Hop-Sanity Imperial IPA Homemade Recipe -Suggestions & Critiques welcome!

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Reedkellough

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Hey everyone. I would love some feedback on an Imperial IPA recipe I am trying to come up with. Up to this point all the batches I have done have been Extract Kit based, some with no changes, some I have made minimal additions to boil (agave nectar, DME, additional hops, turbinado sugar) and in fermentation (dry hop, dark rum and oak chips). I recently bought Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels, which is a must have IMO, but either way between that, ibrewmaster, and hopville I have come up with a starting point but its my first time so I feel I could be missing a ton here and would love to hear any and all feedback and suggestions about variations of hop additons/times and anything else. There are a few basic guidelines I set out to achieve when creating this beer: 1. Imperial IPA 2. between 7-9% ABV :ban: 3. IBU between 70-90 (trying to keep close to ABV=IBU) 4. Use of basically 2 hops (columbus and chinook -both leaf) throughout process w/ multiple additions including dry hopping

I will not be brewing this beer for a few weeks as I still have another brew to make first. I figured this would allow some time for suggestions and tweaking of the recipe before I need to make a run to the LHB for my goodies... I already have some of what I will need (mostly in the hops area) but always enjoy a brew shopping trip

Well here she is:
Hop-Sanity
5 Gallon batch - 3.75 gallon boil

Steep at 155 for 30 min
12 oz Carmel 40L
8 oz Carapils
4 oz Flaked Wheat
4 oz Flaked Barley

Bring to a Boil and add the following:
6 lbs Golden Light LME
3 lbs Golden Light DME
8 oz Turbinado Sugar - 20 min
12 oz Agave Syrup (Pale) - 5 min

Hop Schedule
1 oz Chinook Leaf - 60 min
0.5 oz Chinook Leaf - 30 min
0.5 oz Columbus Leaf - 30 min
0.5 Columbus Leaf - 15 min
0.75 Chinook Leaf - 10 min
1 oz Zythos Pellet - 2 min
1.5 oz Columbus Leaf - Dry Hop 14 days
0.75 oz Chinook Leaf - Dry Hop 5 days
0.5 oz Columbus Leaf - Dry Hop 5 days

I will be using a hop spider for the hops because I have heard leaf hops in the boil can be a mess and a half...:mad:

Yeast Used
White Labs WLP001 Cali - washed from prior batch, making starter

Projected Numbers
OG: 1.081
FG: 1.019
SRM: 10
IBU: 86
BU/GU: 1.07
ABV: 8.3% :drunk:

Recipe on Hopville: http://hopville.com/recipe/1674899
 
suggestion: move your late hops closer to flamout. for example, change your Columbus at 15 min to 5 min. you could even increase the quantity to maintain the IBUs, and inject more flavor at the same time (since you'll be using more hops).

Steep at 155 for 30 min
12 oz Carmel 40L
8 oz Carapils
4 oz Flaked Wheat
4 oz Flaked Barley
the flaked wheat and barley need to be mashed with some 2-row or 6-row. you can't just steep them, you need to do a mini-mash. if you don't mash them they will only add a ton of starch and protein to your brew. it will taste weird, won't add any fermentables, and create a huge blowoff during fermentation (trust me on this one).

an alternative would be to use caramel wheat malt/crystal wheat malt/carawheat, or chocolate wheat malt. those 2 types of malts are crystal malts suitable for steeping only.

I will be using a hop spider for the hops because I have heard leaf hops in the boil can be a mess and a half...:mad:

i don't think they're messy. i would put the pellets in the spider, but let the cones float free in the boil. depending on the size of your spider, you might not be able to fit all your hops in the spider anyways.
 
Thank you for your reply! One question so I am clear, I dont want the huge blowoff and dont feel like a mini mash for such minimal grains...How much Carawheat would you add? I like the suggestion, and after inputing a 6 oz addition instead of flaked wheat and barley i only had a change of 1 SRM to color, otherwise similar which is a plus...here is an updated version with the carawheat addition and change to hop schedule...

Hop-Sanity
5 Gallon batch - 3.75 gallon boil

Steep at 155 for 30 min
12 oz Carmel 40L
8 oz Carapils
6 oz Carawheat

Bring to a Boil and add the following:
6 lbs Golden Light LME
3 lbs Golden Light DME
8 oz Turbinado Sugar - 20 min
12 oz Agave Syrup (Pale) - 5 min

Hop Schedule
1 oz Chinook Leaf - 60 min
0.5 oz Chinook Leaf - 30 min
0.5 oz Columbus Leaf - 30 min
1 oz Columbus Leaf - 5 min
1.25 oz Chinook Leaf - 5 min
1 oz Zythos Pellet - 2 min
1 oz Columbus Leaf - Dry Hop 14 days
0.5 oz Chinook Leaf - Dry Hop 14 days
0.75 oz Chinook Leaf - Dry Hop 5 days
0.5 oz Columbus Leaf - Dry Hop 5 days

Yeast Used
White Labs WLP001 Cali - washed from prior batch, making starter

Projected Numbers

OG: 1.080
FG: 1.019
SRM: 11
IBU: 83.6
BU/GU: 1.04
ABV: 8.1% :drunk:

I also may skip the spider completely as you said and just toss all the hops right into the boil, I double ferment and strain anyway so I am not overly worried about sediment, just always looking for a simple fix to a problem!
 
looks great. personally i would increase the carawheat and drop down the carapils. i'm of the opinion that carapils is over-used. it's useful when you need crystal malt physical characteristics (more body, head retention, etc) but don't want the caramel taste or color. so if keeping the color down or controling the caramel flavors is your intention then go ahead and use it. but seems to me that a little more maltiness wouldn't hurt... i'd go 12 oz C40, 12 oz carawheat, and just a touch of carapils (could even drop it completely). unlike the "mash the flaked grains" suggestion, i wouldn't consider this one a must-do. if you like your current steeping arrangement, then stick with it!

i'd put the pellets in the hop spider. those things are a pain to strain out later. they'll block up the filter and force you to stop the transfer, clean the hop gunk, then re-start the transfer.
 
i'd put the pellets in the hop spider. those things are a pain to strain out later. they'll block up the filter and force you to stop the transfer, clean the hop gunk, then re-start the transfer.

Ever used brand new and sanitized panty hose as a strainer over an auto-siphon??? I have heard that alleviates a large portion of that issue but I have never tried it...


I tweaked the recipe once again b/c after reading a little more I agree with you about the Carapils, I initially added it because of the head retention and body but was not taking into account C40 (noob mistake). I am doing 12 oz c40 & 12 oz carawheat per your suggestion and contemplating a 3 or 4 oz addition of carawheat but I may skip it altogether looking at the 2 recipes side by side, there is little need for it....
 
Ever used brand new and sanitized panty hose as a strainer over an auto-siphon??? I have heard that alleviates a large portion of that issue but I have never tried it...
i do that when racking from primary to my bottling bucket (i actually use a fine-mesh synthetic hop bag - same difference). this is very useful in making sure the hops used during dry-hoping don't make it into the bottles.

i don't use a racking cane when transferring the wort from kettle to fermenter. instead my kettle has a ball valve, so i use tubing. i use a large funnel with build-in strainer/filter over the carboy, so my freshly-cooled wort gets filtered & aerated through that on its way in. if i use pellet hops directly in the boil, they will eventually block that filter/strainer. i then have to close the valve, use a sanitized spoon to remove the gunk, and start over. a spider keeps most hop pellet matter in the kettle, so no issues with a gunked up filter anymore.
 
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