First Imperial IPA - Advice?

This is for 3.5 gallons into the fermenter, hopefully 3 gallons into bottles. BIAB with a 90 minute boil in hope of increasing my mash efficiency by thinning it out a bit.

9 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 79.2 %
1 lbs Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.3 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.2 %
0.75 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 51.8 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 5 8.3 IBUs
0.50 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 18.1 IBUs
0.50 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 7 19.6 IBUs
1 lbs Sugar, Table (Sucrose) [Boil for 10 min](1.0 SRM) Sugar 8 8.3 %
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Northwest Ale (Wyeast Labs #1332) Yeast 12 -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 15 0.0 IBUs
Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.087 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.016 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 9.5 %
Bitterness: 97.7 IBUs
Est Color: 9.5 SRM

The yeast is a dry yeast, identified as 1332 Northwest Ale, of uncertain origin but vouched for by my (online) LHBS guy, who has used it in his own brewing. 10.5 grams per $3.50 packet; rehydrate and pitch one or two? The alternative is to use the US-05 yeast cakes from my four one-gallon batches of Pu-er Pale Ale (one control with no tea, three infused with tea at different times).

The 0 minute hops will be added during whirlpool, although I have yet to actually achieve a proper trub cone.

How's the grain bill and hop schedule look? If I wanted to try a first wort hop, how would I go about it in this recipe?

Finally, I'm planning on fermenting this in a five gallon glass carboy, probably dry-hopping in the same vessel when primary fermentation is done. Would I need a blowoff tube for primary with that much headspace? Would I be in trouble dry-hopping with that much headspace?

Looks really tasty to me. Pretty textbook west coast DIPA. I might bump up the whirlpool additions a touch, but that's about it. Good luck!

I am not an expert.

But I have been doing ~3 gal BIAB brews for a while now, fairly successfully.

I do primary in a standard 6 gal ferment bucket, so yes, there's lots of headspace. But I've never had an issue with contamination; I never use a blow off tube, just an airlock, and I don't bother doing any gravity readings for 2 weeks (i.e., I never disturb the CO2 layer in the headspace).

After ~2 weeks, I rack to secondary -- I use a 3 gal plastic carboy, so the headspace goes to zero. I dry hop there. I pretty much always use a secondary now, because I just really like clear beers, and leaving the trub behind seems to help that a lot.

For your yeast: I just use a calculator (I've been using brewersfriend, love them). As such, they *always* tell me to do a starter, and so I have been -- and just the other day I finally bought a stir plate. I'm terrified of underpitching, and with such a big beer as you've got here, I'd be scared with it as well. I'd be surprised if the calculator didn't tell you you need a second step, too.

I don't have enough experience to comment on the grain bill / hops -- though your hop schedule sure looks complicated to me; I'm sure I'd screw something up there

curtw said:

I am not an expert.

But I have been doing ~3 gal BIAB brews for a while now, fairly successfully.

I do primary in a standard 6 gal ferment bucket, so yes, there's lots of headspace. But I've never had an issue with contamination; I never use a blow off tube, just an airlock, and I don't bother doing any gravity readings for 2 weeks (i.e., I never disturb the CO2 layer in the headspace).

After ~2 weeks, I rack to secondary -- I use a 3 gal plastic carboy, so the headspace goes to zero. I dry hop there. I pretty much always use a secondary now, because I just really like clear beers, and leaving the trub behind seems to help that a lot.

For your yeast: I just use a calculator (I've been using brewersfriend, love them). As such, they *always* tell me to do a starter, and so I have been -- and just the other day I finally bought a stir plate. I'm terrified of underpitching, and with such a big beer as you've got here, I'd be scared with it as well. I'd be surprised if the calculator didn't tell you you need a second step, too.

I don't have enough experience to comment on the grain bill / hops -- though your hop schedule sure looks complicated to me; I'm sure I'd screw something up there

Click to expand...

Thanks. I might check a calculator to see whether I should pitch one pack or two of dry yeast. At ~3 gallons, it's certainly not going to need more than two packs of dry yeast.

The hops schedule is actually pretty simple - one variety of hops at 90 minutes for bittering, three in equal measure at 20 minutes for flavor, 0 minutes for aroma, and dry-hopped for flavor. Although there are a lot of hops entries there, it's really only three additions during/after the boil and one dry-hop.

As for wonderbread23, it wouldn't be any trouble to bump those whirlpool additions up to an ounce each, or would 3/4 of an ounce be enough in this volume of beer?

Bottled four one-gallon batches of pale ale yesterday and ghetto-washed the yeast (boiled some bottled water, cooled it down, poured it on the combined trub, waited 20 minutes, filled four cleaned and sanitized plastic jars, dumped the remaining 40%, tossed the jars into the fridge). It's US-05 from a brew that rang in around 4-5% ABV.

Should I use these for my 3.5 gallon IIPA on Sunday, save for another beer, or toss them on the off-chance I could wind up with an infection? If I use them, how many should I use? Each one should be roughly 10-15% of the yeast cake from 4 gallons of pale.

My alternative is 1-2 packs of the weird dry 1332 Northwest Ale described in the first post. Technically I have other options, but I'm calling it either-or here.

I wouldn't use the northwest ale yeast. I don't think it is as attenuative as 1056/us05. Every beer I've had made from that yeast has been very malty. Definitely not imperial ipa material IMO.

US-05 or other. The FG seems a bit high with the Northwest and with US-05 it would drop down to 1.009 or so with the same bill. That would allow you to cut the amount of table sugar that is being used. Personally I don't like the use of table sugar though and would minimize it as much as I could.

If you use a northwest style yeast ferment on the cold side (low 60) to keep the profile clean. The yeast you have is not wyeast 1332, to my knowledge wyeast doesn't have a dry yeast. if you like dry yeast i'd use notty on it or us-05

I brewed yesterday with a couple changes:

Swapped the sugar with another pound and a half of 2-row.
Added 1 oz Cascade FWH.
Bumped whirlpool additions up to 1 oz.

I screwed it up a bit - since I forgot to change my beersmith recipe the timer went off at 10 minutes to go in the boil (table sugar) and I took that for the flameout alarm. I let it boil a couple more minutes because it seemed like it was too early, but the total boil time ended up at about 82 minutes.

Lost some liquid to the huge amount of hops trub, but yield into the fermenter was about 3.5 gallons. Hit 1.087 OG, meaning I ended up a bit more efficient than I calculated into beersmith (OG after grain changes 1.084 for 3.5 gallons, actual liquid closer to 4 gallons at 1.087). I suspect that a big reason for my lower-than-average efficiency on all my all-grain brews (usually low 60's, mid- to high-60's this time) is because of my grain, which is not exactly professional quality, being Australian feed-grade grain that's been malted by a local Chinese company.

Went into a 5-gallon carboy, pitched the washed yeast from the Pu-er pale ale, and now it's bubbling happily at a room temp of about 64 F.