Question on recipe and yeast - beginner

Hey all,

I've brewed a couple of batches with friends, and am brewing my first solo batch this weekend. I'm kind of following an IPA recipe, but decided to experiment a bit for fun. So, my recipe thoughts below:

5 Gallon batch

6 lbs. Amber DME

specialty:

1 lb. dark crystal
1 lb. Caramel 80L
1 lb. Belgian Biscuit

Hops and schedule:

1 oz. Chinook at 60 min
1/2 oz. Chinook at 30 min?
1/2 oz. Centennial at 10 min
1/2 oz. Cascade at 1 min.

1/2 oz. Chinook, 1/2 oz. Cascade, and 1/2 oz. Centennial dry hop.

WLP072 French Ale Yeast

First question would be, for the more experienced, does the recipe above look okay? I like big, bold beers...

Which brings me to the second question... I'm wondering if maybe I should stick with an American Ale yeast instead of the French Ale yeast... any suggestions? Again, not trying to stick to or copy a recipe exactly, would just like to brew a full bodied, big, nice-tasting beer in the style of an IPA.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Brad

As much as I love the French ale yeast, it isn't really great for an IPA. A biere de garde or anything remotely Belgian, sure, but in this case I'd go with something "American" or "British" in origin. California/Pacific/East Coast/London/etc. Anything in that category will make a very good IPA.

I'd drop the double duty on the dark crystals. Those are usually a bit more suitable for browns/porters/stouts. In really small amounts they can be fine in IPA, but I'd probably go for something more like a Caramel 20/40/60 at most. "Crystal" malt is the British term for Caramel malt. There's nothing wrong with it, but you usually don't need more than one pound in an IPA. If you wanted to use a British crystal malt, I'd go with Simpsons Caramalt/Carastan or a Medium crystal, instead of a dark. While we're talking grain, I'd drop the biscuit to 1/2 lb. You don't need much to get the character from it, and steeping a lot of grain can actually be less efficient than steeping a small amount, in my experience.

Your hops seem good - the 30 minute addition is a somewhat debated one among brewers, but you can certainly do it. It tends to give a fairly grassy/green/chlorophyll flavor, but it can depend on the hop variety.

Good luck!!

Your hops are low!


(hophead)

I'd go for an american yeast, yeah, and a big thing for IPAs is the water (sulfate levels). Once you get to water adjustments/additions, you can look into it.

God bless IPAs!

p.s. there are a good number of hops you can use---feel free to experiment! But I like your choice of C's.

I've never made a dark IPA, so I'm no expert, but that grain bill looks too sweet to me.

The amber DME has crystal in it already, and then two pounds of crystal besides will be very sweet. I use 1/2 pound of biscuit in one of my IPA recipes, and it's pretty noticeable so I probably wouldn't use a whole pound of biscuit but it might be ok.

I've never used the French yeast. I use "clean" well attenuating American ale yeast strains for my IPAs. You want them to finish pretty dry without alot of esters or yeast character.

Thank you all for the great advice. My initial hope was I was going to land somewhere between the bite of a robust IPA and the body/maltiness of something like Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Ale (or other Barleywine)... but if you guys think I'm headed into unbalanced territory, I'm happy to cut some of the dark specialty grains.

On the flipside of that, is it crazy to think about adding more hops to balance out the malt? I do like the beers big... but wondering then will my O.G. be too high to pitch a pack of Wyeast? I was thinking of trying this first batch without creating a yeast starter to simplify some of the procedure...

Anyways, thanks tons for the advice. Great help for my first post!
Brad

I have to jump on the American Ale Yeast bandwagon here. Since its your first solo brew I would use a cleaner yeast and then down the road experiment with different yeast strains. This way you will have a basis for comparison.

Also are you steeping your grains or doing a mini-mash? If your steeping I think the grain bill may be more reasonable than if you were doing a mini-mash.

Good luck and HAVE FUN!

Thanks, BuonAnno! Yep, steeping the grains.

I've never used biscuit before. What flavor/characteristics does it impart to a beer? I currently am doing extract with grain addition brews.