Recipe Critique

I am new to creating my own recipes so would love a friendly critique. I am trying to create an IPA that is citrusy and floral, but malty and sweet. All feedback is appreciated!

malt & fermentables
6 lbs Pilsner Liquid Extract
3.3 lbs Amber Malt Extract Syrup
1.5 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
1.5 lbs Crystal 55L
1.5 lbs Candi Sugar, Amber
1.5 lbs Wheat Dry Extract
.5 lbs Honey Malt
.5 lbs Invert Sugar

hops
boil 60 mins 1.5 ozs Cascade
boil 45 mins 1.5 ozs Warrior
boil 20 mins 1.0 ozs Amarillo
boil 20 mins 1.0 ozs Willamette
boil 20 mins 1.0 ozs Columbus
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Citra
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Centennial
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Nugget
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Chinook
dry hop 10 days 2.0 ozs Summit

I don't do extract, so I can't help you much there. But the hops caught my attention. I wouldn't bitter with Cascade. For what you're going for, I would go with Centennials at 60 mins instead.

Well, you've got alot going on. You've got amber malt (which has crystal in it), crystal malt, honey malt, 2 pounds of sugar, wheat malt, etc.

What are your goals? Crystal and honey malts cause the wort to be sweeter, while simple sugars like honey and candi sugar thin the beer and help dry it out. It's sort of a mess, to be honest. Way too much crystal malt for one thing.

Do you want a clear crisp malt flavor? A honey flavor? A sweet beer? I think nailing down what you really want will help clean up the list of fermentables.

I'd get rid of the amber malt, wheat extract, at least a pound of the sugar, most of the crystal malt or the honey malt (or both), and start much more simply.

Light extract, honey, and crystal or honey malt should be more than sufficient.

I'd get rid of the 45 minute hops. If you need the bittering, I'd move the warrior to 60 minutes and move the cascades and some other hops to flame out. There aren't enough hops at the end of the boil, and too many before 15 minutes before flame out. I'd also consider dryhopping with something other than summit. Cascade, amarillo, centennial, simcoe, etc are all nice. As it stands, the hopping is sort of a mish mash of all kinds of hops and you're liable to get a muddy flavor instead of a nice hoppy flavor. Nugget especially is out of place, but if you can pick three hops you like instead of all of them I think it'd be a good beer!

Make that 3.5 lbs of sugar with the orange blossom honey/Candi/Invert. Cut sugar additions back to about 5%.

I agree with everything else Yooper has said.

Hey DSchott,

I hate critiquing recipes because I think that nearly any combination can yield a great beer & feel that your recipe could, too. However, it does seem to be a little bit all over the place.

Generally speaking, IPA's have a pretty straight forward grain bill. My favorite is base malt and a bit of crystal 60 which yields a brilliant copper/gold color. I am just not sure what contribution the wheat malt extract, honey and sugars will lend other than extra fermentability. With that said, you never know until you try it, please report back with results!!

As far as the hop schedule, usually warrior, chinook & columbus are used as your bittering 30-60mins hops. The rest can be used for flavor and aroma from 30mins down to dry hopping. Not to say, you can't use any combination of hops, yours just goes against the grain (no pun intended) of usual hop usage.

Thank you to all who have posted feedback. I went back to the drawing board and made a few changes. Let me know what you think. I want to try and get this recipe down on "paper" before I brew. I have made orange flavored honey ambers in the past and they have turned out well. I like IPA's so thought I would try and mix the two. I have tried to use all citrus, floral hops at different stages of the boil. I put honey malt in the boil to impart some honey flavor and orange blossom honey to up the ABV. I also thought about adding orange blossom honey in the secondary to impart a more pronounced sweet honey flavor. Again, all feedback is much appreciated!

malt & fermentables
9.3 lbs Pilsner Liquid Extract
3.3 lbs Amber Malt Extract Syrup
1.0 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
1.0 lbs Candi Sugar, Amber
1.0 lbs Honey Malt
0.5 lbs Victory Malt

hops
boil 60 mins 1.0 ozs Summit
boil 20 mins 1.0 ozs Columbus
boil 20 mins 1.0 ozs Citra
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Willamette
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Chinook
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Centennial
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Simcoe
boil 5 mins 1.0 ozs Warrior
boil 1 mins 1.0 ozs Amarillo
dry hop 14 days 2.0 ozs Cascade

Estimated ABV 11.9% IBU 75.5 Color Light to Medium Brown

It's still a bit too complicated for an IPA, especially on the hop front (10 varieties?!). I'd be worried that its just going to be a muddied mess of hops. I'd round it down to 4 max.
Mixing IPA and amber is fine, but the more malt flavors you add, the more it detracts from hops

DSchott said:

I also thought about adding orange blossom honey in the secondary to impart a more pronounced sweet honey flavor.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify one point: adding honey won't make your beer sweeter; exactly the opposite, actually. Honey is a simple sugar, and thus will ferment out to completely.