How much hops are you using? Are you saving the bulk for whirlpool and dry hops? Do you like the flavor/aroma if the hops you're using, and just aren't getting enough of it?
Eric,
Here are the hops used for the Hop Fu...an incredible amount of hops and you would never guess it!
10.00 g Chinook [13.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 4 17.4 IBUs
25.00 g Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 45.5 IBUs
20.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 6 26.1 IBUs
20.00 g Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 8 7.5 IBUs
20.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 9 11.4 IBUs
20.00 g Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 16 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 17 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 18 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 19 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 20 0.0 IBUs
I'm hesitant to pick apart someone else's award-winning recipe, but if this isn't your tastes, I could make a few suggestions on how I'd do things differently to tailor this to my tastes.
A) I count 7 hop varieties here. I like variety in my hop bills, but that might be enough to lead to some muddled flavor. I try to narrow my hop bills down to 3-4 varieties in IPA's.
B) I've been moving away from sharply bitter IPA's, so I'd cut out the FWH of Chinook and possibly the 30 minute Columbus.
C) This is a fair amount of hops, but I use about double the amount of late and dry hops as this recipe in a 3-gallon batch of IPA. There's certainly room for more hops in this.
D) For maximum flavor and aroma impact, move all the late hops to the whirlpool/steep. The jury is still out on what temperature to steep at right now. 170F will work fine. 120F may work better.
E) I know many brewers like their results from a 30 minute steep, but I feel that I get more hop character from a longer 60-90 minute steep.
If I were going to adapt this recipe to my own tastes, I'd have 3 hop additions:
Warrior at 60 minutes for 60-70 IBU
Whirlpool for 60 minutes at 170F with 3.5 ounces each of Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra
Dry hop with 2 ounces each of Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra
Obviously, everyone's tastes will vary, and this is just my take on this. I'm a huge hophead, and when I started brewing IPA was the style I really wanted to jump into. My beers never quite got to the level of hop character I wanted until I started really pushing the hopping rates and focusing on a big steep addition.