BeerBorg

Hey All, I've brewed many Mr. Beer/Brew Demon,regular batches,but I'd like to try a 5er. My wonderful wife and I talked about trying to brew a Lite Beer,which I did,but only a 2.5 gallon batch.On a shopping trip she bought me a Mr. Beer Lite,and a Mr. Beer American Lager. I'm going to mix those two together,along with some Crys.10L,Carapils and some x-tra lite DME. Adding the IBU's of the 2 HME's gives me 28 IBU's,I guess,right about the bitterness I prefer.Can I count this number as being realistic or do you think I should add anymore hops to my recipe ? TIA

Well, the IBUs are only part of the equation. You have to balance that against the gravity of the beer, too.
28 IBUs in a beer with a starting gravity of 1.040 will be very different than 28 IBUs in a beer with a starting gravity of 1.060 (for example).

Adding DME plus C-10 will kind of lower your IBU's. Truthfully if you can cover up some of that Pride of Ringwood in their recipes, I would give yourself an oz of cascade around 15 to 20 minutes from the end of the boil. Pretty sure Cascade is the hop of choice for lite.

Dawg LB Steve wrote:Adding DME plus C-10 will kind of lower your IBU's. Truthfully if you can cover up some of that Pride of Ringwood in their recipes, I would give yourself an oz of cascade around 15 to 20 minutes from the end of the boil. Pretty sure Cascade is the hop of choice for lite.

From a technical standpoint, adding the DME/C10 will lower the "perceived bitterness" (BU:GU Ratio) but it actually will not lower the IBUs of what comes out of the cans, they are fixed in the HMEs at whatever level they are by brewed volume. Adding more volume (turning the 2 gallon HME into 2.5 gallons for example) will lower the IBUs though.

But of course perceived bitterness is important, so adding the cascade is still a good idea (and it will give great flavor).

Is this a five gallon batch? Or a 2.5 with two HMEs in it? If it is five, wouldn't you average the IBU instead of adding them?

John Sand wrote:Is this a five gallon batch? Or a 2.5 with two HMEs in it? If it is five, wouldn't you average the IBU instead of adding them?

The HMEs are actually IBU calculated at 2 gallons. So Light is 11 at 2 and lager is 17 at 2. If you combined them and left it at 2, then it would be 28 at 2.

Once integrated into wort (as HMEs are) IBUs have a direct correlation to volume changes. So...

At 4 gallons, it would be half that, so 14 at 4 gallons.

At 5 gallons it would be 20% less, so 14 * 0.8 = 11.2

So 11.2 with all the added stuff might turn out more maltly/sweet then intended.

Tossing in an ounce of cascade @20 or so and boiled with the additional extract, with the HMEs then added to it at the end would add around 15 IBUs to that and give some flavor. So that would bring it closer to what he wanted.

RandyG wrote:Hey All, I've brewed many Mr. Beer/Brew Demon,regular batches,but I'd like to try a 5er. My wonderful wife and I talked about trying to brew a Lite Beer,which I did,but only a 2.5 gallon batch.On a shopping trip she bought me a Mr. Beer Lite,and a Mr. Beer American Lager. I'm going to mix those two together,along with some Crys.10L,Carapils and some x-tra lite DME. Adding the IBU's of the 2 HME's gives me 28 IBU's,I guess,right about the bitterness I prefer.Can I count this number as being realistic or do you think I should add anymore hops to my recipe ? TIA

Are these the cans designed for the normal LBK, or are they the 5-gallon batch size cans? If they're the normal LBK-sized refill, the IBUs are going to be a little lower than half the 28 you get from adding them together.

But if they're the cans designed for 5-gallon batches, you're exactly right, and should carry on.

I'd probably add a small amount of hops that you like towards the end of the boil either way.

mashani wrote:

Dawg LB Steve wrote:Adding DME plus C-10 will kind of lower your IBU's. Truthfully if you can cover up some of that Pride of Ringwood in their recipes, I would give yourself an oz of cascade around 15 to 20 minutes from the end of the boil. Pretty sure Cascade is the hop of choice for lite.

From a technical standpoint, adding the DME/C10 will lower the "perceived bitterness" (BU:GU Ratio) but it actually will not lower the IBUs of what comes out of the cans, they are fixed in the HMEs at whatever level they are by brewed volume. Adding more volume (turning the 2 gallon HME into 2.5 gallons for example) will lower the IBUs though.

But of course perceived bitterness is important, so adding the cascade is still a good idea (and it will give great flavor).

Yay!

People get this wrong a lot. Especially when using qbrew. QBrew can't really deal with variations.

my original plan was to brew each Mr. Beer HME separately,and add them both to my 5 gallon fermenter,and top it off with cold water.The 28 IBU's would be bitter enough for me,but as you guys stated with the additions of 2 lb.s DME and a pound each Crystal 10L and carapils the IBU's will decrease.I use Brewer's Friend calculator and my recipe gives me 4.7% abv,and adding a 1/2 oz. Cascades at 30 min.and 1/2 oz. at 5 min. would give me around 10 more IBU's,so that might balance things out. I think that's what I'm going to do.Thanks for all of your posts.

I think if you are making five gallons, you should average the IBUs, not add them.

Right.

Sort of right. See my post above. Those HMEs IBUs are based on 2 gallons each not 2.5. So the 28 is for both cans in 2 gallons. IBUs averaged are for 4 gallons not 5. So average and the multiply that number by 0.8 (take 20% off). Because the and as I said volume is directly proportional to them when you dilute the contents of the can. More volume = less IBUs.

So that comes out to 11.2, not 28.

So if you want 28, you have to add hops. Or more HMEs.

Actually 2.13 . Then use .85.

RickBeer wrote:Actually 2.13 . Then use .85.

We have a winner. I haven't brewed one of those cans in a while, I forgot they were some freaky volume LOL.