My First IPA

I made a recipe for an IPA a few weeks ago. Its only my second brew, but I thought I would branch out. It was in primary (learned how valuable a blowoff tube is) for a month, went to the bottles for 2 weeks, and in the fridge for 2 days. I just opened the first one.

HOLY CRAP! I'm blown away by how incredible this tastes. It is literally better than any beer I've ever bought from the store. This could be because I made it, but still! I just wanted to say thanks for all the help, and I look forward to brewing MANY more.

By the way, it's called the Jersey Devil American IPA.

Glad your first IPA was a success. I wish my first turned out as well as yours. Care to share the recipe? A quick search for Jersey Devil American IPA yielded no results.

No problem! Yeah, I didn't put it in the recipe section, its just an extract brew, but its pretty incredible so far.

Here's the recipe:

malt & fermentables
% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable ppg °L
90% 9 2 Northern Brewer Gold LME info 35 7
10% 1 0 Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L info 34 40
10 2
Batch size: 5.0 gallons

Original Gravity
1.071
(1.063 to 1.074)
Final Gravity
1.018
(1.015 to 1.019)
Color
12° SRM / 24° EBC
(Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)
Mash Efficiency
90%

hops
use time oz variety form aa
boil 60 mins 1.0 Warrior info pellet 15.0
boil 15 mins 1.0 Centennial info pellet 10.0
boil 5 mins 1.0 Amarillo info pellet 7.0
boil 1 min 1.0 Cascade info pellet 5.5
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Centennial info pellet 10.0
Boil: 4.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes

Bitterness
58.0 IBU / 15 HBU
ƒ: Tinseth
BU:GU
0.82

yeast
Nottingham info
ale yeast in dry form with high flocculation and 75% attenuation

Alcohol
7.1% ABV / 5% ABW
Calories
234 per 12 oz.

Its funny, ur recipe and my last ipa have some things in common 1.070 OG finished around 1.020, kinda too sweet for my liking. So next time im gonna shoot for 1.065 and 1.015 OG/FG. I used nugget(warrior sub) cascade and centennial. My next ipa is gonna be just cascade and centennial, dropping the nugget cuz its seems to harsh in large quantities.

^^^^ to the above, LME and DME both contain some unfermentables already, so crystal malts can help (or hurt) with additional fermentables. But, using corn sugar, up to 10% on the high end can be really great at keeping your ABV, but thinning out the sweetness. YMMV of course, but I've had good luck using it thus far.

Ya im not entirely sure why it finished so high, im gonna guess it partly because i should have mashed longer and pitched more active yeast. I only had 10oz of c60 in there so i dont think that affected it to much.

You will never ever catch me using corn sugar again, however i do have plans to try corn/rice to lighten up some of my lagers. Although i did get a 1.050 AG beer to finish at 1.006 by overpitching the yeast on accident, so who knows what ill eventually settle on.