hitting target gravity or target IBU, which is more important?

[tomaso]

I brewed Bell's 2 hearted IPA a week ago and I usually top up in the fermenter.
(14L and 6l of it is top up).

I use beer smith and conveniently it calculates the additional amount of hops needed for partial boils automatically. But because of my gravity being a bit too low on this one before topping up I decided to top up 1L less to hit my target gravity (1.068) but at the same time this meant that my target IBUs went from 59 to 63 because of less top up.

It's not a big deal, the beer will taste good but I would be interested in knowing which one to give the preference to the next time: top up less (as I did) and get gravity right but more IBUs or top up the planned amount and get lower gravity (which will also result in a higher bitterness to malt ratio (forget what that was called exactly).

Sorry, got a bit long that one
Thanks for any comments!

 

[plankbr]

IMHO, hitting the target gravity is more important. Hops vary in AA% from vendor to vendor, so I think it would be hard to hit the exact IBU's all the time. I'm not saying it cannot be achieved, but I shoot for target gravity. If you're off by +-8 IBU's, I doubt it would be hardly noticeable.

 

[Demus]

There's no 1 right or wrong answer. For an IPA I'd say you made the right call. I haven't heard of an IPA being too hoppy, but have heard plenty of complaints of the opposite. For a less hop forward style it may have been better loose a few gravity points to make sure it didn't turn out overly bitter.
The double edged sword of homebrewing is that the answer is almost always: it's up to you!