Newbie Friendly IPA

There have been a few posts lately about people looking for an easy, tried and true recipe that will provide a nice, easy drinking GF beer.

A lot of these n00bs want to look to kits to get them a good beer right away. This idea works well in the glutenous world, unfortunately, I don't think this will work well with GF beers. More specifically, IMHO, most commercial kits will end up providing those n00bs with something akin to Red Bridge. This is not awful...but it could be a lot better with no more effort or skill required, and some money easily saved.

So, in thinking of my spring beer I set out to make a nice, easy drinking beer that was easy to make and is much better than the readily available commercial alternatives.

2.5 gallon boil (on my stove top....its friggen' cold here!)
5 gallon final
60 minute boil

Fermentables:
3.5lbs Brown Rice Syrup
2lbs Sorghum Syrup
P.S. I used this ratio because it was what I had laying around. For ease it would be just as good to use a 3.3lb can of Breiss White sorghum syrup and 2lbs of BRS. It would be essentially the same.

1lb D-90 (This beer is a little dark. I will guess around 18 SRM in the glass. Use D-45 to get somewhere closer to 7 or 8 SRM. Shouldn't affect the taste at all)

Hops:
0.5oz Centennial at 60 (beginning of boil)
0.5oz Centennial at 30 (half way through the boil)
1.0oz Centennial at 20 (20 minutes left in the boil)
1.0oz Centennial at 10 (10 minutes left in the boil)
Rack to secondary and dry hop for a week with 1.0oz Cascade (Simple as pie. Rack to a carboy and throw in 1 oz. of Cascade hops)

MISC:
8oz maltodextrin
1oz yeast nutrient with DAP
1oz irish moss

OG was around 1.044 with a calculated gravity of 1.009 using S-04 yeast which should produce around a 4.6% ABV.

More importantly, it should produce a nicely hoppy yet, perfectly drinkable Amber Ale/IPA that everyone (GF and non) can enjoy.

I left this in primary for two weeks (my house is REALLY cold....thermometer on outside of the fermenter read between 62 and 64 degrees) and racked it to secondary at 1.014. In secondary I added 1oz of Cascade and moved it in my house where the carboy is reading around 64 to 65 degrees.

This should also be a beer that has a fairly quick turnaround. Two weeks in primary, one week in secondary with the dry hops and bottle it up. I'll keg mine and immediately force carb it. Should be plenty drinkable right away.

Plus, this recipe is only $46.95 from highgravitybrew.com and you'll have 4lbs of BRS left over for TWO MORE future batches worth!

I'll report back with tasting notes.

Racked into a keg today and it tastes GREAT!

Finished at 1.013.

I'll let it cool and shake carb it tomorrow. Should be damn hoppy and WAY better than Red Bridge or what any kit I've seen can provide.

Tasting Notes:

IT'S GOOD! Really good.

The hops need to mellow a bit, but its perfectly and very enjoyably drinkable.

Head retention is good with nice lacing on the glass. YMMV, as I kegged this, but I wouldn't suspect it would be any different with three weeks to carbonate in the bottle. By then the hops would have mellowed nicely as well.

Anyway...here is a nice beer, that is easy to make and tastes great.

I'll post pictures soon.

Tasty brew...cheap and easy.

Looks great! There is something to be said for a nice, clean, and easy drinking GF IPA.

The more I read it the more I'm liking this recipe. I wonder if I could modify it to a "newborn" friendly IPA and make it in 30 or 15 minutes? Double the hops at the 30 or 15 minute. What do you think?

ChasidicCalvinist said:

The more I read it the more I'm liking this recipe. I wonder if I could modify it to a "newborn" friendly IPA and make it in 30 or 15 minutes? Double the hops at the 30 or 15 minute. What do you think?

Click to expand...

I think that would work fine. And to simplify the process even more you could use the advice igliashon recently gave me and skip dry hopping by adding a bunch of hops at flameout.

I still dry-hop IPAs, because I'm a little obsessive-compulsive about hop aroma in IPAs, but I think with a recipe like this (low gravity, quick turn-around) and the fact that the hops are all Centennial, you could probably get away with a big flame-out load.

My critical critique of this beer mostly revolves around the hop schedule and this is true of most of my beers. The bittering hops in my beers tend to overpower the flavor and aroma ones.

It is also a little too dark. I don't care too much about that but I might as well address it in a rewrite.

I bought ingredients to make two more batches of this beer because I think it is just that good and could be better with a better hop schedule. Here is the next, new recipe.

3.3lbs Sorghum
2lbs BRS
1lb D-45 (last recipe was D-90)

1oz Cascade @ 60
1oz Cascade @ 20
1oz Cascade @ 10
1oz Cascade @ 5
1oz Cascade dry hopped for a week

S-04 and my regular mix of 8oz maltodextrin, yeast nutrient and Irish moss.

I'll brew up tomorrow and report back.