Need help with an Imperial IPA Recipe

I'm trying to come up with a recipe to brew with a friend I only see a few times a year. He's a big fan of Imperial IPA's like Hop Stoopid and Hop Wallop so I would like to do something along those lines. I have a bag of DME I'm going to use and I would also like to get rid of some older hops that I've had in the freezer awhile. Below is the initial grain bill and my hop/grain inventory. Can anyone recommend what I should use?

2 Gallon Extract Recipe:

3 lbs Briess Golden Light DME
8 oz Corn Sugar
7 oz Cara-Pils
7 oz Briess Munich 10L
2 oz Honey Malt

Around 1.082 OG according to Hopville

Inventory

Hops:
Centennial - 1.2 oz
Chinook - .45 oz
Cascade - .35 oz
Columbus - .5 oz
Magnum - 1 oz
Willamette - 1 oz
Kent Goldings - 1 oz
Liberty .5 oz

Grains:
Crystal 80
Crystal 60
Victory
Special B
Biscuit
Briess Munich 10L
Roasted Barley
Crisp Chocolate
Briess Black Malt
Flaked Rye
Flaked Wheat
Lactose

Yeast:
Packet US-04

If you want it to be dry, you'll need more sugar, and less caramel malts. Especially with the extract.

If you want to keep the same bill you have there, I'd do a few things.


Drop the 10L.. and do 4 oz of the C60 in there instead.

Magnum to bitter, then you can use whatever you want, and add them at 15/10/5/0, to get the IBU's and flavor you want.

Chinook, Columbus, Centennial and Cascade all like to play well.

FATC1TY said:

If you want it to be dry, you'll need more sugar, and less caramel malts. Especially with the extract.

If you want to keep the same bill you have there, I'd do a few things.

Drop the 10L.. and do 4 oz of the C60 in there instead.

Magnum to bitter, then you can use whatever you want, and add them at 15/10/5/0, to get the IBU's and flavor you want.

Chinook, Columbus, Centennial and Cascade all like to play well.

Click to expand...

+1

Dont forget to get a good dry hop in there also!

Thanks for the ideas guys. I removed the Munich 10L, added Crystal 60L and upped the sugar to 10oz to get the OG i'm shooting for in Hopville. For the hops I'll use Magnum for the bittering and I think we might just have to roll dice for the 15/10/5/0 & Dry Hop additions like that one Brewing TV episode. That might make it fun.

2 Gallon Extract Recipe:

1.5 lbs Briess Golden Light DME (added at boil start)
1.5 lbs Briess Golden Light DME (added at flameout)
11-13% total Corn Sugar (added at flameout)
8 oz Briess Munich 10L
4 oz Victory
2 oz Honey Malt
2 oz Crystal 60

35-40 IBUs Magnum at 60

Perhaps some more IBUs at 30 or 20 if the next additions don't get it bitter enough

Centennial, Chinook, Cascade, Columbus, Willamette from 15-0

Dryhop with 1 oz. of any of the C hops

US-04

FYI - Munich 10L is not a crystal malt. So it's not like you can swap it with Crystal 60L and be better or worse off. Totally different. Carapils however is unnecessary for extract ales since the extract already contains Carapils, but it won't hurt to add if you want to get rid of it.

bobbrews said:

2 Gallon Extract Recipe:

1.5 lbs Briess Golden Light DME (added at boil start)
1.5 lbs Briess Golden Light DME (added at flameout)
11-13% total Corn Sugar (added at flameout)
8 oz Briess Munich 10L
4 oz Victory
2 oz Honey Malt
2 oz Crystal 60

35-40 IBUs Magnum at 60

Perhaps some more IBUs at 30 or 20 if the next additions don't get it bitter enough

Centennial, Chinook, Cascade, Columbus, Willamette from 15-0

Dryhop with 1 oz. of any of the C hops

US-04

FYI - Munich 10L is not a crystal malt. So it's not like you can swap it with Crystal 60L and be better or worse off. Totally different. Carapils however is unnecessary for extract ales since the extract already contains Carapils, but it won't hurt to add if you want to get rid of it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the help Bob. I think I'll go with what you have there. I've had issues with high fermentation temperatures recently so i'm going to find something to insulate the bucket and use frozen water bottles to keep everything nice and cool.

Edit: How does this recipe look?

I'd use all the Magnum at 60 you need to get your IBUs. I'd use all the C-hops you have in stock at 15/0/dry, and largely disregard the IBUs the software says you'll get from that. The dry-hop should be at least twice as big as the .4oz you have now. A little Willamette at 15 or 0 would go fine with the C-hops, maybe 1/2 oz total. If I were your friend, I would not object to a little flaked rye.

kingwood-kid said:

I'd use all the Magnum at 60 you need to get your IBUs. I'd use all the C-hops you have in stock at 15/0/dry, and largely disregard the IBUs the software says you'll get from that. The dry-hop should be at least twice as big as the .4oz you have now. A little Willamette at 15 or 0 would go fine with the C-hops, maybe 1/2 oz total. If I were your friend, I would not object to a little flaked rye.

Click to expand...

Hrmmm.. The Rye is a nice option, I missed that.

I used to hate Rye in beers... But as of late, it's sooo tasty.. Nice spicy note in there. Would play amazingly well with Chinook and the other C's.

I decided to simplify the malt bill and I'm just going to copy the Northern Brewer Imperial Hop Burst recipe by just using half amber and golden with no specialty grains. When I picked up the Amber LME I grabbed 2oz of Simcoe, Citra and Amarillo. Any ideas on using these? I still want to try and use some of my older hops so I'm thinking Centennial and Citra might be a good combo but I don't know when to add them.

If you want to jam it with hops, then the Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo and Centennial will ALL play just perfect together.. Best combo in Simcoe Citra and Amarillo in my opinion.

Check the Hop Burst recipe you copied and see when they add the hops..

You can play around with it, but I'd use something to bitter at 60 minutes, like your Magnum you wanted to use up, or even the Chinook.. But you could add the Chinook to the boil as well and get good flavor!

Then around 15-20 minutes, start adding your hops every 5 minutes, and then at flame out, save some for dry hopping. I'd suggest Citra and Simcoe to dry hop a bit with.. If you want to make it easy, and go for the wild side.. Mix the hops you want to use, in equal parts, and then add them at intervals late into the boil.. Will get a combo of it all, and should be tasty.

FATC1TY said:

If you want to jam it with hops, then the Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo and Centennial will ALL play just perfect together.. Best combo in Simcoe Citra and Amarillo in my opinion.

Check the Hop Burst recipe you copied and see when they add the hops..

You can play around with it, but I'd use something to bitter at 60 minutes, like your Magnum you wanted to use up, or even the Chinook.. But you could add the Chinook to the boil as well and get good flavor!

Then around 15-20 minutes, start adding your hops every 5 minutes, and then at flame out, save some for dry hopping. I'd suggest Citra and Simcoe to dry hop a bit with.. If you want to make it easy, and go for the wild side.. Mix the hops you want to use, in equal parts, and then add them at intervals late into the boil.. Will get a combo of it all, and should be tasty.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips. One last question - the recipe calls for 2 lbs corn sugar so that would be 1lbs for a half batch. The problem is I only have about 6 oz. so what would be a good alternative?

BlakeL said:

Thanks for the tips. One last question - the recipe calls for 2 lbs corn sugar so that would be 1lbs for a half batch. The problem is I only have about 6 oz. so what would be a good alternative?

Click to expand...

Ahhh, yeah, the whole 2.5 gallon batch deal..

Use table sugar.. it's no different for what you are doing.. Head to the store and get the 1 lb of white table sugar. It'll bump the ABV and help dry the beer, which is what you want in that style.

I ended up doing this. I'm not sure what dry hops i'll use but I have a week or so to figure that out. I'll probably just pick the hops I have with the best citrus/tropical fruit aromas.

Exactly what I was thinking! Mix them all and bomb it with hops.

What do you have left?

Citra and Simcoe are IMO, a perfect match.

You could do Citra and Simcoe, or Amarillo with ANY of those and it would be fantastic. I have a soft spot for Amarillo, so that would be my go to.. Simcoe and Amarillo would be like an orange with pine sap..... YUM!

FATC1TY said:

Exactly what I was thinking! Mix them all and bomb it with hops.

What do you have left?

Citra and Simcoe are IMO, a perfect match.

You could do Citra and Simcoe, or Amarillo with ANY of those and it would be fantastic. I have a soft spot for Amarillo, so that would be my go to.. Simcoe and Amarillo would be like an orange with pine sap..... YUM!

Click to expand...

I have .8 of Citra, Simcoe and Amarillo and a little bit of centennial and all the other hops I mentioned in the first post. I guess the most important question is how many total ounces should do for the dry hop?

Right now I have the 2.5 gallon bucket in a small cooler with two 1L frozen water bottles and some towels over the top so hopefully that cures my fusal alcohol problems.

I'd say that 1 or 1.25 would be okay I there. Could go more but it's a half batch so I would do atleast 1 ounce. Why not mix them to continue to trend or pick out what you think the beer needs when it's done. Want more orange and citrus then add more Amarillo, etc.

I racked this beer in to three 1 gallon jugs 3-4 weeks ago and I plan to dry hop each one separately with the remaining Citra, Simcoe and Amarillo hops this weekend. I believe I have .8 of each hop which will probably be too much for .75 gallon so I'm thinking of just doing .5.