Another IPA critique requested...

Definitely attempting a "dank" IPA with this one...

13.0*lb 2-row
10*oz Crystal 20°L
2*lb Munich Malt
10*oz White Table Sugar
0.25*lb (1.5%) Cara-Pils

0.5*oz Apollo - 60*m

1.0*oz Summit - 15.0*m
1.0*oz Columbus - 15.0*m

1.0*oz Columbus - 5.0*m
1.0*oz Summit - 5.0*m

0.5*oz Chinook - post boil
0.5*oz Centennial - post boil
1.0*oz Summit - post boil

1.0*oz Summit - dry hop
1.0*oz Columbus - dry hop
0.5*oz Chinook - dry hop
0.5*oz Centennial - dry hop

White Labs California Ale

I like to have a bit of body/head retention for my IPAs, hence the Carapils. Wondering if I should add some more Apollo (.5 oz) at 30 minutes or later.

I'm assuming that this is a 5 gallon recipe. What is your target OG (don't know what you typically get in terms of efficiency)? Based on my efficiency I'm looking at ~1.090 OG, in which case, you're looking at a double IPA, and I usually add 2 ozs of Columbus (or Chinook, Warrior, Summit) for a bittering addition. Unless your efficiency is low, I'd say you need to add the other .5 oz Apollo at 60, and perhaps more. I would shoot for 100 calculated IBUs in a beer this big.

I'd cut your character malt down some. I prefer to go for something like 8% or less if I really want to make something hoppy. Hops also increases head retention in beer as well as unfermentable sugars. Which will come from the crystal 20. I'd lose the munich and the table sugar. Just as an example, you're at about 13% munich malt for the entire grain bill. Or, I'd keep all your character malts under a pound if you had your heart set on using all of them. That table sugar is going to cut the body and you'll end up with a thin beer.

I'd go with heywatchthis on the hops. You definitely don't have enough bittering in there

heywatchthis said:

I'm assuming that this is a 5 gallon recipe. What is your target OG (don't know what you typically get in terms of efficiency)? Based on my efficiency I'm looking at ~1.090 OG, in which case, you're looking at a double IPA, and I usually add 2 ozs of Columbus (or Chinook, Warrior, Summit) for a bittering addition. Unless your efficiency is low, I'd say you need to add the other .5 oz Apollo at 60, and perhaps more. I would shoot for 100 calculated IBUs in a beer this big.

Click to expand...

Beer Tools calculates the IBUs at over 100. Given the high AA% of the Columbus, Apollo and Summit, I'm picking up a decent amount of IBUs from the late additions.

You'll get a more mellow bitterness from the late additions. As long as that's what you want, that's fine, but for a 1.090 IIPA, I wouldn't forgo a big bittering addition (for my IIPA's, I typically try to get 70-100 calculated IBUs out of my 60 minute, and don't worry about what the flavor/aroma additions give). To get that really dank, resiny mouthfeel and flavor, you have to bitter the crap out of it.

Looks pretty good. You could also try something like flaked barley for the head retention. Might make it a little cloudy though.

mclamb6 said:

Beer Tools calculates the IBUs at over 100. Given the high AA% of the Columbus, Apollo and Summit, I'm picking up a decent amount of IBUs from the late additions.

Click to expand...

Even if you used pellet hops Beersmith calculates the IBU at 79. You've only got 4.5 oz in the boil. The other 5oz in the recipe don't contribute any bitterness at all.

So I've revamped the recipe a bit. From a "philosophical" point of view, I'm trying to borrow some from Pliny and Double Jack. Ingredients have been purchased, so the most I can do at this point is tweak the hop schedule. One minor issue is that I believe they sold be Pilsner malt instead of standard 2-row. They are emailing the receipt so I don't know for sure.

16 lbs 2-row
.25 lbs caramalt
2 lb Munich Malt
.75 lbs Cara-Pils

2 oz Columbus - 75 min

1 oz Simcoe - 30 min

1 oz Summit - 15 min
1 oz Columbus - 15 min
1 oz Simcoe - 15 min

1 oz Summit - 5 min
1 oz Simcoe - 5 min

1 oz Chinook - post boil
2 oz Simcoe - post boil
1 oz Summit - post boil

1 oz Summit - dry hop
1 oz Columbus - dry hop
1 oz Chinook - dry hop
1 oz Simcoe - dry hop

WLP002 - English Ale

Planning to mash at 148-150. Hoping to ferment around 70 (having to use a swamp cooler, with the house at 79-83). Again, grist/yeast is set. Absolutely not committed to anything with the hops.

Looks good! Keep us posted.

If anyone is interested...

Brewed this on Sunday. Everything was pretty smooth. Mashed at 148 for 90 minutes to make sure I got a full conversion. (Side note: 19 lbs of grain is about the max capacity for my 10 gallon cooler mash tun.)

Hit the OG about spot on--1.084 for right about 75-77% efficiency (Second side note: I need a bigger brew pot--mine is about 8 gallon capacity--I couldn't even do a complete double batch sparge, so I'm actually thinking my efficiency would have been a bit higher).

Probably slightly underpitched the yeast (supposed to have a 2.5L starter, was probably closer to 2L). But the fermentation has taken off with WLP002 and it's bubbling like a spa right now. It's a bit of a fight to keep the fermenter temps to around 70 degrees. I've got the swamp cooler going with a couple of fans, but the day time temp of the house in PHX is 81 to 83. Fermometer was starting to push towards 72, which I attribute to the robust fermentation more so than the temp of the water bath.

The hop aroma coming out of the blow-off tube is quite nice.

Here's the question(s): I'm scheduled to dry hop with 1 oz each of Chinook, Simcoe, Summit and Columbus.

1) Is that enough? (Total hop bill is at 1 lb).
2) Swap out anything in favor of 2 oz of one? Totally different hop?
3) Do I split that up and "double dry hop"--i.e. maybe .5 oz of each for 10 days; then 1 oz Simcoe, then the remainder for 5.

1. Yes, I think that would be about right.
2. I don't see an advantage to splitting it up, but you can if you want to. I would just add all the hops and leave them for 5-7 days before packaging.

UPDATE: The beer has been fermenting a few hours short of a week. I took a gravity reading/sample today. Gravity is at 1.016 (putting ABV at 9.2%). I think it might have a couple more points to go. Really pleased with the attentuation of WLP002. Tastes really nice--good malt backbone, but still dry-- the hop aroma should pick up when I add the 4 oz (1 each of Summit, Columbus, Simcoe and Chinook) of dry hops. This one has a lot of potential. Will probably keg/start carbing on Tuesday or Wednesd