I've been hoarding some hops. Time for an Imperial IPA?

Here is my current stash. http://i.imgur.com/hbT8q.jpg I currently have a half pound of Citra, 4oz of Chinook and I'm about to pick up a half pound of Simcoe.

I recently started doing all grain, and this would be my third all grain batch. I am planning a 3 gallon batch of Imperial Ipa. Here is what I've come up with. Any suggestions are welcome.


Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 82.4 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)Grain 2 5.9 %
4.0 oz Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 3 2.9 %
12.0 oz Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 4 8.8 %


0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 17.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 33.9 IBUs
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 7 36.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 12.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 11.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 10 12.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 6.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 6.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs

Update: I just got back from my LHBS and of course they sold out of the Simcoe hops they had just gotten a few days ago. I substituted whole leaf Amarillo which I think will be pretty nice. Here are the hops and 12 oz. of sugar ready to go. http://i.imgur.com/ZflI8.jpg

Grains are in the mash tun as I type.

lots of hops... what did the OG end up at?

prolific said:

lots of hops... what did the OG end up at?

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It was actually a bit of a disaster. For some reason my Beersmith software was assuming a mash efficiency of 93%. I have no idea why, and I haven't figured it out yet (I have only used it 3 times).

So, it had calculated a bre-boil gravity of 1.059 and I actually got around 67% efficiency giving me only 1.043. I quickly realized what had happened, but unfortunately I didn't have any dme or anything laying around, so I added 10 more ounces of sugar and sacrificed some volume by doing a 90 minute boil. This gave me an OG of 1.075, which still about ten points lower than I had expected.

Then, on top of that, the two ounces of whole leaf hops ate up about an extra gallon of wort it seems, so I ended up with probably two gallons going into the fermentor.

At the end of the day, this was really just a test batch for a full 5 gallon imperial IPA that I want to do, so it's not a total loss. The main thing, is I wanted to see how these hops would be together. And who knows, maybe all that sugar will make for a really dry, drinkable beer.

Yea, when I saw your original bill of only 7.5# of 2 row, I figured it was a bit low for an imperial. I think the hop bill will be good, especially if it's a stronger beer. I made a 10 gallon batch of IIPA a month or so ago with 30# 2 row plus a couple lbs of specialties and ended up with an OG of around 1.088. I had a bunch of Magnum, Simcoe and Amarillo in mine and it came out great... went through the first 5 gallon keg in about a week.

prolific said:

Yea, when I saw your original bill of only 7.5# of 2 row, I figured it was a bit low for an imperial. I think the hop bill will be good, especially if it's a stronger beer. I made a 10 gallon batch of IIPA a month or so ago with 30# 2 row plus a couple lbs of specialties and ended up with an OG of around 1.088. I had a bunch of Magnum, Simcoe and Amarillo in mine and it came out great... went through the first 5 gallon keg in about a week.

Click to expand...

That sounds awesome. Did you dry hop it? If so, with what and how much? I'm trying to figure what I'm going to dry hop this with. It's only 2 gallons, maybe a little more, so I was thinking .75 ounce of pellets at the most.

I think it was about .5 oz Simcoe, .5 oz Amarillo per 5 gallons. The final gravity came down to 1.015, making it a little over 9% ABV and it just gets better with each passing day.

prolific said:

I think it was about .5 oz Simcoe, .5 oz Amarillo per 5 gallons. The final gravity came down to 1.015, making it a little over 9% ABV and it just gets better with each passing day.

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Very nice. I'm keeping my eye out for Simcoe.