Threw everything at the wall to see what stuck

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Well what stuck was a very bitter beer with strong floral aroma and taste. I had quite a few too many hops laying around and not having used all of them before I shouldn't have let my experimental side take such a vigorous hold. Well long story short ive got quite a hop bomb that is damn near undrinkable. The beer itself is good in quality just not the best choice of ingredients. Now I know it's easier to ask questions first than try to fix mistakes. But.... Can this be fixed. Would dry hopping help anything or just throw bad after worse.
Here is my recipe.
Brewed September 28th 2012
Racked October 11th 2012
Kegged October 18th 2012

Original Gravity: 1.065 SG (16.0 Brix)
Final Gravity: 1.012 SG (8.6 Brix)

Volume Before Boil: 6 US gals
Volume After Boil: 5.75 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Water Added To Dilute: 0.0 qts
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Volume Of Finished Beer: 5.00 US gals

Total Water Required: 6.99 US gals
Preparation
Heat 2.5 qts of water to 206 F.

Mashing
Dough in the following fermentable ingredients.

1lb 0oz of US White Wheat Malt
8.00 oz of US Vienna Malt
8.00 oz of US Carapils Malt

Mash pH should be 5.2.

Allow the temperature to stabilize at 151 F. Allow to rest at this temperature for 60 minutes.

Raise the temperature to 171 F over 10 minutes and mash out.

Add 2.99 US gals of water at 171 F, mix and run off.

Add a further 3.38 US gals of water at 171 F and mix.

Run off to collect a total of 6.75 US gals of wort.

Boiling
Bring the wort to the boil.

When the wort is at the boil add the following fermentable ingredients (stirring to avoid scorching).

5lb 0oz of Extract - Light Dried Malt Extract

1lb 8oz of Extract - Sparkling Amber Dried Extract

Add the following hops at the times given.

1.50 oz of US Simcoe (All Of Boil)
1.00 oz of US Amarillo (All Of Boil)
0.50 oz of US citra (All Of Boil)(alpha 13.9%)
0.75 oz of US Cascade (All Of Boil)(alpha 6.9%)
1.00 oz of US Cascade (5 Min From End) (alpha 7.0%)
1.00 oz of Japan Sorachi Ace (5 Min From End) (alpha 10.5%)

Boil the wort for a total of 15 minutes.


Fermentation
The desired volume at pitching is 5.50 US gals.

Pitched DCL US-05 and ferment at 64 F.

I know I should've known better than to just wing it but I was too zealous. Is there any saving this brew? Any help would be appreciated

 

[stevedasleeve]

Stick it in the back of your fridge and try a pint once a month till it tastes great. Seriously the bitterness will drop off and aging always makes a beer better, even aromatic IPAs in my experience. Once the bitterness is to your liking throw in some whole hops in the keg if you want ti get back to aromatic and have a party!

 

[daksin]

Almost all of your hops are bittering only additions. Typically, you get only bitterness from any hops added much before 30 minutes into the boil. Flavor comes from additions around 20m left, and aroma from 10-0 minutes left. You have a ton of bittering and a bit of aroma, with no flavor additions. Next time you get the experiment bug, try adding lots of aroma addtions, as their IBU contributions are less. Use a calculator like Beer Calculus or Beersmith to figure this stuff out ahead of time- it only takes a few minutes.

Unfortunately, there's no way to add hop flavor after the beer is made, although dry hopping will add more aroma and add to the perception of flavor. Sorry to say, this beer isn't going to get much better. The aroma will drop out and you'll be left with an incredibly bitter beer. The bitterness will fade with time, but that will take much much longer.

Depending on your alpha acids, mash efficiency, and boil gravity, you could have upwards of two hundred (200) calculated IBU. Not much you can do with that.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

Daksin - but the end of his recipe says "boil the wort for a total of 15 minutes." If it was only a 15minute boil (for whatever bizarre reason), none of those hops should have been in long enough to go uber bitter, it would all be flavor overload. Right?

(granted, if you suck on a fresh hop it isn't boiled for 30 minutes but it will still turn your tongue inside out).

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Depending on your alpha acids, mash efficiency, and boil gravity, you could have upwards of two hundred (200) calculated IBU. Not much you can do with that.

I understand the timing if the additions and the alpha acids used my issue was trying to figure what flavors I get from which hops having not tried all of them before. The beer only came out with about 70IBU According to the beer alchemy app in my iPhone.
As stated in the post above it was only a 15min. Boil as I didn't want it to become a huge bottle of bitterness I was hoping for a more floral aroma and flavor. Unfortunately I got it in spades the beer itself is not too bitter to drink it actually has a pretty decent balance between sweetness/bitterness my problem is it taste like drinking a glass of perfume. It is very flowerery? Tasting.

 

[daksin]

Yup, totally missed the 15 minute boil thing. My bad. The perfuminess is probably just all those hops muddled together. John's right- the aroma will fade a fair bit. Just keep sampling until it's where you like. The best way to figure out what you get from each hop is to do single-hop batches first, or at least make all your aroma/flavor additions the same (I have a neutral high-alpha I use for bittering in all my beers of every style, that would be fine too). Any reason you opted for a 15 minute boil?

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

I did a 15min boil only because the amount of hops that I was using. I have a bunch of different kinds of hops that need using up. I figured if you can boil a small amount if hops for long times to get more bitterness. I could use more hops at a shorter time to get the bitterness and keep more of the aroma and flavor from the hops. Unfortunately it worked a little too well.

 

[daksin]

Well, we boil beer for an hour for a lot of other reasons than hop utilization, that's why I asked.

 

[Dave the Brewer]

If it was only a 15 minute boil how did you manage to get it from 6.75 gallons to 5.75 gallons? Something here doesn't sound right.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Just let it sit. The hops will fade with time. A month or two down the road it may taste quite nice.

 

[Odin_Brews]

Have you ever used Sorachi before? First time I used it I was freaked out by the flavor it imparted, just not very good, Im drinking the beer from it now and it's quite nice...wait it out

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

If it was only a 15 minute boil how did you manage to get it from 6.75 gallons to 5.75 gallons? Something here doesn't sound right.

Sorry that was the default from the recipe app it was only a 6 gallon boil down to 5.75

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Have you ever used Sorachi before? First time I used it I was freaked out by the flavor it imparted, just not very good, Im drinking the beer from it now and it's quite nice...wait it out

No this was the first time I had. Hope mine settles out nicely too. How long did you wait yours out?

 

[Odin_Brews]

This was an IPA, summit bittering and simcoe/sorachi aroma/finish. The hydro samples to check gravity were just awful i dont know how to describe it pine-sol maybe. I dry hopped with all three hops but larger amounts of summit/simcoe and toook the sorachi amounts down so it wouldn't overpower. At bottling it tasted pretty good, the one I was testing the other night might have been a rather young 10 days bottled 'test to make sure it was carbing', I couldn't wait, and it was nice, nothing like the awful hydro samples during ferm