Zeus Centennial IPA - your thoughts?

I was hoping for a little input on this fairly simple IPA recipe:

Tsimshian Indian Pale Ale

8.0 lbs Pale Malt Extract
1.0 lb Crystal 40 L

1.25 oz Zeus [16.4%] 60 min
.5 oz Centennial [9%] 15min
.5 oz Centennial [9%] 10 min
.5 oz Centennial [9%] 5 min
1 oz Centennial [9%] at flameout.

1 oz Centennial (pellet) [9.5%] dry hop

1 package of Nottingham

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I ran it through Beer Calculus and it spit out this:
OG - 1.063
FG - 1.016
IBU - 56

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One of the questions I had was do you think it requires a 2nd package of Nottingham. It's not *that* big a beer but I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

1 pack of notty'll do ya.. no need to waste it

I have never used Zeus, but most of the flavor and aroma will be boiled off in 60 minutes. What calculation did you do to come up with 56BU's? I come up with more like 80 in Beersmith. I personally shoot for 1.1 or 1.2 BU:GU, you (by my calculations) are close to 1.3. Looks pretty much in line for a lot of the IPA recipes I have seen. I do love lots of Centennial.

+1 on one pack of Nottingham. Keep the temps cool and it will be very good. Go for it and let us know how it turns out.

s3n8 said:

I have never used Zeus, but most of the flavor and aroma will be boiled off in 60 minutes. What calculation did you do to come up with 56BU's? I come up with more like 80 in Beersmith. I personally shoot for 1.1 or 1.2 BU:GU, you (by my calculations) are close to 1.3.

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I used Beer Calculus to come up with the numbers. Here is the recipe link: hopville . "Tsimshian IPA" American IPA Recipe

If someone wants to run it through their own software, gets different #s then please let me know. I do use the numbers to guide my ingredients.

The Zeus was just the high AA that my LHBS suggested for the IPA.

I think I am going to get some Zeus today in Louisville... try it out. It is like 17AA...

I would add more Zeus in a late addition. I have used this combo before and it works well.

Two thumbs up... not far off from a beer I make on a regular basis.

Zeus is good stuff! It goes well with most other American IPA hop-types.

Brew-boy said:

I would add more Zeus in a late addition. I have used this combo before and it works well.

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this is an interesting idea. Why would you suggest this. I was thinking I wanted to keep the hop profile pretty simple by keeping the aroma hops by using one style.

On a similar note I wanted to know what kind of effect dropping the post boil hops from 1 oz to .5 oz would have. I'm just wondering if it would be pretty negligible considering i'll be dry hopping with an oz.

I wouldnt worry much about the flameout hops much... you are dry hopping anyway. No worries.

I just bottled and IPA that I made using Zeus, Centennial, and Amarillo. I'll let you know how it turns out in a couple weeks.

The Pol, thanks for the tip. I'll definitely knock the amount back and will consider nixing the flameout hops totally.

do that beerzoid. was it an extract or AG recipe?

I'm hoping to brew this week. Probably wed night so any other tips I can get by then would be good.

It looks simple and delicious. Go for it.

Just tasted my IPA I made using Zeus/Centennial/Amarillo. It is a little green still but seems to be a good mix of hops.

Have you made yours yet? The next time I make mine I think I'll use more centennial instead of Amarillo.

I brewed this about a week ago. Altered the recipe slightly from original post.

8.5# Pale LME
1 # Crystal 40

1.5 oz Zeus (16.4) 60 min
.5 oz Centennial (9) 15 min
.5 oz Centennial (9) 10 min
.5 oz Centennial (9) 5 min
.25 oz Centennial (9) flameout
1 oz Centennail (9.5) pellet Dry Hop. 14 days.

1 pkg Nottingham.

Notes:
Steeped specialty grains in 1.5 gal of 160 water 30 mins.
Topped up to 3 gal with tap water.
On boil added 4 # LME. The rest of the extract was a late addition at 10 min

Rehydrated Nottingham as per packet instructions, then made a starter as per LHBS instructions: take 1/2 c. of boiled wort, cool down to less than 90 and add rehydrated yeast. Cover and let sit for about and hr until pitching time.

Cooled with ice bath in my huge claw foot tub. Works much better than my sink. I don't even really use ice. Just cold water and submerge the shower head and run it to flow cold water past brew pot.

Topped up with about 2 gallons of tap water I had boiled the day before and was sitting covered in a bucket.

Brewing session went without a hitch.

OG was 1.058. Which was a little lower than beercalculator.com had predicted but i didn't fret.

Just yesterday I racked to secondary with a SG of 1.014-1.015-ish. Great aroma and pretty good taste in sample.

Looking forward to this one.

I also used LME and Crystal as far as the hops go:


Hops:
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
Boil 30 mins 0.5 Centennial leaf 9.0
Boil 30 mins 1.0 Amarillo leaf 9.3
Boil 20 mins 2.0 Zeus leaf 16.4
Boil 10 mins 1.0 Amarillo leaf 9.3
Boil 10 mins 0.5 Centennial leaf 9.0
Boil 5 mins 1.0 Amarillo leaf 9.3
Boil 5 mins 0.5 Centennial leaf 9.0
Dry hop 7 days 0.5 Centennial leaf 9.0
Dry hop 7 days 1.0 Amarillo leaf 9.3

Zeus was supposed to go at the beginning of the boil but SWAMBO had different ideas, last time I let her put in the hops ahah. Still came out to around 60IBU's, so it's right between an IPA and Imperial IPA. Right now has huge hop flavor/aroma and not too much bitterness.

that looks like a great combination of hops. before this batch i made jaded dog's all amarillo ipa and i can't wait to try the first one this weekend.

I have a question about your schedule. Was it a 60 min boil? Did you have any hops in there from 60-30 mins?

I think i forget to mention I put an oz of cent into the secondary.

I had a buddies all Zeus IIPA a couple of months ago, even the most senior BJCP judge in my state was blown away. I believe he called it Jesus, the Spanish version, hey-zeus, get it.

Just curious, Isn't Zeus a version of Columbus?

Yankeehillbrewer said:

Just curious, Isn't Zeus a version of Columbus?

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I don't know the specifics behind it but yes there are really similar. both high aa hop common in ipas.

Yankeehillbrewer said:

Just curious, Isn't Zeus a version of Columbus?

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Yes, Zeus, Columbus, and Tomahawk are all basically the same thing.


Mine was only a 30 minute boil, but if you look at the amount of hops used it was still plenty long

Money beer man! those american C hops almost guarantee a good IPA. I use US-5 on all mine. Just make sure it doesn't get too warm. I've had issues with excessive fruitiness on some beers with warm temp english yeast. BEWARE.