IPA hop help?

I am planning to make an IPA with mostly or all Pilsener malt. I will list my hops and you tell me what I can do to make a good/interesting combination for a 5 gallon batch. Thank you!

Columbus
Cascade
Hallertau
Willamette
Australian Galaxy (2 oz)

You have a pretty good wide variety of hops there. If I had those at my disposal, I would probably try to make it more West Coast than anything (it is my preference). First and foremost, you can probably bitter with the hallertau and columbus. Hallertaus won't be good for much else in this beer. I say get your preferred IBU count from the first boil addition (90 or 60 minute?). After you let those boil, I would hopburst it with the cascade and galaxy. Maybe one 5 minute addition of each and then the rest reserve for flame out and dry hop. I will say though, depending on when those galaxies were harvested they can be potent.

Bitter with Columbus or Galaxy. Aroma I'd use pretty much any combination of Cascade/Columbus/Galaxy. I'd try:

Columbus @ 60
0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Columbus @ 20 min
0.5 oz Galaxy, 0.5 oz Columbus, 0.5 oz Cascade @ 10 min
0.5 oz Galaxy, 0.5 oz cascade, 0.5 oz Columbus @ 0 min

Dry hop with 1 oz Galaxy, 0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Columbus. Scale your Bittering addition to hit your desired IBUs and you're good.

Also I'd definitely do a 90 min boil with the pils malt.

I am in agreement with Jesper on this one. Also, I forgot to ask...do you only have 1 ounce of everything except for your 2 ounces of Galaxy?

AventinusCam said:

I am in agreement with Jesper on this one. Also, I forgot to ask...do you only have 1 ounce of everything except for your 2 ounces of Galaxy?

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that would kinda change the hopping schedule a bit =)

JesperX said:

Bitter with Columbus or Galaxy. Aroma I'd use pretty much any combination of Cascade/Columbus/Galaxy. I'd try:

Columbus @ 60
0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Columbus @ 20 min
0.5 oz Galaxy, 0.5 oz Columbus, 0.5 oz Cascade @ 10 min
0.5 oz Galaxy, 0.5 oz cascade, 0.5 oz Columbus @ 0 min

Dry hop with 1 oz Galaxy, 0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Columbus. Scale your Bittering addition to hit your desired IBUs and you're good.

Click to expand...

I love that dank aroma and flavor of columbus, but after sharing some pales and IPA's, I realize not everybody agrees with it.

Uh, don't waste the Galaxy on the bittering addition. Just made a Galaxy Pale Ale and it was awesome. Bittered with Magnum and did galaxy at 15, 10 and 5. Next time I brew it I'm adding some cascade for some complexity but it was good. If that is all that you are using I'd do Columbus bittering at 90 (yes, do a 90 minute boil with Pilsner malt) and then Galaxy at 10, Cascade at 5 and Galaxy again at flameout.
I personally would snag an ounce of cascade and galaxy and dryhop as well.


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
11 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 91.7 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.3 %
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 48.3 IBUs
1.00 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 4 17.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 5 3.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 6 0.0 IBUs

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.061 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.3 %
Bitterness: 69.6 IBUs
Est Color: 9.5 SRM

I have at least half a pound of everything except for galaxy.

What about bu-gu ratio for balance? Do I want IBUs to nearly equal gravity units?

A good IPA I'd probably stick with a 1.0-1.2 BU/Gravity ratio and tweak from there.

I'd give inhousebrew's recipe a try and either dry hop with cascade or pick up some more galaxy and dry hop with both. Been a while since I've worked with Columbus, forgot how resiny it can be- wouldn't want that dank quality to overtake your galaxy.

If you can't get more galaxy you might hold back half an ounce for the dry hop just so the cascade doesn't completely take over.

This is a matter of.preference. personally I like bitterness that isn't a palate killer. If I were doing a six percent beer, I would not go over 70 IBU's.

Also, you need to take into consoderation that your yeast slurry will steal anywhere from 20-30% of you IBU's.

OK - finally got this brewed yesterday. I used the hop schedule suggested by inhousebrew, but I'm not sure about dry hopping. I don't have any more Galaxy! What should I use instead?