Double IPA Tits-Up Imperial IPA (3-Time Medalist - 2 Golds, 1 Silver)

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BierMuncher

...My Junk is Ugly...
HBT Supporter
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
12,440
Reaction score
952
Location
St. Louis, MO
This is a style I haven’t tackled yet, but every commercial version I’ve tried makes me wonder why. Like an addiction to hot peppers, the more you move up to highly hopped beers, the harder it is to settle for anything less.

Well last night I cracked open a beer I cannot even buy here in Missouri. Thanks to my Secret Santa from somewhere in Colorado, I got to enjoy a bottle of Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing.

That session last night falls into one of those “memorable moments” of beerdom. Light in color, rich in maltiness and the maddening amount of hops was incredible.

While clones of ‘The Elder’ abound, my intent is not to clone this pinnacle of IIPA’s, but to build a recipe that was motivated by it. Pliny recipes boast over a pound of hops for a 5-gallon batch. I’m stopping at 12 ounces (I know…I’m a wuss). I’m also going to scale this up to 6.5 gallons to allow for loss due to the incredible amount of sludge I’m going to end up with.

As my taste for bigger, hoppier beers grows, I’m afraid that these big IPA’s and RIS’s are going to be the death of my wallet, or the death of me (at 8+%).

In honor of that which will likely be my demise, I dub thee:

Tits-Up IIPA

Batch Size: 6.50 gal
Boil Size: 8.54 gal
Estimated OG: 1.082 SG
Estimated Color: 7.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 100.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 64.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

18.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM)

1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [12.20%] (FWH)
1.00 oz Nugget [11.50%] (45 min)
1.00 oz Centennial [9.50%] (30 min)
1.25 oz Cascade [6.10%] (15 min)
1.00 oz Centennial [9.50%] (10 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (10 min)
1.00 oz Crystal [3.50%] (10 min)

1.00 oz Summit [16.50%] (Dry Hop 14 days)
1.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (Dry Hop 14 days)
1.25 oz Cascade [6.10%] (Dry Hop 14 days)
1.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (Dry Hop 14 days)

Mash at 153 for 90 minutes.

Pitch a butt load of Safale-50 slurry from a prior batch.


I'll let you know how this turns out.
EDIT
On June 6th, 2009...this beer was Grand Champion in a special high gravity brew off at the Boneyard Brew Off in Illinois.

On December 12th , 2009, this beer took Silver out of 25 IPA entries at the St. Louis Brews Happy Holidays Homebrew Competition.

On February 13th, 2010, this beer took gold among 16 IPA entries at the Great Northern Brew Ha-Ha in Minnesota.
:D
 
Nice! I am trying a similar grain bill now, but using Zeus, Chinook and Cascade hops.

Brewing today?
 
That recipe makes me want to cream my pants. I'm going to this store in Providence that has, supposedly, 900+ different beers and hopefully they'll be able to satisfy my need for hops. Maybe I'll convert this and try a PM version if it comes out good for you.
 
Nice! I am trying a similar grain bill now, but using Zeus, Chinook and Cascade hops.

Brewing today?

Tempted.

I brewed up a 10-gallon batch of Dos Testes (Equis) last night so I'd have to rustle up some energy. I'm either going to brew it, or break in to more of Santa's presents and just buzz the day away.
 
Looks very nice. I too have been feeling the "hop bug", and the lovely selections from Santa Yooper are helping that bug along nicely.

I'll probably wind up brewing a strong IPA (probably based off your Outer Limits, GOD was that good!) by the end of the year, and if that goes well, a double IPA very shortly thereafter. (Been battling a roaming Brett infection that seems to hit everything I own, regardless of which equipment I use.........or replace. I think it's airborne. :()
 
Curious about the 10 minute Crystal addition. I would think such a subtle hop would be lost with all of those powerful C hops to overwhelm. Though, Avery's Maharaja is dry hopped with crystal, so there must be something to it.

I would swap places of the summit and columbus, summit FWH would give a nice tangerine flavor which I absolutely love, whereas the columbus will just taste like hop bomb. Which is fine if you want hop bomb flavor. ;)

I cried the other day when I discovered the beer store was already sold out of Maharaja, so I will be brewing the Maharaja soon. Yay for hops. :rockin:
 
Personally I like to skip the middle additions and have a pretty hefty bitterness at 60 and toss all the rest of the hops in during the last 15 minutes of the boil. Wonderfully aromatic this way. Why the high mash temp? I just tapped my DIPA--mashed it at 149. You want this beer to be drier so the hops shine. Use hop bags so you don't get that much sludge!

14 lbs. marris otter
1.5 lbs. rye
1 lb. biscuit
1.5 lbs. turbinado sugar

1.5 oz. warrior @ 60
1 oz. amarillo @ 10
1 oz. chinook @ 10
1 oz. cascade @ 5
1 oz. chinook @ 5
1 oz. simcoe @ 5
1 oz. amarillo @ 0
1 oz. centennial @ 0
.5 oz. chinook @ 0
1 oz. centennial dry-hopped
1 oz. simcoe dry-hopped

US-05 (2 packets)
 
...Which is fine if you want hop bomb flavor. ;)...

Well, this is my inspiration...

p1020872fm9.jpg
 
Brewed as designed yesterday (Sunday). Kind of a spur of the moment since I'd just brewed 10-gallons of a Dos Testes (Equis) on Friday night. But with icy weather coming in, the cozy dryness of my brewshop was the place to be so what-the-heck.

Came in a 1084 with right at 6 gallon in the fermenter.

Tell you what, pulling out that hopsack with 7.25 ounces of hops pellets? The thing looked like a bowling ball. I continued to agitate that hops sack though so I know I got good utilization.
 
Good lord. I wish I were in town to witness the brewing of that beast, I bet the aromatics in the basement, after that last hop addition, were divine!

How long are you planning to age this? 3 weeks in the fermenter, then 3 weeks in the keg? More, to let a little bitterness subside?
 
Good lord. I wish I were in town to witness the brewing of that beast, I bet the aromatics in the basement, after that last hop addition, were divine!

How long are you planning to age this? 3 weeks in the fermenter, then 3 weeks in the keg? More, to let a little bitterness subside?

She'll get a full month in the primary. Then onto the secondary for at least 14 days on the dry hops.

I figure then she'll go to keg and into the garage at 45 degrees for at least 4-6 weeks.

I recon this will be fully drinkable sometime around St. Patti's day. I'll probably go right to bottles once it's carb'd up.
 
I hope your going to report back here once you take a swig. I am still working my way up to brewing these 8+ oz beers, but since I already have the ingredients for Double Bastard I don't think they are too far off. I just can't tell my wife that all the money I saved by going AG and buying bulk grain is going right back into the beer in the form of more hops.
 
Oh yeah baby...:ban:

This batch has been resting in the keg in my brew shop at 65 degrees for right at 2.5 months now.

Hooked it up to gas last week and chilled it and POW. It is amazing.

Big IIPA sweetness but equally strong bitterness. The Centennial flies through the malt at the end and lingers forever. Nice alcohol warmth.

I think I'm right at the sweet spot with this one where the alcohol and hops harshness has tamed...but the hop flavor/aroma are still peaking.

This achieved my goal of coming up with a batch of beer that closely resemble Pliny, since I can't get it here. I no longer have a commercial version to compare it against :)mad:), but my senses tell me it is a close enough version to satisfy my cravings.

I might just have to send a 12 ouncer of this along to my 999 recipients.
 
Went from 1084 down to 1017 for 80% attenuation.

At 8.8% and just over 100IBU's with nearly 5 ounces of dry hop...this is going to be ecstasy.


Someday maybe they'll update this gravity-to-IBU chart to encompass some "real" beers. :D

Tits_Up_Chart.jpg
 
Oh man, just today I was thinking "What am I going to brew next?" Well, after reading this thread I made up my mind.

This sounds awesome!
 
I can't get Pliny here in NY so I might put this on the list, though how does it taste compared to something like Ruination? More citrus, piney, grassy?

Regardless, the recipe looks awesome! :)
 
Awesome. Makes me even more excited about brewing my IIPA recipe.
 
Got a friend who recently moved to Vegas. I've got him by the balls because he LOVES Oberon and can't get it out there. I've promised him some in a couple weeks if he can find me some Pliny. In the mean time Ive brewed my first IIPA. It's along the lines of Hopslam. Gonna add the dry-hop shot on Friday and bottle a week later. I'm hoping to drink it while I fawn over the nine hop plants in my yard this spring/summer.
 
Awesome. Makes me even more excited about brewing my IIPA recipe.

Man, I'm finally enjoying a proper pint of this and the SWMBO keeps looking over at me and wondering why I'm cooing like a fat & happy baby.

I'm going to free up a carboy and get another one of these going ASAP. :ban:
 
oh man, it took me awhile to figure out that the IBU's were "off the chart" I couldn't find the magic dot on the grid...then I saw it floating off in space way over on the right.
 
Is the Corn Sugar added purely to boost the gravity? I'm assuming this goes in the boil as well?

Boost the ABV and help the beer dry out more so it's not cloyingly sweet.

oh man, it took me awhile to figure out that the IBU's were "off the chart" I couldn't find the magic dot on the grid...then I saw it floating off in space way over on the right.

I was floating off in space a bit after two pints last night. :D
 
You know what, I will make a deal with anyone that wants to swap some Pliny inspired IPA's. And since I live at the source of that lovely river, I might be able to include one or two bottles of the sweet heavenly juice if you talk nicely to me and maybe send something as unique and inspiring. Of course, I only have so much money and I spend most of it brewing, so I can't help everyone out. Spring is here, so I can ship while the weather is nice.

I have an IPA kegged and one in primary about to get dry hopped. Both started close to 1.080 and are succulent. What an excellent word, like biting into the ravioli I made last night, supple is another great word. Man, I am getting all hot and bothered now.... ;)
 
Nice recipe BierMuncher! I've been wanting to do another IIPA after I brewed Dude's Pliny clone (extract) last fall and it turned out so well. I'm doing something very similar to yours but I'm using American 2 Row, Wyeast 1056 cake, changing the hops up a bit (availability), and doing a smaller sized batch. Glad to hear yours turned out so well, congrats!
 
So if you have have 60 of these.............
That means you can send me one for tasting, right? :rolleyes:
 
BierMuncher,

Why did you plan on and achieve such a low brewhouse efficiency?:confused:

My normal efficiency on a 10 gallon, 1050 beer is around 78%.

When I dial up the grist and dial down the final volume, I push the efficiency lower.

I could have squeezed another 7-8 points out if I had continued sparging and started with a 9 gallon preboil. But I didn’t want this boil to exceed 60-75 minutes.

Especially with a Pliny style IIPA, I wanted to avoid an excessive boil time because this beer is a lighter SRM (7.8) and definitely does not have a heavy caramel note.
 
Greetings,

New to brewing, but love big IIPA's and this looks fantastic to me. One question... I don't have all grain setup (yet!) and wondering if you have any tips on adapting to a partial mash?

Thanks!
Jim
 
BM sent me one as part of the 999 package.
Drinking this now... awesome hop flavor.

0429092034-feed.jpg

Thanks Rob.

Seeing that bottle cap reminds me of the look of disgust I get from SWMBO every time she opens the garage (beer) fridge. :D

My next batch of TU (currently in its third week in the fermenter) takes the gravity up about 8 points and the IBU's up about 20.
 
I see that you are using a slurry from a previous batch as your pitching yeast. Can anyone please explain to me how this is done.

It sounds easy, save all the garbage at the bottom of your fermenter for the next batch.

Questions would arise: Are the yeast still alive? How much would you use?

Thanks for the input fellas
 
I see that you are using a slurry from a previous batch as your pitching yeast. Can anyone please explain to me how this is done.

It sounds easy, save all the garbage at the bottom of your fermenter for the next batch.

Questions would arise: Are the yeast still alive? How much would you use?

Thanks for the input fellas

Do a search on "Yeast washing" for the different angles.

Th sludge at the bottom of your fermenters is very healthy yeast. Enough to pitch to 3 or more batches of beer. They just finished an enormous orgy and have reproduced like crazy.

Down and dirty? Save off the sludge and divide in two. Pitch one half on your new beer and save the other half in an apple juice jar with beer on top...in the fridge.

That's the crude method...but very workable.
 
Back
Top