Double IPA help

I've been putting together a recipe for a Double IPA and I would like some criticism on what I've got so far. I'm pretty familiar with the hops I've chosen but as far as steeping grains I'm kind of just getting ideas from other recipes. I've made some pales that were pretty bland on the malt end, so I continue to experiment with whatever I can. Also not 100% set on the yeast, but I've yet to try 0002 so it could be a nice change.

Extract
OG: 1.100
FG: 1.033
ABV: 8.78
IBU: 97.69
SRM: 8.5
EFF: 70%
Boil Size: 3 gal
Batch Size: 5 gal

Grains
.75 lb - Melanoiden (steep)
.50 lb - Carapils (steep)
.50 lb - Munich 10L (steep)
7.00 lb - Golden Light DME - 60 min
3.15 lb - Maris Otter LME - 15 min
1.50 lb - Corn Sugar - 5 min

Hops
2.5 oz - Simcoe - 60 min
1.5 oz - Amarillo - 45 min
1.0 oz - Simcoe - 45 min
1.0 oz - Amarillo - 30 min
0.5 oz - Mosaic - 30 min
1.5 oz - Mosaic - 15 min
1.0 oz - Simcoe - 5 min
0.5 oz - Mosaic - 5 min
0.5 oz - Amarillo - 5 min
1.0 oz - Simcoe - Dry (7 days)
1.0 oz - Amarillo - Dry (7 days)
1.0 oz - Mosaic - Dry (7 days)

Yeast
2 pkg. English Ale 0002

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

This FG seems very high and changing yeasts is doing nothing. I use ibrewmaster for my calculations, is this a poor idea...?

The criticism is that it's too big... OG wise. The FG is quite high as well for the style.

It seems that novice homebrewers are more focused on going as big as possible vs. just brewing some good tasting, easy drinking beer. If you want to change this, lower the OG and make a starter of WLP090 instead. Full volume boils help immensely with IIPAs since top off water can considerably dilute your IBUs.

I'm not trying to go as big as possible but I've made a bunch of pales and ipas and want to try a double. 8-9% isn't too crazy for the style so I'm unsure what is going to lower my fg and og while keeping an 8ish abv

You're better off shooting for 1.070-1.080 and finishing at 1.013-1.016 vs. 1.100 & 1.033. The former would be more to style and generally taste better. In both cases, the abv will hover around 8.0 to 8.5%.

Apart from the OG and FG being too high, I also feel the hop schedule is off. For my taste, there are too many hop additions from 60-30 minutes and not enough flavor and aroma additions. I would get clean, high alpha bittering hops to add at 60 minutes for the bulk of your IBU's. Something like Warrior would work. Then save all those great flavor and aroma hops you have there for the last 15 minutes of the boil and to dry hop. My IIPA has 4 ounces of hops added in the last 10 minutes and it's dry hopped with 5 ounces. That gives me the hop flavor and aroma that I believe is on par with good commercial IIPA's. Your hop schedule will have bitterness, but I feel it may lack in flavor and aroma, but again, that's my taste. I like mild bitterness and more of the flavor and aroma from the hops in IPA's and IIPA's.

Here's my thoughts:
1. You don't need the melanoidin. The melanoidin does not fit with an IPA. You want the hops to shine through. With an FG as high as you have there will be plenty of malt backbone.
2. You don't need carapils. Golden Light and Maris Otter extract both contain a percentage of carapils. And carapils will just add even more body to a brew that does not need any more.
3. Your 45 minute hop additions are a bit wasteful. Get most of your IBUs from the 60 minute addition. And then focus the rest of your hops inside of 30 minutes for flavor and aroma. Consider moving the 45 minute additions to flameout and steep the hops for 10-20 minutes before you begin chilling the wort.

From my experience, wlp002 finishes at higher fg's than others and leaves a sweet flavor that lingers. In my IIPA it finished higher than expected (og 1.072 fg 1.020) and the sweetness kind of overpowered the hoppiness (60 min 2oz warrior, 30 min 1oz cent, 10 min 1oz cent, flameout 1oz cent).

That's just my experience though.

bobbrews said:

The criticism is that it's too big... OG wise. The FG is quite high as well for the style.

It seems that novice homebrewers are more focused on going as big as possible vs. just brewing some good tasting, easy drinking beer. If you want to change this, lower the OG and make a starter of WLP090 instead. Full volume boils help immensely with IIPAs since top off water can considerably dilute your IBUs.

Click to expand...

Would you recommend two vials of wlp090 or is one plenty? I use starters for pretty much every batch so that is a given.

Thanks for the help guys! Think I'm going to try bittering with Warrior and use Galaxy and Amarillo for aromatic.

use mrmalty.com and yeastcalc.com - input from both will guide you. remember to set the yeast inception date on the vial.