My First IIPA

What do you all think? Is it too many hops? An online calculator told me it'd be around 134 IBU and that was without the dry hopping. It's basically an amalgam of my two favorite IIPAs Hopslam and dfh 90min.

5 gallon batch

10 pounds plain light dry malt extract
1 lb Crystal Malt 40
8oz two row Pale Malt
2 lbs Honey

1 oz Simcoe (continuous hopping)
2 oz Centennial(continuous hopping)
1 oz Magnum(continuous hopping)

1 oz Amarillo(flame out)

0.5 oz Centennial (dry hop)
1oz Citra (dry hop)

White labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)

2/3 cup priming sugar

Looks pretty good. Maybe too much crystal?, Could be too sweet. I us 8 oz C40 in my IIPA and it seems about right- though the honey may dry it out enough? I would also increase the dry hops to at least 3 oz for a IIPA. Nice hop bill, I like and use all of those hops in big IPAs. Simcoe makes a great dry hop too.

Good luck

Is the 1/2 pound of pale malt going to be mashed?

It looks like you basically wrote an extract recipe with steeping grains, except you can't really steep two row like that.

And if it's supposed to be a partial mash, I have to ask why you are only mashing 8oz and using DME for the rest. You could sub out a lot more of the DME for 2-row and save lots of money on the recipe.


EDIT:

To clarify, steeping is technically mashing, but you really want to be careful of the temperature you mash at, and it doesn't make sense to me to only mash 8oz.

I was going to steep the grains like an extract with specialty grains. I thought I had used 2row before like that. Hmm...

Well if you keep it between 150 and 160 it should be OK, but really you ought to mash it properly. Crystal you can steep no problems.

I think this is a good start. As previously mentioned, the 2row is not needed for steeping.
I would save a few bucks and replace the honey with cane sugar. I don’t think the delicate honey flavor/aroma will show in an IIPA.
134 ibu's are great but I would rerun those calculations. 4oz of boil hops just doesn't seem like much for this style.

TheBulge said:

4oz of boil hops just doesn't seem like much for this style.

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Agreed, I'd go for a couple ounce of hops at 0, I'd also double the dry hops. It is pretty much impossible to over hop a big IPA.

Oldsock said:

Agreed, I'd go for a couple ounce of hops at 0, I'd also double the dry hops. It is pretty much impossible to over hop a big IPA.

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Especially with late additions.

Yeah I agree if I do 60 minute boil in beersmith with those hops I get around 110 IBU, and that is if they all go in at the beginning of the boil. With continuous hopping it's not going to be nearly that much.

aMillionDreams said:

An online calculator told me it'd be around 134 IBU and that was without the dry hopping.

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FYI, dry hops don't add any IBUs.

Thanks for the input. I've adjusted the recipe a bit. I don't want too many bittering hops, I like more aroma hops so I did add some there. Besides, once you go over 100 IBUs you're just wasting hops, right? Any idea what my ABV is? I would like to get it around 9%. if not higher.

aMillionDreams said:

Thanks for the input. I've adjusted the recipe a bit. I don't want too many bittering hops, I like more aroma hops so I did add some there. Besides, once you go over 100 IBUs you're just wasting hops, right? Any idea what my ABV is? I would like to get it around 9%. if not higher.

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Your OG will end up around 1.095, with good attenuation you are looking at 10% ABV.

Often at the high end of the IBU scale it takes more alpha acids to actually get there. Pliny the Elder has a recipe that calculates out to something like 200 IBUs, but when lab tests are run it is more like 70-80.

Are you doing a full or a partial boil? With a partial boil it is especially hard to get high IBUs.

You might also consider hopping between the bittering and aroma hops for smoother hop nectar flavor, as a possible malternative to all of them at 60.