First IPA Recipe - Can folks take a look?

Edit: Revised a bit for suggestions so far

Fermentables
3.3lb Amber Breiss LME
4lb Golden Light LME
2lb Cane Sugar

Boil Schedule
1oz Columbus 60m
1oz Cascade 15m
1 Whirfloc 15m
1oz Cascade 10m
Northern Brewer 1oz (?) 5m
Dry Hop: Amarillo 1oz


Yeast
2 Vial WLP041 Pacific Ale

Estimated Stats
OG: ~1.065
FG: ~1.021
7.9 degrees Lovibond
55 IBU

Then ferment for 7 days, then go to secondary for...well I'm not sure. I'd like to have something simple for my first homebrew meeting, but I'm not going to forsake quality for it. With the bottle condition time anyhow I imagine it'd go past 4-6 weeks of wait.

But please, this is is my first IPA, so let me know what I can do to improve or play around. I have a fair amount of hops in the fridge, so switching them isn't too bad. The malt bill may be a bit harder, but hey.

ummm i like to have 2/3 of my IBUs added that last 20min of the boil. so i would do your 60min. 1oz at 30min, then start to ramp it up the last 20 min... really gives it a good balance.

Cut the crystal malt in half.
Abandon the 30 minute hop addition.
I like a hop schedule of 60, 15, 10, 5, 0 for a great hoppy IPA. Add a dry hop addition too.
Also, check http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html to see how much yeast you need. One vial for 1.074 isn't gonna cut it.

Other than that, I like the simplicity of your recipe and your corn sugar addition. Cheers!

I don't like amber malt extract in an IPA, as that is a sweeter extract. If you're going to use it, I'd ditch the crystal malt and you're doubling up on the crystal malt by having it in the recipe and in the extract. (Plus two pounds is WAY too much anyway.)

I'd go with just the extract if you're using the amber. If you can switch to pale extract, then up to a pound of crystal malt is ok.

For hops, you want to get firm bitterness, but LOTS of late hops for aroma and flavor.

Like this:
1 oz bittering hops (60 minutes)
1 oz flavor hops (15 minutes)
1 oz flavor hops (10 minutes)
1 oz aroma hops (5 minutes)
1 oz aroma hops (0 minutes)
Dryhop- 1-2 ounces for 5-7 days before bottling.

For the malt, either just the amber LME alone with maybe some victory malt if you really want some steeping grains but no crystal or other sweet malt and the corn sugar is fine.

I'd rather see:
6.6 pounds like or extra light LME
.75 pound crystal 40L
1 pound corn sugar

Awesome, thanks. Admittedly, I do not completely know how to do a dry hop, unless it's just adding hops to the secondary. I'd love to try it though, and need to read up on it.

So a revised hop schedule:
60: Columbus 1oz
15: Cascade 1oz
10: Cascade 1oz
5: Northern Brewer 1oz (?)
Dry Hop: Amarillo 1oz


Cutting the Crystal moves the OG to 1.069, and I will have to check the production date on the yeast at MD Homebrew when I get in there.

Make a bit more sense to people?

Did not see your post Yooper! I went with amber on a suggestion from the store and a personal preference for amber, but I could definitely see the viability of using light or extra light. I'm hoping for a fuller body, which I was scared I wouldn't hit with light.

inhousebrew said:

Cut the crystal malt in half.
Abandon the 30 minute hop addition.
I like a hop schedule of 60, 15, 10, 5, 0 for a great hoppy IPA. Add a dry hop addition too.
Also, check http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html to see how much yeast you need. One vial for 1.074 isn't gonna cut it.

Other than that, I like the simplicity of your recipe and your corn sugar addition. Cheers!

Click to expand...

+1

Amber LME or DME contains a bunch of crystal malt, so that's crystal overload as you've got it. Everything I've read has said that the darker extracts (basically anything but pale/light) already have speciatly malts in them, it can be hard to know what or how much, and you can easily end up overdoing it by steeping grains. Unless you're doing a strictly extract beer, always go with light/pale extract and then use steeping grains to get the color and flavor you want.

I'd cut the Crystal down to 1lb, and use light or pale LME/DME.


Edit: That's what I get for not refreshing before posting. What Yooper said.

taylja06 said:

Did not see your post Yooper! I went with amber on a suggestion from the store and a personal preference for amber, but I could definitely see the viability of using light or extra light. I'm hoping for a fuller body, which I was scared I wouldn't hit with light.

Click to expand...

"Body" really is not dependent on the color of the extract, but it would definitely be much sweeter with amber extract. My preference is to get your color and flavor from the specialty grains, and use the extract as the canvas- just like with AG batches. I use plain base malt (equal to light extract) for my beers, and then add the appropriate specialty malts. Even stouts are made with base malt (pale or light extract)!

One of the issues with amber extract is that there is crystal malt already in it, and maybe some Munich malt. But you just don't know, so it's almost impossible to make a good light colored beer with amber extract! The other thing that can happen with amber or dark extract is a less fermentable wort, and you could end up with an IPA stopping at 1.022 or so, which is too high to be quaffable and an IPA.

Oh okay. Thanks for all of that; really incredible to know. Just put 4lbs of Golden Light on COD at my homebrew shop for tomorrow, and I plan to cut out the crystal entirely.

Edit: New recipe is up top!