My First IPA, How Does It Look?

I've been brewing for a while but have never attempted an IPA. I've concentrated mostly on maltier beers so far, but really have an urge to brew a nice IPA now. Here is a recipe I came up with that I feel should make a pretty good beer. I'm wondering whether the hops additions will provide enough aroma and flavor though. I'd really like it to just explode with hop character.

OG 1.068
IBU 78
SRM 9

11.25 lbs. maris otter
1 lb. toasted maris otter
1 lb. torrified wheat
0.5 lb crystal 55

0.5 oz warrior @ 60 min
0.5 oz each of centennial, amarillo, simcoe @ 20
0.5 oz each of centennial, amarillo, simcoe @ 10
0.5 oz each of centennial, amarillo, simcoe @ 5
0.5 oz each of centennial, amarillo, simcoe @ flameout
1 oz each of centennial, amarillo, simcoe dryhop in secondary

mashed at 152 for 60 minutes

us-05 yeast

Looks tasty and should be a tongue curler!! :rockin:

Schlenkerla said:

Looks tasty and should be a tongue curler!! :rockin:

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Thanks! Anyone else have any comments or suggestions? I'm mainly interested in opinions on the hop schedule and whether or not it would provide enough hop flavor.

KingBrianI said:

Thanks! Anyone else have any comments or suggestions? I'm mainly interested in opinions on the hop schedule and whether or not it would provide enough hop flavor.

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Are you joking? The hop bitterness should be smacking you in the face as would the aroma. If your really worried, use about 4oz for dry hopping. You won't be disappointed. In fact you may not want to share this one.

Like this... 4oz cascade.

Looks good, very hoppy! What are the projected IBUs

The Pol said:

Looks good, very hoppy! What are the projected IBUs

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78

10 chars

KingBrianI said:

I'm mainly interested in opinions on the hop schedule and whether or not it would provide enough hop flavor.

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Enough hop flavor? 6 ounces in the final 20 minutes plus 3 ounces dry hop will give you enough hop flavor and aroma to jump right out of the glass and smack you in the face. So yeah, you'll have enough hop flavor I'd say.

HOOTER said:

Enough hop flavor? 6 ounces in the final 20 minutes plus 3 ounces dry hop will give you enough hop flavor and aroma to jump right out of the glass and smack you in the face. So yeah, you'll have enough hop flavor I'd say.

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O-Yah - That's what I said.

That's why I said tongue curler. What do you do when you taste a highly bitter beer?

At first taste this...



Then later somethin' more like this.

Schlenkerla said:

O-Yah - That's what I said.

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That is exactly what you said, isn't it?! Please forgive my plagiarism.

HOOTER said:

That is exactly what you said, isn't it?! Please forgive my plagiarism.

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I said what you said and you said what I said, but I said what I said before you said what you said!!!!

Say that 10 times fast... and I'll send you a bottle of something good!

Cool, thanks for the replies. At 78 IBUs I don't expect it to be too bitter though. That's about where Stone IPA is, hopefully my balance is as good. As a side note, I don't think the Stone Ruination, at 100+ IBUs tastes very bitter, but it could just be the residual sweetness covering it up.

Schlenkerla said:

Say that 10 times fast... and I'll send you a bottle of something good!

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Alright, I did it. I'll go ahead and PM you my address.

KingBrianI said:

At 78 IBUs I don't expect it to be too bitter though.

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I agree. The late additions will give you a ton of flavor/aroma with minimal bitterness, and the dry hop addition won't increase the IBU's at all. It will be extremely hoppy, but that's a good thing in my book.

So I've decided to bump the flameout addition to 1 oz. each and I'll be using WLP051 in place of the us-05. It'll be brewed up two weekends from now. I hope it kicks butt!

KingBrianI said:

So I've decided to bump the flameout addition to 1 oz. each and I'll be using WLP051 in place of the us-05. It'll be brewed up two weekends from now. I hope it kicks butt!

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That yeast should attenuate less, leaving your beer with a little more malty sweetness than US-05, which will help balance out the massive hop character. Be sure to make a starter.

KingBrianI said:

So I've decided to bump the flameout addition to 1 oz. each and I'll be using WLP051 in place of the us-05. It'll be brewed up two weekends from now. I hope it kicks butt!

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I think you need to bring a bottle over here so I can taste it as a representative of HBT. I'm sure all would appreciate such a sacrifice on my part.

Brewed it up today. Everything went exactly according to plan. Used Simcoe at 60 minutes instead of warrior since I wanted to use all whole leaf hops and could only find warrior in pellet form. 8.5 oz of hops is a lot for kettle additions! It was much easier to filter out than if it had been pellets though! Here is a shot of what the kettle looked like after draining.

Note the bottle cap for size reference!


And here is how the wort looks, a little cloudy from all those hops!


It's going to get an ounce each of the centennial, amarillo and simcoe in secondary as well for a total of 11.5 oz.

Just transferred this one to secondary last night on an ounce each of centennial, simcoe and amarillo. Tasted gooood! The hop flavor is really strong