IPA Grain Bill

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ryanwms

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I'm going to do an IPA next weekend. My original recipe was going to use 22 lbs of 2-Row (plus 2lbs Cara-Pils and .5lbs Special B). I'm thinking about going with Maris Otter rather than the 2-Row, and paring back the Special B to .25 lbs. Any thoughts?
 
Could you give a bit more information...batch size in particular.

Honestly, my first and only thought right now is "Holy crap that's a lot of grain"

:cross:
 
I'm doing a typical 5-gallon batch, so I'm shooting for 6.5 total gallons out of the Mash.
Also using a total of 6 oz of hops and what could best be described as a s***load of yeast. Haha
Predicted OG is around 1.136.
My last 3 batches were all session beers, with the OG/FG landing right on the money, with ABVs around 4-5%. I'm fairly new-ish to All-Grain and i want to do a "big beer"
 
Sounds like you're making a delicious barleywine. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, though. Why don't you post the whole recipe.

What size is your mash tun? And how big is your boil pot?
 
IEP IPA

Style: Imperial IPA OG: 1.136
Type: All Grain FG: 1.031
Rating: 0.0 ABV: 13.75 %
Calories: 441 IBU's: 64.03
Efficiency: 75 % Boil Size: 6.50 Gal
Color: 12.8 SRM Batch Size: 5.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp
(none)

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Gravity Color
2.00 lbs 8.25 % Cara-Pils/Dextrine 1.033 2.0
22.00 lbs 90.72 % Pale Malt, Maris Otter 1.038 3.0
0.25 lbs 1.03 % Special B Malt 1.030 180.0

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
2.00 ozs 27.12 Amarillo Gold 60 mins 8.50
1.00 ozs 12.76 Phoenix 60 mins 8.00
1.00 ozs 2.60 Fuggles 10 mins 4.50
1.00 ozs 8.78 Cascade 60 mins 5.50
1.00 ozs 12.76 Brewers Gold 60 mins 8.00

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg California Ale White Labs 0001

Additions
Amount Name Time Stage
1.00 each Whirlfloc Tablet 15 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 154.0°F
Add 30.31 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 169.0°F
Medium Body Infusion Out 10 min @ 168.0°F
Add 15.76 qt ( 0.65 qt/lb ) water @ 196.0°F

I do have a Barleywine Recipe in the works - much more varied grain bill for that, and while using a lot of hops, it's all a ingle variety, just added throughout the boil to get the different qualities from them.

My Mash Tun is a Rubbermaid cooler @ 10 gals, and my brew kettle is also a 10 gallon pot. Someone kindly posted a chart for max grain load in a mash tun, based on grain weight/water needs and grain volume. I can safely get to about 25 lbs of grain in mine.
 
Honestly, if you wat to call it an IPA, you need more hops. You should be closer to 1:1 ratio with OG:IBU. You need at least 100 IBUs if not more so that it doesn't taste cloyingly sweet. Just my opinion. Good luck!
 
Your grains sound fine. However, be prepared for a lower efficiency than you are used to. I drop my efficency 10% on real big beers like this. So, you probably won't be hitting 1.135 OG... which is just fine.

If you really want to go IIPA on this, I agree with SkeeOrDye11 .. you really want more hops to balance out this rich beer. Also, if you want a lot of hop aroma/flavor, you'll need a lot more late kettle additions, and probably some dry-hops too.

Yeast health & a strong fermentation will be key to a big beer. If you don't make a large starter, you will want to pitch 3-4 vials of WLP001. And they will need a lot of O2. I highly reccomend using an airstone and aerate the wort well!

I'd also plan 2 extra weeks after fermentaiton stops, to let the yeasties clean up after themselves. That is a lot of wort to process, and there will be a lot of byproducts that, given time, they will clean up on their own.

Lastly, you may want to lower your planned mash temp. The brewing software packages are not very good at estimating FG. If you finish at 1.031, the beer may be too sweet or heavy. You'll have plenty of body just in trying to get the yeast attenuation up in the 80%'s. So, if you mash at 148-150, you'll be able to get down into the 1.020's for your FG..

Just a few thoughts! Good luck! :mug:
--LexusChris
 
any beer that finishes at 1.031 isnt an IPA/IIPA. Dont call it that...a hoppy barleywine, fine...and at that level of IBUs, its not even a hoppy barleywine, its more of an english barleywine.

you dont need to go so big. start lower, finish lower...get the same higher ABVs. instead of going for a 13+% "IIPA", aim closer to 9-10% if you want a big beer. go with less of everything, and throw some sugar in there to help dry it out.

14# 2-row
.5# carapils
.5#crystal 60 or less (you dont need special B's raisiny notes in a hoppy beer)
1# sugar

find yourself a night high alpha bittering hop (magnum, warrior, summit, horizon for ex). get your IBUs up in the 80s with the bittering hops. add a big charge at 10 minutes that will get you up in closer to 100IBIs (like 1.5-2oz of amarillo, cascade, simcoe, or any of your choice of flavoring hops), than add a bigg punch of hops after you take it off the boil...for a IIPA, Id say at least 4oz. Then dry hop with at least as much as your last addition

based on what I just said, you are in the 1.080s at 70%eff or higher...make a big starter of your cali ale and mash around 148-150 and you should be able to get it down to 1.014-.012. that puts you over 9%...if you want it closer to 10% you can add another # of base grain and maybe up the sugar to 1.5lbs.

oh, and maris otter instead of 2-row is fine...you might want to try a mix. I mix 2-row and maris for my IPAs because I dont want the maris to be overwhelming

good luck
 
I love all the suggestions. I'm tweaking my recipe today to make some of these changes. I'm already planning on a starter, pitching two vials of WLP001 probably on Thursday to be ready for a brew day Sunday.

Dry hopping has come up a couple times before - what is that? How do you do it? The hops are something I'm still learning.
 
Here's an update...

IEP IPA

Style: Imperial IPA OG: 1.112
Type: All Grain FG: 1.026
Rating: 0.0 ABV: 11.27 %
Calories: 364 IBU's: 92.29
Efficiency: 65 % Boil Size: 6.50 Gal
Color: 10.7 SRM Batch Size: 5.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp
(none)

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Gravity Color
10.00 lbs 45.45 % Pale Malt, Maris Otter 1.038 3.0
0.50 lbs 2.27 % Cara-Pils/Dextrine 1.033 2.0
2.00 lbs 9.09 % Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 1.035 20.0
8.00 lbs 36.36 % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 1.036 2.0
1.50 lbs 6.82 % Sugar, Table (Sucrose) 1.046 1.0

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
2.00 ozs 31.67 Phoenix 60 mins 8.00
2.00 ozs 33.65 Amarillo Gold 60 mins 8.50
1.00 ozs 15.84 Brewers Gold 60 mins 8.00
1.00 ozs 3.23 Fuggles 10 mins 4.50
2.00 ozs 7.90 Cascade 10 mins 5.50

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
2.00 pkg California Ale White Labs 0001

Additions
Amount Name Time Stage
1.00 each Whirlfloc Tablet 15 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 148.0°F
Add 30.75 qt ( 1.50 qt/lb ) water @ 154.0°F
Medium Body Infusion Out 45 min @ 168.0°F
Add 13.32 qt ( 0.65 qt/lb ) water @ 196.0°F
 
Looks a lot better, although I'd cut the crystal malt even more (to reduce sweetness) and add some hops at the end of the boil and dry hop. I just did a 1.094 DIPA with 25 lbs 2-row, 1 lb carapils, and 1.25 lbs of sugar (001 got it down to 1.014). Yep 48% efficiency (granted I got 5 gallons of 1.040 second runnings beer as well). Part of the efficiency loss is to the hops, I used 9 oz at flameout and 6 oz for dry hopping.
 
Agree with Oldsock.

I would lower the crystal to 8 oz or less, because it's going to be sweet from the residual sugars in it already.

Add more 0 minute hops and more dry hops also.
 
Oldsock said:
(granted I got 5 gallons of 1.040 second runnings beer as well).

I have been thinking about doing a second run for this as well. Is there anyway to predict what I'll get as far as gravity?
I'm thinking about making the second run something like an APA. Other styles work well to reuse the same grain bill?
 
I have been thinking about doing a second run for this as well. Is there anyway to predict what I'll get as far as gravity?
I'm thinking about making the second run something like an APA. Other styles work well to reuse the same grain bill?

The rule of thumb is that the first 1/3 of the runnings have about 1/2 of the gravity. What you can do is run off, then blend the two worts to get gravity you want for each. Not a bad idea to have som pale DME on hand as well to up the gravity.

You can also "cap" the mash, I added a bit of C20 and special roast before running off the second beer to give extra body/flavor.

For my batch I ran off 13 gallons total, the first 8 had 520 gravity points, the last 5 had 170 (probably would have been less without the extra grain).
 
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