American IPA Recipe Critique...

[AnthonyD]

I'm brewing again next weekend, and while I'm pretty set on the grain bill (as my equipment limits me to a pratial mash with wort of only 14l - and topped up with LME) I'd appreciate some comments on my hop schedule of an american IPA....


I'll be using US-05 for this one.

The Grains

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.00 kg Lager Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 62.5 %
0.60 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 9.4 %
0.30 kg Caramunich I (Weyermann) (51.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.7 %
1.50 kg Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 4 23.4 %

The Hop Schedule

40.00 g Nugget [10.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 25.6 IBUs
50.00 g Cascade [7.70 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 14.6 IBUs
50.00 g Cascade [7.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 8.8 IBUs
50.00 g Cascade [7.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 5.3 IBUs
30.00 g Citra [14.40 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 5.4 IBUs

Vital Statistics...

Est Original Gravity: 1.068
Est Final Gravity: 1.018
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.7 %
Bitterness: 59.7 IBUs
Est Color: 7.3 SRM

Any comments welcome!

[Barley Water]

Are you not going to dry hop? I can't think of even one IPA made on this side of the pond which is not dry hopped. I just started dry hopping an American Wheat ale yesterday and I'm using 2 ounces for a 5 gallon batch (1 ounce of citra, 1/2 ounce of Simcoe and 1/2 ounce of Amarillo) which I quess gives you some idea how crazy we can get over here. I have read about a couple of places that are double dry hopping if you really want to go nuts.

The numbers on your proposed beer look good to me, I like to make my IPA's about 1. 65 OG or so with about 60 IBU's of bitterness also. Since I have medium hard water, I like to use low cohumolone hops but Cascade hops are tried and true, you will get the grapefruit/pine tree action for sure. The current deal over here is to mess with the new hop varieties coming out, I've had some decent luck with Mosic and there are others that I have not yet tried. Once the boil is done it is critical that you cool your wort as quickly as possible, you want to trap all the volitile hop aromas that you can; after all the goal is to make the beer reek like a hop yard.

[weiht]

I'd shift 50gms of cascades to 30 mins, and throw the rest in at flame out.

[AnthonyD]

I am going to dry hop it Barley Water. Probably with a 50g mix of Citra and Cascade - when I dry hopped a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone it turned out amazing and that was just 20g of Cascade.

[AnthonyD]

Brewed this one yesterday - Man, I lost a lot of wort to the hop absorption! Got to find a method of resolving that!

[AnthonyD]

This was the final recipe...

No Good for Church IPA
Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.00 kg Lager Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 62.5 %
0.60 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 9.4 %
0.30 kg Caramunich I (Weyermann) (51.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.7 %
40.00 g Nugget [10.20 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 4 37.9 IBUs
135.00 g Malto-Dextrine (Boil 60.0 mins) Other 5 -
60.00 g Cascade [7.70 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 23.7 IBUs
25.00 g Cascade [6.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 7 3.0 IBUs
25.00 g Citra [14.40 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 6.1 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 9 -
1.50 kg Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 10 23.4 %

Already bubbling away nicely. Came out at 1.056 OG - so missed it by a few points as estimated was 1.068 - Think it might have been due to the amount of wort the hops absorbed.

[Matt12398]

I've only used pellets for dry hopping but I believe they would help a bit with your hops losses:

[AnthonyD]

Here's the brew!!

A lovely well rounded fruity IPA! Finished a bit higher than I wanted at 1.020, probably a too high mash temp. or the result of too liitle yeast (perhaps I should have used another pack of US-05?)

My second recipe on my own and with the input of you guys here at Jim's and very happy with this one. I have decided though to cut out the Citra for a while now, even though I have 100g of it left in an un-opened vacuum pack! Time to move on.

Next brew: An Anchor Porter Clone I think.

[Barley Water]

Well first of all congrats, beer looks nice and apparently you are a fan which is the really important thing. Based on your comments sounds like you want the final gravity down some, bear in mind however that a beer can have a higher terminal gravity and still come off dry. It will however have a pretty big mouthfeel which in the case of a standard American IPA I personally would be looking to avoid. Yes, mashing cooler will help with that. Also you might consider swapping out some of the malt extract for sugar which will dry the beer out. Finally, nobody ever said you have to have a crystal type malt in the beer, if you cut down/out the caramunich malt you should also drive down the terminal gravity and the beer will be dryer. Of course with a dryer beer the hops will come into play more but isn't that the whole idea anyway?