Man Hands IIPA Recipie Critique

So my girlfriend got me a Brewer's Best IPA kit for Christmas. I have done a few batches of just using the ingredients in the kit and wanted to branch out and add my own spin to the homebrews I do. So, I've been toying with turning the IPA kit into an Imperial IPA. I used a Magazine with 250 clone recipes and was combined a few IIPAs together that I particularly enjoy as commercial brews. Shooting for a big West Coast IIPA. This is what I worked out using the beercalculus website. Please let me know if I am way off on this one or not. This may be too complicated of a hopping schedule for what I was going though. All the hops would be leaf hops except for the Columbus which are hop pellets. Thanks! Cheers!

Name: Man Hands IIPA
Style: Imperial IPA
Batch Size: 3.5 Gallon Boil brought up to 5 gallons
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.095
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.023
Estimated Color: 13 SRM
Bitterness: 102 IBU
Estimated ABV: 9.6%

Malts/Fermentables
10 lbs Mutons Liquid Malt Extract
2 lbs Brewer's Best Light Spray DME
1 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
8 oz Victory Malt

Hops
2 oz Chinook 13AA (mash)
2 oz Magnum 14AA (60 minutes)
0.5 oz Columbus 13AA (30 minutes)
1 oz Simcoe 13AA (15 minutes)
1 oz Centennial 10AA (10 minutes)
1 oz Simcoe 13AA (10 minutes)
1 oz Citra 11AA (10 minutes)
1 oz Centennial 10AA (5 minutes)
1 oz Columbus 13AA (5 minutes)
1 oz Citra 11AA (5 minutes)
1 oz Simcoe 13AA (1 minute)
1 oz Citra 11AA (1 minute)

Dry Hop
1 oz Centennial
1 oz Amarillo
1 oz Simcoe

You're on the right track, but we have some tweaking to do

A. This is the biggie. Too sweet. Not nearly dry enough. You need to remove some of that DME and replace it with corn sugar, or table sugar. I'd do at least a pound, and wouldn't hesitate to go as much as 1.5lbs. Replace equal amounts of DME with the sugar. That will help greatly to dry out the beer, which you absolutely want in an IIPA.

B. Hop schedule looks pretty good, let's just move some additions around. Move the 10min Simcoe addition to 1min(2oz Simcoe at 1min). And save all the 5min additions to use as dry hops. That still leaves you with 6oz of late hops, but boosts the 0min addition and greatly boosts your dry hopping.

The two big keys two an IIPA are drink ability(low FG) and explosive hop aroma(tons of dry hops). You were like 95% there though. Thats the making of an excellent IIPA

Thanks a lot! I will definitely make those changes to my recipe. Just so I know for future recipes though, what was your reasoning for taking the hops out of the 5 minutes and adding them too the dry hop? Would it be a bad idea to leave them in at 5 min and just add more hops to the dry hopping? Again thanks for the input, I was just trying to better understand your thought process so I can be more knowledgeable in the future.

scottland said:

You're on the right track, but we have some tweaking to do

A. This is the biggie. Too sweet. Not nearly dry enough. You need to remove some of that DME and replace it with corn sugar, or table sugar. I'd do at least a pound, and wouldn't hesitate to go as much as 1.5lbs. Replace equal amounts of DME with the sugar. That will help greatly to dry out the beer, which you absolutely want in an IIPA.

B. Hop schedule looks pretty good, let's just move some additions around. Move the 10min Simcoe addition to 1min(2oz Simcoe at 1min). And save all the 5min additions to use as dry hops. That still leaves you with 6oz of late hops, but boosts the 0min addition and greatly boosts your dry hopping.

The two big keys two an IIPA are drink ability(low FG) and explosive hop aroma(tons of dry hops). You were like 95% there though. Thats the making of an excellent IIPA

Click to expand...

I mostly agree with point B but think you might consider moving the 15minute simcoe addition to 1 minute, rather than the 10 minute addition, this would leave you with 10 minute and 1 minute late hop additions with a sizeable dry hop. If the IBU's you desire is effected by this shift, you could consider adding the 30 minute addition a bit earlier in the boil (I've never been a big fan of 30 minute additions but admittedly dont brew a lot of IPAs)

Put some turbinado sugar in there at least a pound it does wonders! Its the sugar in the raw stuff.

lhorn1 said:

Thanks a lot! I will definitely make those changes to my recipe. Just so I know for future recipes though, what was your reasoning for taking the hops out of the 5 minutes and adding them too the dry hop? Would it be a bad idea to leave them in at 5 min and just add more hops to the dry hopping? Again thanks for the input, I was just trying to better understand your thought process so I can be more knowledgeable in the future.

Click to expand...

For an IIPA, you can totally leave them all in if you want. I was just working with what you have. I would still shift some of those hops to the 0-1 min addition. I find I get big explosive hop aromas with heavy additions around 0-1min. The reason being, you're not gaining a lot by adding 6oz of hops from 15min to 5min. 3-4oz should be plenty if you load up the final addition.

That's just the way I like my IIPAs. Hop additions in IPAs are about 40% science, 60% art, so you can play around as you like.

P.S. I've got a very nice IIPA in my recipes listed under my name. It's very similar to what you're looking to make, only a little lower gravity.

If you are looking to get some additional bitterness, save some hops, and still get flavor aroma, you could move the mash hop to first wort hop.

For extract, just get a paint stainer bag, add the hops during the last 20 minutes or so of steeping the grains, then leave in throughout the boil. I use 5g paint strainers to allow more room for the hops, but make sure not to let it burn on the bottom if the kettle. You can continue to add the other hops to the bag also. It greatly helps keep hop trub out of the fermenter as well.

LME and DME are only about 75% fermentable. Thus, for 12# of extract you basically have about 2.5# worth of Cara-Pils. For a IIPA try to match this amount with some sugar. As you can see, the C-40 is not needed. If you want a little color steep some Chocolate or Roasted Barley. As for the Victory, it needs to be mashed with some 2-row or wheat. Steeping won't get you not much of anything.

Skip the mash hops- you aren't mashing so you're just wasting 2 ounces of hops. (And I'm not sure mash hopping gives much hops flavor anyway, but that's for another argument!)