Playing with a hop bill... American IPA...

Trying to figure out a hop bill for a standard American IPA... I do want it to scream hop flavor & aroma, but I also want to keep it balanced for a Single IPA, not to cross over into DIPA and 3IPAs.

I have a notoriously bad track record at brewing IPAs, I've only brewed two drinkable batches and four or five dumpers so far...

For grain bill, I am thinking something along the lines of...

11# Pale 2-Row Malt
1# Cara-Pils
8oz Caramel 40L
4oz Caramel 120L
Mashed at around 155-156 for an hour.

I am flexible on that grain bill, I just wanted something that would be a little sweet and malty to balance out the hops, but doesn't steal the stage either. BeerSmith says that comes out to 1.065 OG / 1.017 FG / 10 SRM.

I know that I want to use these three packs of hops at least, just to get them out of my freezer and used up...
- 4oz Columbus 15.1%
- 1oz Simcoe 13.2%
- 1oz Citra 13.4%

So far, I'm coming up with something like this....
0.75oz Columbus at FWH/60minute
0.75oz Columbus + 0.5oz Citra + 0.5oz Simcoe at 15 Min
1.5oz Columbus + 0.5oz Citra + 0.5oz Simcoe at flame-out
Dry hop with more Columbus.

But I know that Columbus is a particularly strong hop, and BeerSmith is saying I'm over 80IBU just with that (relatively minimal!) hop schedule.

I've got a ton of inventory I can work with... but also have a Wheat IPA recipe in my pocket that already has the remainder of my Citra & Simcoe on reserve.

I could open up one of my larger packages of... Cascade... Cluster... Amarillo... Centennial... Belma... Tettnanger... or Fuggles...
and I also have some smaller packs laying around of Nugget... Chinook... Millennium... Green Bullet... Liberty... Pacific Jade... Nelson Sauvin... old Galena from '07... and a few other oddballs.

Anyone have suggestions to round out this hop bill a little bit and make it make sense?

Chriso said:

Trying to figure out a hop bill for a standard American IPA... I do want it to scream hop flavor & aroma, but I also want to keep it balanced for a Single IPA, not to cross over into DIPA and 3IPAs.

I have a notoriously bad track record at brewing IPAs, I've only brewed two drinkable batches and four or five dumpers so far...

For grain bill, I am thinking something along the lines of...

11# Pale 2-Row Malt
1# Cara-Pils
8oz Caramel 40L
4oz Caramel 120L
Mashed at around 155-156 for an hour.

I am flexible on that grain bill, I just wanted something that would be a little sweet and malty to balance out the hops, but doesn't steal the stage either. BeerSmith says that comes out to 1.065 OG / 1.017 FG / 10 SRM.

I know that I want to use these three packs of hops at least, just to get them out of my freezer and used up...
- 4oz Columbus 15.1%
- 1oz Simcoe 13.2%
- 1oz Citra 13.4%

So far, I'm coming up with something like this....
0.75oz Columbus at FWH/60minute
0.75oz Columbus + 0.5oz Citra + 0.5oz Simcoe at 15 Min
1.5oz Columbus + 0.5oz Citra + 0.5oz Simcoe at flame-out
Dry hop with more Columbus.

But I know that Columbus is a particularly strong hop, and BeerSmith is saying I'm over 80IBU just with that (relatively minimal!) hop schedule.

I've got a ton of inventory I can work with... but also have a Wheat IPA recipe in my pocket that already has the remainder of my Citra & Simcoe on reserve.

I could open up one of my larger packages of... Cascade... Cluster... Amarillo... Centennial... Belma... Tettnanger... or Fuggles...
and I also have some smaller packs laying around of Nugget... Chinook... Millennium... Green Bullet... Liberty... Pacific Jade... Nelson Sauvin... old Galena from '07... and a few other oddballs.

Anyone have suggestions to round out this hop bill a little bit and make it make sense?

Click to expand...

I've had great success with my summit/citra/amarillo IPA. Summit FWH/60/30. Citra and Amarillo at 15-10-5-0. Dry hop with Amarillo. I also use honey malt to get that sweet flavor you were looking for. Use it sparingly in all my IPA. There is some debate on mash temps and flavor, have you considered MO instead of pale malt? More of concern is why you are dumping beer rather than drinking it. The only reason I have dumped a batch is due to infection.

You can use what you have and make a very good IPA/ APA.
I would go with a little different grain bill.
Something like 12# pale malt, 12oz crystal 60 and 6oz honey malt.
Then for hops i would go with 3/4oz Columbus at 60 then split the simcoe and citra between 15 & 0.
You could also add a pound or 2 of vienna malt to give a little more flavor.

I think your grain bill looks fine. I've used that crystal combo a couple of times for an ESB and I really like it, although 1# of C60 is pretty much my standby crystal addition. If you want to mix it up a little, try adding some Munich or Vienna for more character.

Your hop schedule has a good start but would benefit by being amped up a bit. I wouldn't worry about too many IBUs if you're FWH'ing unless you want a relaxed bitterness. If you're after pungent hop flavor and aroma, consider taking some of your other hops and adding them to the 15/0/DH layers. The usual suspects may be your C-hops or Amarillo or perhaps Nugget....whichever you like...or throw in some NZ hops for a twist. My recommendation would be to get at least half your IBUs from late hops and a good 3-4oz+ charge of DH.

After giving it some thought, though, I'm wondering what happened to the previous batches that didn't turn out well. Maybe it's not your recipes but part of the process or something else. ???

I think that c120 is too dark for an IPA. I usually stick just with either c20 or c40.

I would also mash lower. 155 is pretty high for an IPA. You typically want IPAs to finish dry; I mash mine at 149-150.

Very good questions as to the former batches... It's mostly coincidental, I think... most of my IPA attempts were much further in the past, before my brewing hiatus - and I was having some general process-based trouble at that time. From memory, they were...
#1 - American IPA - sometime 2007 - came out extremely bitter with undrinkable levels of jet-fuel taste, bottles still lurking in closet, need to throw them straight into the trash can (plenty of extra bottles, don't need 'em).
#2 - Pacific Gem IPA - early 2008 - infected batch, dumped before it would be kegged.
#3 - all-Challenger English IPA - late 2008 - came out okay - not ideal, some off flavors - drank it anyways
#4 - second American IPA - late 2008 - infected batch, dumped it before it would be kegged.
#5 - BM's Outer Limits IPA - early 2012? - came out okay - still a few off flavors - but much better than all previous IPA's
#6 - Modified version of EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Rye IPA - Nov. 2012 - Chinook, Amarillo, Willamette - Came out quite good, drank it all.

I brew overwhelming amounts of stout, brown, porter, etc. and have to make a special effort to work IPA's into my routine, just because I know how good the dark beers will come out based on my process.

I'm a huuuuge fan of Lagunitas Hop Stoopid, I see from the Northern Brewer recipe for their clone that the hops used in H.S. are Cascade, Columbus, Chinook, and Simcoe. I could nudge this recipe to mimic theirs, since we know it's a tasty hop combination... They split theirs between 90 (Bittering), 60 (liquid HopShot extract), 12 Min, and 0 Min and they use a generic high-alpha (the recipe says Nugget, but they list 8 or 9 good options) for the bittering charge.


Initially I actually had 1# of vienna in place of the Cara-Pils, but switched them around in order to bring my color back into a lighter range. I have a bunch of extra Vienna and Munich to use up, so I might switch it back. Just thought it was funny you mentioned that, Billy and beowulf both.


Maddad, I gotta ask, any particular reason you use Summit at FWH, again at 60 & 30, but not in the late hop additions? It's a hop that I've not experimented with very much in my own brews, I'm just curious what that does to the profile of the hop... Is using late-hopped Summit one of the common offenders for "onion/garlic" hop notes?



So - in trying to rearrange the late hop additions - I have another question.

For a given hop - in this case, let's say Citra - or Simcoe - I have only got 1.0oz of it to work with - and I want to divide it between some combination of 12 Minutes, 1 Minute/Flame-Out, and Dry Hop.

Is it better to choose any one over the others? Meaning... if I use 0.5oz at 12 Minutes - would the other half be better applied at Flame Out or at Dry Hop?


Here is where I am at on my revised version... All hops are Pellet except for the Cascades that are marked "leaf".

11# 2-Row, 1.5# Vienna, 1/2# Cara-Pils, 1/2# C40L, 1/2# Victory. (edited)
1.069 OG / 1.018 FG / 9.6 SRM / 70 IBU

FWH: 0.75 oz Columbus = 40 IBU
12 Minutes Left: 0.5oz Cascade leaf, 0.5oz Simcoe, 0.5oz Citra, 0.5oz Columbus = 2.0oz total = ~30 IBU
1 Minute/Aroma: 1.0oz Columbus, 1.5oz Cascade leaf
Dry Hop 7 days: 1.75oz Columbus, 0.5oz Simcoe, 0.5oz Citra


Grain bill-wise, I have 1# C10L, 1# C40L, 1# C80L, and 8#+++ of C120L to use up.
I also have some left over Special Roast, left over Biscuit Malt, and also 1# Victory Malt and 1# Honey Malt.
Also, I just noticed I only have 8oz left of Cara-Pils in my grain bin so that is going to get substituted for more Vienna malt.
Edit: Changed the recipe directly above this to fix my mistake re: how much Cara-Pils is left in my bin & also to add Victory.

If you cut the cara- pils out and the victory malt, and add 8oz honey malt, you would have my basic IPA grain bill.
As far as your hop schedule i would go with what you have ( 12, 0). You can dry hop with more cascade if you like, but not needed.

Chriso, I am a huge fan of Summit/Citra hop combination. Citra can be hard to get so I don't brew this IPA as often as I like. I have done 20min additions of Summit without onion/garlic flavor and with favorable results. I typically use Summit for bittering and at 30. I have heard arguments that the garlic aroma is a result of harvesting this variety late. I do not know the truth in it as each batch of Summit I have received smells pungent and of garlic. I always hope for that Tangerine flavor that is associated with Summit, but I think that the garlic moniker may scare some people off. For this, I did not suggest the late additions. FWIW, I've only used whole hops. I think I will champion the Summit cause with a SMaSH IPA. I have over a lb of it.

Your grain bill looks pretty good. I sometimes use Amber malt for some biscuity goodness so the Victory is pretty close to that. As for your hops...if it were me I would probably move your 12min Simcoe and Citra to flameout and then add more Cascade to your 12min addition to get your bitterness back. Simcoe and Citra are very potent in terms of aroma, so personally if I only had a little bit I would use them toward the end. If you really wanted to keep them at 12min, then I would use the remainder for DH. I think, though, that with that small amount, I would milk all the aroma I could out of them by using them toward the end.

I've never used Summit hops so I can't offer any suggestions there. As for the comment about C120 being too dark, that's true if you were using 1/2-1# but with just 4 oz it doesn't do much. If your goal was a REALLY light colored IPA then yeah leave it out.

All right, mashed in and getting ready to sparge. Here is what I went with for the final version:

11# 2-Row, 1.5# Vienna, 0.5# Cara-Pils, 0.5# Victory, 0.25# Caramel 40L

Mashed in at 157, my late mash temp seems to be around 153, so that's pretty decent (still using my old mash tun, and it's about 35*F outside, so I expected some heat loss).


Just weighed out all my hops, right now I have it split up between:

0.75oz Columbus - FWH
0.5oz Columbus, 0.5oz Citra, 0.5oz Simcoe, 0.5oz Cascade Leaf at 0:12:00
1.0oz Columbus + 1.5oz Cascade Leaf at 0:01:00 (reason being that I don't want to use leaf hops for dry hopping)
0.5oz Citra, 0.5oz Simcoe, 1.75oz Columbus for Dry Hop.

The best part is that I have a full pound of 2012 Columbus to start using up (I'm using the last of my 2011 crop in this batch) and also have about 12oz of super fresh Cascade pellets. So, I just need to grab some more Simcoe & Citra (or make a substitution) to brew a second attempt at this.

Pending actual tasting feedback, of course - my plan is to do a lighter grain bill, stronger OG, and even more hops in version 2.0 - I have hidden away about 6 oz of 2012 crop Amarillo (my preciousssss) - maybe this will become an Amarillo+Columbus+Cascade brew next time.