chances are it is just as hoppy as a 1000IBU 'er.

I should copyright the naming it before someone uses it!

 

[Malted]

So based on the artistic license for naming a beer as 1000IBU, you might as well up the anti to "infinity IBU" and brew it to the maximum percievable hop utilisation.
Save your dollars on over engineering and get the badge for the highest possible 'named' IBU's in a beer. Chances are it is just as hoppy as a 1000IBU 'er.

I should copyright the naming it before someone uses it!

I think you're onto something! You could go for these too:
- Lightyear Beer
- Buzz Beer
- Buzz lager (that might be popular amongst Bud drinkers and that leads to the next one)
- Buzz light

The possibilities are almost infinite!

 

[bigfridge]

So based on the artistic license for naming a beer as 1000IBU

It is an out and out lie.

IBU stands for International Bittering Units which is a measure of the actual bitterness of a beer from the alpha acid dissolved from the hops.

Just because you add sufficient alpha acid to contribute that much to a beer, doesn't mean that you have acheived it.

It is no different to me saying that I have enough fuel in my car to go 400 miles, so IF I could use it all in an hour I my car can go 400 miles an hour ! You would all call me a liar .... or worse.

To continue referring to these beers as 1000 IBU's does nothing to educate people on this forum as it is simply misleading.

 

[Malted]

It is no different to me saying that I have enough fuel in my car to go 400 miles, so IF I could use it all in an hour I my car can go 400 miles an hour ! You would all call me a liar .... or worse.

Theoretically... with some minor modifications...



:lol: