How much hops is too much hops?

[ColMack]

I like hops at lot, but am always slightly disappointed by the amount of hop bitterness, flavour and aroma I end up with in my IPA type beers?
So on reviewing some of the IPA recipes on here, I'm doing much the same as everyone else.   The IBU's often seem to be in the 60-70 mark, with about 25-40g hops on 60mins and 100g in the last 20 mins for a 20L batch.
I am planning (in my head) an Imperial/Double/Triple IPA type thing,  I just want loads of hops. Maybe something with about 50g at the start and maybe 200g in the last 15mins and an ABV of about 7%.
Is this a waste of hops? i.e. if you go over a certain ammount, do you lose extraction of the hoppy goodness?
Can you ever overdo the late additions?  I can understand if you put 200g in at 60mins, it might make the beer unpalateable, but late additions surely not?
Does using softer bottled water make a significant difference?  Used Tesco water on my last one and didn't notice much improvement.

Anyone got any experience of overdoing the hops?

[Pheeel]

I've never been able to overhop but my tolerance is quite high 

The only way I've got strong hop flavor and aroma was through dry hopping

[Eoin]

Do you bottle or keg?

Are you adding gypsum to the boil?

[sub82]

What yeast are you using? For our IPAs we'd generally use US05 or WLP001 and dry hop at around 1g per L.

[Shane Phelan]

I don't think there is such thing as too much hops for late additions. Bittering on the other hand...

[ColMack]

To answer all the questions above, I keg and usually use US05 and don't use gypsum. I would dry hop with up to 2g/L and still not enough.
I have a problem 

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

There definitely is such a thing as too much hops. I'm a malt-worm so you might expect me to say that, but in 'For the love of hops' there's a story about one microbrewery who found they got a better hoppy taste by dialing back the amount of hops they used. The flavour and aroma compounds in hops (and everything else) are all concentration sensitive, meaning that at certain concentrations they taste one way and taste a different way at other concentrations. I'll try to dig up some examples later. So, you might find that you actually get more of the hop hit you want by adding less hops. I think it would be more cost effective, at any rate, to play around with what hop varoeties you use and when you add them then by just adding more.

[Eoin]

To answer all the questions above, I keg and usually use US05 and don't use gypsum. I would dry hop with up to 2g/L and still not enough.
I have a problem 

If you really want the hops to be prominent bottling is the way to go, kegging weakens the hops big style. I'd also add a tea spoon of gypsum to the boil to add the hop bite.

[mr hoppy]

That's a really interesting comment. I've always bottled but I've noticed that a lot of the guys who do hop forward beers like DIPAs and Black IPAs seem to keg and the Mitch Steele IPA book more or less says that this is the norm at a commercial level also because it allows the beers to be consumed sooner, when the hop flavours are fresher.

[Eoin]

That's a really interesting comment. I've always bottled but I've noticed that a lot of the guys who do hop forward beers like DIPAs and Black IPAs seem to keg and the Mitch Steele IPA book more or less says that this is the norm at a commercial level also because it allows the beers to be consumed sooner, when the hop flavours are fresher.

The hops dissapate much faster in a keg, even starting out, same beer kegged or bottled, the bottle will have much more hops and that situation will last for longer too as the hops disappear faster in the kegged version. Dunno if it's about the bulk storage affecting the hops or what.

[Kaymak (kev2403)]

What hop additions are you using,

I done a 50 ibu IPA recently with a total of 150g of hops and it turned out really nice and hoppy and im a hop head.

60min, 20min, 10 - 5min and flame out hops should give you a decent hop profile and then I generally dry hop with about 2-3g per liter,

Remember, the perceived hoppiness from most beers is about 80% aroma so try and push the vast majority of your hops to 20 mins or less and you should be fine.

For a double IPA I would add some hops in a 30 mins just to counteract the high alochol tase you will get from a 7 or 8% beer

[ColMack]

My standard hop additions would be approximately
60 mins 20 - 25g
20 mins 20g
15 mins 20g
10 mins 20g
5 mins 20g
1 mins 25g
0 mins 25g

I'm just wondering what would happen if I doubled that schedule.  Would I just be wasting hops and /or making undrinkable beer?  I'd probably loose a load of wort to the hops also.

My latest batch 68IBU uses about 50 of cascade pellets as part of a schedule similar to above so it'll be interesting to see if they make a difference.  It is aroma I'm looking for rather than mouth puckering bitterness.

[Shane Phelan]

Is that all the one type of hop or a blend?

I find that certain hop combinations go very well together while others are not.

[ColMack]

That would almost always be a blend.  Generally whatever is to hand. 
Latest blend is Magnum (60), cascade and citra.
Good point though, maybe the blends I use don't always work.

Next one I'm planning is with the tried and tested 4 Cs, Chinook, Centennial, Cascade and Citra.

[ColmR]

What about double dry hopping Col? Had a listen this morning to the most recent Brew Strong episode on the Brewing Network, was interesting to hear about how that may benefit.