Double IPA Mike's Double Dragon

This is a recipe that I originally formulated as a clone of Founders Double Trouble. In my opinion it is similar but superior. It's a really nice high alcohol Double IPA with hints of passion fruit, grapefruit, and a great tongue coating lupin threshold breaking bitterness.

This is the first original recipe I have posted here, taking into account every detail I have acquired by reading about double IPAs created by masters like Vinny at Russian River. I hope you like it!



13 lbs - 2 row
8 oz - Munich Malt
8 oz - Carapils Malt
4 oz - Crystal 40
2 lbs - Corn Sugar (boil)

0.5 oz - Summit @ FWH ~90
3.5 oz - Summit @60
0.5 oz - Amarillo @30
0.5 oz - Amarillo @15
0.5 oz - Simcoe @15
1.0 oz - Amarillo @5
0.5 oz - Simcoe @5

Dry Hop 1 (7 days):
2.5 oz - Simcoe
1.5 oz - Amarillo

Dry Hope 2 (5 days):
0.5 oz - Simcoe
0.5 oz - Amarillo

Yeast:
2 packets of S-05 directly pitched

Water:
Adjusted to Pale Ale profile. For Fairfax Co. Va water I added: Gypsum 5g (mash/sparge), Epsom Salt 2g (mash/sparge), Calcium Chloride 1g (mash/sparge), Chalk 0.4g (mash only).

Mash:
Mash at 148-150F

Boil:
Add corn sugar to the boil

Fermentation:
66-68F until your gravity stops dropping (1.008 for me)

My Process:

This is what I did; I'm just putting here for clarity, obviously a lot of this is a personal preference.

I was super anal about keeping the beer under a CO2 blanket and avoiding exposure to oxygen. I think it is apparent in the resulting beer.

To get the gravity low kick yeast up by swirling whenever possible as primary begins to die down (keep your fermenter sealed, the CO2 inside will prevent oxidization). I bumped the temp up into the 70s on the last day or two for a final push.

Purge secondary carboy and lines with co2 before transfer.

Dry hop in secondary at 68F, adding hops to the top of the carboy after transferring the beer. When adding the second dry hop, first stir the original dry hops into suspension to get some extra dry hopping and create a nice CO2 layer on top.

Dry hop day 10 begin to drop temp to 60F for clarity and to drop the hops out. Dry hop day 12 purge siphon and keg with c02 before transfer. I noticed that moving the carboy caused some extra CO2 to bubble out of the airlock (the more the merrier, they say).

Latest batch should be carbed in a week or two and I will edit with a pic.

Edit: Included photo.

Sounds good. What was your OG?

OG was 1.085, FG was 1.008, making this approximately 10.1% ABV.

It's a little boozy, but pleasant, I would have guessed 8% ABV from the taste if I didn't know better.

I think next time I will up the mash and sparge water slightly, which will probably lower the OG a bit but lead to more beer. This time it came up a little short after all the hopping and transferring.

I've updated the recipe with a photo of the finished product.

I'm going to make some slight revisions in the future to lower the presence of alcohol, namely:

24 oz corn sugar (instead of 32oz)
12 oz Munich (instead of 8oz)
4 oz Crystal 60 (instead of 4oz Crystal 40) for a touch more color

Once I've brewed that revision I will update the recipe.

And for those of you that like to print labels for your bottles or kegs, here is the official label!



The booziness I talked about died down a bit after the first few weeks and the beer really began to shine recently. At a local tasting it was the standout favorite which I was very pleased by. I just did a head to head taste test with Founder's Double Trouble and I have to say, Double Dragon is superior.

What mash pH did you target?

This looks like a good recipe, can't wait to give it a shot.

I’m thinking of making this, adding oak chips I’ve had in bourbon since January and trying to recreate Doom.