Double Red IPA - Chinook, Simcoe and Columbus - PICS ADDED

[floydmeddler]

OK... The time has come. I've recently become obsessed with red hop monsters and I love sipping on high strength ales for the simple reason that they make life better. I like how they gently sedate me to the point where I chuckle at the things that were stressing me out 30 mins before I poured the damn thing. In short, high strength ales put life into perspective.

I went for Chinook, Simcoe and Columbus because of their 'resinous' flavours and aroma; I am after this 'resinous' flavour more than anything. I've brewed with Chinook and Simcoe once or twice before but never with Columbus. Hopefully these three will go well together and make me a very happy boy.

I reckon this malt profile will deliver. It's been ages since I used Munich malt so very excited. I will add 50% of the Carafa III at the beginning of the mash and the other 50% just before sparging. This should reduce (to perfection hopefully!) the burnt/roastiness flavour and still give me the colour.

This will end up in 330ml bottles, a few in 750ml swing tops and maybe even one or two in a 750ml corked champagne bottles. Will prob aim for around 1.8 volumes of carbonation. Oh... will also serve freezing cold. How American is that?! I'm into this sort of thing at the minute. So are a few pubs here in Brighton, hence the inspiration.

Anyway... here's the recipe. Spent ages on this. Will get cracking in the morning.


RED INDIAN
Size: 25.0 L
Efficiency: 78.0%
Attenuation: 81.0%

Original Gravity: 1.070 (1.050 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 33.78 (14.0 - 18.0)
Alcohol: 7.46% (5.0% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 72.2 (35.0 - 60.0)

Ingredients:
6 kg Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
1 kg Munich Malt
340 g CaraMalt
160 g Carared®
100 g Carafa Special® TYPE III
100 g Torrified Wheat
40 g Chinook (12.5%) - added during boil, boiled 70 m
30 g Simcoe® (14.2%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m
15 g Chinook (12.7%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m
30 g Columbus (16.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m
30 g Simcoe® (14.2%) - steeped after boil
20 g Chinook (12.5%) - steeped after boil
30 g Columbus (16.0%) - steeped after boil
70 g Simcoe® (14.2%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
25 g Chinook (12.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
40 g Columbus (16.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
Yeast - S05

Amen

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Brewed this up today. Managed to hit everything bang on target. Had a slight nightmare at the end though...

Speciality Malts


Complete Grain Bill


The Beautiful Mash


First Wort Hopping


Was shooting for 69c so was happy enough


I whizzed up 50g of Carafa III to sprinkle over the top of the grain bed after the mash. Thought it might give more colour this way


Sprinkled on top after a 70 min mash


All systems go!




Nearing the boil


Rolling boil


I hop sacked the the steeping additions at 80c for 45 mins, stirring every 5 mins. Wort was 60c after 45 mins


Chilled down to 20c then allowed to sit for 45 mins. Opened the tap and around 300ml dribbled out. Blew up the pipe and another 300ml dribbled out. Went on like this for another 10 mins or so. Accepted that I couldn't drain off 25L this way so sanitised my HLT, inserted my large hop bag and poured the wort from the boiler into the HLT. Lifted out the hop bag and squeezed every last drop out of it. I then opened the tap on my HLT and filled the fermenter with the wort... and break. Really cloudy. On the plus side, I got more wort from squeezing those hops! On the slightly worrying side, I may have picked up an infection with all the faffing around. Fingers crossed. Hit 1.070 bang on. Thought I had 2 packs of S05... only had 1. Let's hope this takes off!!!!!

Man, this wort smells amazing. Looking forward to dry hopping the complete christ out of it in a few weeks!!!!

[Lugsy]

I like the look of this one, right up my street! I've got a bit of a red hop thing going on at the moment too, especially with the piney resinous taste you get from Simcoe. I've used Chinook and Simcoe together before and I think it works really well. You should get a lovely deep red colour with the Carafa, and the 750's are a great idea - that'll definitely help you unwind! Looking forward to hearing how this turns out, have a good brew

[floydmeddler]

Pics and write up added!

[schlafsack]

Did a recipe very close to this about 5 months ago. Turned out a very nice beer. For the first couple of months after bottling, the beer had a standout flavour that I can only describe as 'sweet shop' - like fake strawberry sweets. However, after a couple of months the beer settled down and was much much better.

[Capper20]

What sort of carbination amounts are you using in the 750 bottles to remain fizzy when ice cold?

[floydmeddler]

What sort of carbination amounts are you using in the 750 bottles to remain fizzy when ice cold?

Not sure yet to be honest. Don't want it super fizzy though - I know that...

[floydmeddler]

Dear Christ... I took a sample of this for a gravity reading and had a sneaky taste. The hop flavour is already MASSIVE! Can't believe I then dry hopped a further 145g of Simcoe, Columbus and Chinook.



Gravity is 1012. Will dry hop for 3 days... God knows when this will be ready. I'm thinking September... Or maybe August...

[floydmeddler]

Dry hops removed last night after 3 days. I kept the hop bag completely submerged and every 24 hours, I gently stirred the beer and ensured that the hop bag got a good work out. When removing the hop bag, I squeezed as much beer as I could out of the hops. Aromas were DIVINE!

I hope she's a goodun!

[floydmeddler]

SIpping my first glass of this. Oh yes. Really smooth with a massive hop punch. I'm just back from the states and had some massively hoppy beers. This is up there with them!

[Rowang]

Hi Floyd..

Just FY interest, im having a go at this recipe - except Im gonna scale it down to session strength.. well... 5.5 (since I only have imperial IPAs in at the moment!) I've just worked it out by adding 74% of everything!

Is it sitting well? Anything you would change?

Cheers!

[floydmeddler]

I'm so glad you're giving this a go!

It is ten weeks old now and it's tasting out of this world. I thought it had peaked around 2 weeks ago but the hops kept on coming! Superb.

Next time I brew, I'll leave out the Carared as it doesn't really bring anything. I had some from a previous brew so thought I'd use it up. Also, I won't whizz up the Carafa III again as it actually brought more colour than I was expecting. Other than that, everything will stay the same.

Please do a brewday post so that I can track your progress. Have fun!

[floydmeddler]

Here it is in all its glory. It looks black here but it is actually a deep red.

[Rowang]

Hi Floyd,

Sorry - just saw this.. I could do a brewday, but it would just be a photo of the mess i made!!!

Did this today, went ok-ish. I forgot to add torri (which im sure wont matter), and forgot to add Irish moss (it got a post boil steep with the hops!!!) - The hotbreak is still breaking, so il be able to sleep tonight..

I went with a slight variation on your original recipe to adapt it to lower OG while keeping the body. I increased the munich, carared (never tried before, so curious to what it does), caramalt to give malty body in the absence of the MO I dropped out of the recipe. Also dropped some of the Carafa out to try and get that elusive 5am saint red colour. Kept the hops identical to yours, just 1/4 less, to get it to 55IBU. I was well tempted to go for another double IPA, and just totally copy the recipe, but I dont have the fridgespace/kegspace for 2 imperials at one time! Certainly think Il try the original recipe next time I do a double.

Scaled down Recipe:

MO - 4kg
Munich - 1kg
Caramalt - 300g
carared- 400g
Carafa III - 30g

Hops
Chinook - 30g (90m)
Simcoe - 22g (5m)
Chinook - 11g (5m)
Columbus - 22g (5m)
Simcoe - 22g (60m @ 80C)
Chinook - 15g (60m @80c)
Columbus - 22g (60m @80C)

Expected OG - 1052, Actual - 1054 (decided not to lob any more water in... still got 25L of wort, cant hurt for more booze)


Just chilling in the bathtub now, about to pitch with US-05, and ferment at 17C for a week or so. Will dry hop with 3/4 what you did in a week or so!

Already looks pretty good, red/brown coloured and the house STINKS of hops!!!

Cheers for the recipe, and il let you know how it works out at lower OG!

[floydmeddler]

Brilliant! really glad you gave it a go and very excited that you'll try the original!

Yep, keep me posted.

[Lugsy]

Glad you updated this one Floyd, I remember seeing it when you brewed it and then forgot all about it! A quick check of my store cupboard shows I have all the ingredients needed so I'll probably give it a go soon

Just one question - what's your water like down there? Ours is hard as nails which gives me a real problem with pale hoppy beers but nice dark ones like this seem to work out fine for me.

Cheers,

L