IPA Recipe Critique??

Might be a little late for tips or advice as I'm mashing right now, but I'm curious what you all think.

8lbs. Marris Otter
2lbs. Munich
2lbs. Crystal 40

1.5oz. Centennial (Mash Hop)
.5oz. Cascade (Mash Hop)
1.5oz. Cascade (FWH)
2oz. Cascade (60 min)

Mash at 150 for 60 minutes - 60 min boil

I should have a lot of hop aroma from the mash hop and the first wort hops - but I'll dry hop later if needed with some more cascade.

Anyways - thoughts??

Thanks!
-Ryan

I'm still a rookie, so take my advice with a carboy full of salt, but I think two pounds of Crystal 40 will be too much.

Agreed about the crystal. You arent doing any late additions of hops? Seems like your going to have a real bitter bomb on your hands.

kpr121 said:

Agreed about the crystal. You arent doing any late additions of hops? Seems like your going to have a real bitter bomb on your hands.

Click to expand...

Yeah, this recipe definitely needs some 20-0 minute hop additions.

That looks like an experiment? Why FWH & 60 min both? I'd expect a beer that's very full bodied and trouble with hop utilization in the flavor/aroma categories. I FWH most of my beers, but don't find they get much flavor/aroma from the FWH.

My suggestions: move the 60 min to flameout, up the 2-row to ~10# and drop the C40 to 1/2 #. Or, if you wanna experiment, scale it down to 1-2gal for a test run.

Too much crystal (about 4 times more than I'd use), and not enough late hops. Maybe the hopping can be changed? Mash hopping doesn't do much, so unless you have an overabundance of hops to use, I would use the hops in the boil. But if they are already in the mash, at least the 60 minute hops could be changed, or hopefully you have more hops.

I'd do this:

1.5oz. Cascade (FWH)
1 oz cascade 15 minutes
1 oz cascade 5 minutes
2 oz cascade dryhopping

Dang - I didn't get back to checking this until brewday was done. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. Yes, this was an experimental beer and I have read a lot of conflicting info on mash hopping so I figured I'd just try it.

Yooper - yes, I have quite an abundance of hops. (bless you vacuum sealer). If this comes out tasting weird I'll make a hop tea and maybe dry hop it some too.

The one comment several folks made was the crystal was too much. I've used that much before and had great results. I was hoping for that here. What are the reasons not to use that much crystal? This is obviously not a traditional IPA - but I love experimenting.

Thanks for all the replies!!