Any advice for a rookie IIPA brew?

Brewing a giant IIPA next week and could use some advice from others who have brewed such a monster.

17# 2row
0.5# crystal 20
1# carapils
1# corn sugar at 10 min

2oz warrior at 60
1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 20
1 cascade 1 centennial at 15
1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 10
1 cascade 1 centennial at 5
1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 0
21 day primary
Dry hop 1 simcoe 1 amarillo at secondary transfer
Dry hop 1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 5 days of secondary
2 worflocs
1056 yeast
2.97l starter
149 degree mash
90min mash
60 min boil.

Anything sound outa place?
Anything to keep in mind?
Thanks guys

Should produce a nice dry IPA. Go for it!

Looks pretty good. maybe think about a little more crystal for all that base grain. i like crystal 60 its pretty standard. with the mash temp & corn sugar expect it to be pretty dry

Just make sure your kettle is big enough!!! Sounds tasty though!!

I think you have too much C-pils. A big beer will be malty enough. IIPA's need to be on the dry side because of all the malt or they could be too "sweet". Might want to cut it in half.

dooman333 said:

Brewing a giant IIPA next week and could use some advice from others who have brewed such a monster.

17# 2row
0.5# crystal 20
1# carapils
1# corn sugar at 10 min

2oz warrior at 60
1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 20
1 cascade 1 centennial at 15
1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 10
1 cascade 1 centennial at 5
1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 0
21 day primary
Dry hop 1 simcoe 1 amarillo at secondary transfer
Dry hop 1 simcoe 1 amarillo at 5 days of secondary
2 worflocs
1056 yeast
2.97l starter
149 degree mash
90min mash
60 min boil.

Anything sound outa place?
Anything to keep in mind?
Thanks guys

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Lots of oxygen

With your low mash temp & corn sugar. Don't worry about residual sweetness. Carapils will contribute to mouthfeel

btw, carapils has very little flavor just a lot of unfermentable dextrin but 1# with 17# of base will be fine. Have fun and report back!

Lots of good info here. Oxygen is def something I'm worried about. I have no way of oxygenating other than the "pour, pour, pour, shake your balls off" method. Suggestions?

Might be ghetto but I sanitized my racking cane, attached the long straight end to my drill and whipped the hell out of my dipa a and wheat wine. Both fermented out fine.

HopJuicer said:

Might be ghetto but I sanitized my racking cane, attached the long straight end to my drill and whipped the hell out of my dipa a and wheat wine. Both fermented out fine.

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I love this idea. I think I will try it next batch.

I think I'll do that. Also, I've never made a starter before. (apparently its a big deal haha) beer smith calls for a 2.97l starter to get me just under 400 billion cells (mr. Malty about the same) any tips on this? All I know is... About 400g of DME, top off with water, boil, add two 1056 smack packs and giver a day. Is that it?

dooman333 said:

I think I'll do that. Also, I've never made a starter before. (apparently its a big deal haha) beer smith calls for a 2.97l starter to get me just under 400 billion cells (mr. Malty about the same) any tips on this? All I know is... About 400g of DME, top off with water, boil, add two 1056 smack packs and giver a day. Is that it?

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i tend to go with the 100g to 1L rule of thumb, so you'd be closer to 300g DME. also make sure that you have a 3L container and that mr.malty is set to simple starter unless you have a stir plate/feel like shaking it A LOT for a couple days.

MrManifesto said:

i tend to go with the 100g to 1L rule of thumb, so you'd be closer to 300g DME. also make sure that you have a 3L container and that mr.malty is set to simple starter unless you have a stir plate/feel like shaking it A LOT for a couple days.

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No stir plate. When do I shake? A lot?

So I was scanning though the recipe tab and came across Shweatys Hop Slam accidental clone. All of a sudden my recipe seems quite boring. How does anyone feel about using some Vienna, honey malt or honey? Also, if adding sugar drys a beer out and boosts ABV how do some beers have a good honey flavor with a little sweetness like real honey? Mash temp? I'm learning obviously.

dooman333 said:

No stir plate. When do I shake? A lot?

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Also, do I add anything else for nutrition besides the little packs in a smack pack?

Your IIPA looks good, I would'nt change anything...looks tasty!
Boring? Dude, your'e making a IIPA!!!!
Whats your ibu's?
igotsand

If I remember correctly beer smith estimates 156 I think

That recipe looks solid to me, not boring at all. The only thing I would do different is a 90 minute boil so you could sparge a little more to help with efficiency.

Great idea. Beer smith has been updated. Thanks!

sweet jesus! 17#'s of two row!?

what kind of OG are you calculating from this?

I think you're good, but I would reduce the bittering addition and pound it out with more late hops. Shoot for about 40-60 IBUs with the first Warrior addition, bring it up a little more with a 30 minute addition, and then achieve the rest from late additions (such as 15-10-5-0 plus DH). That will give you a rounder bitterness and a much more aromatic DIPA.

dooman333 said:

No stir plate. When do I shake? A lot?

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A LOT.

You need to get your yeast ready for a war, these big beers take a ton of healthy yeast to get the job done right. If you aren't able to make a big enough starter and provide a ton of O2 for them (I have a pure O2 rig and in a perfect world, I'd hit that thing for a good two min before pitching and again after 12 hours or so).

In your situation, you may wanna consider dry yeast, honestly, two packs. Might be technically over pitching but I really doubt you'll see any negatives and you'll be sure to have enough yeast.

brewski08 said:

sweet jesus! 17#'s of two row!?

what kind of OG are you calculating from this?

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I think it was 1.105, ya I know I had a double take at the estimate too. No way I hit it.

bobbrews said:

I think you're good, but I would reduce the bittering addition and pound it out with more late hops. Shoot for about 40-60 IBUs with the first Warrior addition, bring it up a little more with a 30 minute addition, and then achieve the rest from late additions (such as 15-10-5-0 plus DH). That will give you a rounder bitterness and a much more aromatic DIPA.

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So your thinking drop the second worrior to 30min and use my 2oz 20min addition as an additional DH? That sounds good to me.

MrManifesto said:

A LOT.

You need to get your yeast ready for a war, these big beers take a ton of healthy yeast to get the job done right. If you aren't able to make a big enough starter and provide a ton of O2 for them (I have a pure O2 rig and in a perfect world, I'd hit that thing for a good two min before pitching and again after 12 hours or so).

In your situation, you may wanna consider dry yeast, honestly, two packs. Might be technically over pitching but I really doubt you'll see any negatives and you'll be sure to have enough yeast.

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Yeast is something I've definitely under estimated its importance. Is dry that much more efficient? Seems too easy. If I were to just use 2 packs S-05 would a vigorous shake be sufficiant?

A 5 gallon batch of DIPA should have about 9-13 oz. hops on average. You'll be on the higher end of this with 17# 2-row.

There is no perfect formula, but I tend to shoot for:

20-60 IBUs for the first addition (around 90-60 minutes) depending on the OG and what I'm striving for
20-60 IBUs for the second addition (around 45-30 minutes) to bring up to about a 1:1 BU/GU ratio

(The above may take as little as 1-2 oz. hops)

Then, the rest of the hops will be scattered among your choice of 15-10-5-0-DH. The late kettle additions will still boost IBUs, even at flameout. So you end up with anywhere between a 1.4:1 or 2:1 BU/GU ratio. I get smooth bitterness by following this method for my DIPAs. Feel free to experiment with it.

You could add the corn sugar after fermentation is underway. I made a IIPA with 2# corn sugar where I added it at 3 and 6 days after fermentation begun. I'm not sure how much this helps but I got a really good attenuation with this beer (82% w/SA05 and just shook to aerate the wort). I just dissolved the sugar in a small amount of water, boiled it like I was prepping a yeast starter, cooled it, poured it in the carboy and walked away. You could do the same thing with honey but it's already sanitary so you could probably just pour it straight in without heating it.

I agree with one of the other commentators. Anything 100+ ibus is excessive and you might as well waste your hops be dry hopping the heck out of it.

...am i missing something here? or am i just going crazy?

this recipe is going to generate a beer with an OG above 1.1 assuming at least a 70% efficiency. that is way beyond what the gravity of a IIPA should be (http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf). on top of this, over 90% of the grain is fermentable.

this is going to be a monstrously big and dry beer. i wouldn't even classify this as a IIPA--i think it's closer to a barley wine IMO.

dooman, i don't mean to be an ass, and i'm sure this beer is going to turn out to be a very good beer. i just don't think it's going to turn out the way you're expecting.

brewski08 said:

...am i missing something here? or am i just going crazy?

this recipe is going to generate a beer with an OG above 1.1 assuming at least a 70% efficiency. that is way beyond what the gravity of a IIPA should be (http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf). on top of this, over 90% of the grain is fermentable.

this is going to be a monstrously big and dry beer. i wouldn't even classify this as a IIPA--i think it's closer to a barley wine IMO.

dooman, i don't mean to be an ass, and i'm sure this beer is going to turn out to be a very good beer. i just don't think it's going to turn out the way you're expecting.

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No disrespect taken, I created this grain bill based on a lot of recipes here. (Granted most of mine is 2row) It seemed like a big IIPA had 14-19 pounds of grain (5gal), a couple oz of first wort high alpha hops and then a sh*tload of late hop additions and dry hopping. I bumped recipe up a pound or 2 because I am new and I figured being a little heavier than expected (if i hit all my numbers) would be better than being too weak (not hitting all my numbers)
Also, if this beer and many other IIPAs have corn sugar added spacificlly for dryness why do they do it?
I am still learning, so you probably know this better than I but Im a little confused. Some say "dont forget your corn sugar so its not so sweet" and other say this is too dry.

Im using a pound of hops. Shouldnt this amount of hops balance well with such a large grain bill?

I'd like to follow up with a slightly tweaked recipe of more what I would do. Wyeast 1056 has an alcohol tolerance of 10%, so I would probably use something a bit tougher.

http://hopville.com/recipe/1438416/imperial-ipa-recipes/bat-out-of-hell-imperial-ipa

Mash instructions on page 2.

There are no rules, to my knowledge, that state an Imperial IPA must follow a 1:1 BU/GU ratio. That is the minimum ratio I would follow, but the bittering could definitely be heftier. After all, this is not a regular, low abv IPA.

dooman333 said:

No disrespect taken, I created this grain bill based on a lot of recipes here. (Granted most of mine is 2row) It seemed like a big IIPA had 14-19 pounds of grain (5gal), a couple oz of first wort high alpha hops and then a sh*tload of late hop additions and dry hopping. I bumped recipe up a pound or 2 because I am new and I figured being a little heavier than expected (if i hit all my numbers) would be better than being too weak (not hitting all my numbers)
Also, if this beer and many other IIPAs have corn sugar added spacificlly for dryness why do they do it?
I am still learning, so you probably know this better than I but Im a little confused. Some say "dont forget your corn sugar so its not so sweet" and other say this is too dry.

Im using a pound of hops. Shouldnt this amount of hops balance well with such a large grain bill?

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i understand what you're saying, and you seem to know what you're talking about.

here's my opinion:

it seems as if you're taking a lot of extremes and throwing them together for a SUPER BEER :rocking:

a pound of hops and nearly 20 pounds of grain seems a bit much for a IIPA...especially since it's your first IIPA. i've seen RIS's with lower OG's than this!

again, i'm not trying to discourage you. experimenting is a MUST in home brewing. however, i'd hate to see you invest all this money (1 pound of hops is mighty expensive) in a beer that comes out tasting undesirable.

what IIPA's are serving as inspirations for this beer? what do you look for in your IIPA's?

You're probably right and I was kinda going for a super beer. IMHO I think a IIPA should be a medium bodied beer with subtle color and a hops loaded kick in the teeth. I guess I'm over doing the grain bill because I don't want it to taste like a super hoppy glass of water. Due to my last few brews lacking in body and

Whoa, didn't mean to hit send button right there haha, damn iPads. Anyhoo, my beers have lacked malty flavor and have, let's face it, sucked. (prob a lot to do with my lack of yeast knowledge at the time). I have no problem cutting it back. And I really like the idea of a pound of hops. I guess I'm looking for a somewhat fool proof way to get me a founders double trouble, Sqatters Hop Rising, Hopsickle kinda beer. I like the lighter colored IIPAs. Not so caramel looking. Lots of sparge water, easy pitching yeast kinda day. I still need that breathing room for slip ups. I feel I have been rushing beers and under pitching my last brews so that should be better now. I'm rushing this post as I'm on my way out the door so bare with me.

ok so here's what i got from your last couple of posts:

1. you want a medium-bodied beer...not watered down.

-your body is going to come from the sugars retained in your beer that the yeasts can't eat. your grain bill consists of over 90% 2-row. the majority of the sugars you extract from 2-row are going to be fermentable depending on your mash temperature.

to up the body of your beer, add unfermentables. i know you said you're not a big fan of cara/crystal malt, but these malts are effective in adding body to your beer and are commonly used in IIPAs. if you plan on adding a pound of hops to your beer, you should add some cara/crystal malt to sweeten up your beer in order to balance out all those IBUs. i would keep a IIPA grain bill from 5% to 10% cars/crystal malt.


2. you want to retain a pale color.

-your recipe you have right now will produce a pale colored beer. if you do decide to add more crystal, keep the crisp between 5L-20L. this will keep it fairly pale.

3. you want the drinker to be able to notice the malt back bone.

-besides adding unfermentables, you can add other types of base malt to create a nice complexity in your beer. vienna, white wheat, pilsner, and trace amounts of munich contribute fermentables to your beer while also adding a nice touch that makes your beer's maltiness POP out a bit.

4. you want your beer to be oozing with hops.

-i mean you're adding a pound of hops...it's going to be hard for it not to ooze with hop flavor/aroma. get your IBUs up. the more unfermentables you add and the higher your FG is going to be, the higher the IBUs you're going to need to produce.




...and now for what i think you should do:

1. for christ's sake...lower your OG!

-lower your 17# of base malt. with your remaining amount of 2-row, sub it out for other base malts for complexity. vienna malt in a IIPA is awesome!

2. get rid of the corn sugar and mash at a low mash temperature.

-i personally never add corn sugar to my beer. if you're scared of creating too big of a body in your beer, keep your mash temperatures at 149F-150F.

3. balance your IBUs.

-if you up your amount of unfermentables, make sure you up your IBUs. increase your late hop additions and dry hop amounts to increase your hop flavor/aroma.

4. keep your cars/crystal under 10% of your grain bill.

- i would aim for ~5% if you're not a big fan of crystal.



this is my opinion and take it for what's worth! i spent A LOT of money on ingredients for a IIPA in the past and completely ruined it due to my inability to balance fermentables, unfermentables, and IBUs.

good luck, dude!

Wow. I glad you buzzed in before I made this! I will definitely redesign this and post again. I debated using vienna and honey malt. I will drop some of the 2row and add some vienna and more cara/crystal. How do you feel about honey malt? Hopslam-ish? Also, mash at 150 u think? 60 or 90 min mash. I like the idea of boiling for 90 min too for more sparge volume. Lastly, you think shaking and 2 packs S-05 should be sufficiant? Can't thank you enough for your time.

honey malt isn't very fermentable, so i'd include that in your 0-10% portion of your cara/crystal grain bill. i've actually read that honey malt is a medium colored crystal malt (perhaps 45L?). i would say it adds similar tastes that medium colored crystal malt would rather than a honey taste. i think if you'd like to get the hopslam honey taste, you either should prime with honey or simply back-sweeten (kill the yeast, then add the honey so it won't be fermented) your beer with it.

as for your yeast, i'm in that ever decreasing pool of brewers who puts a lot of faith in my yeast. they're tough little buggers, and i know they like my beer A LOT (perhaps even more than i do!). i've never made a starter, and i probably never will. i once pitched a vial of WL001 in a big beer (1.095 OG) without a starter; everything turned out fine...in fact, everything turned out better than fine! that beer was delicious! never even had a stuck fermentation.

because of this, i think 1 pack of S-05 is plenty for any 5-6 gallon batch of beer. in fact, i think two packets would be over pitching.

if i were you, i'd pitch 1 pack of S-05, and if you realize you have a stuck fermentation, pitch a little bit of the other pack. however, i think 1 pack should suffice.

Hey dude. I aerate with an immersion blender. Some call it a stick blender. I just sanitize that thang, and dip it in enough to create a heavy foam in the wort. It seems to work for me, but I'm also a noob working out the kinks, so take it for what it's worth. Dunno mang. If you got an immersion blender, it could make your pitching period a lot less, well, physical.
But I "No-Chill"chill... So whatever...

I'd keep the 17 pounds of grain. It is an imperial IPA so it is supposed to be big. Remember that efficiency usually drops with bigger beers, so you may well not get 70% unless you sparge more and boil more. Don't be afraid to boil for 2 hours. My IIPA had an OG of 1.098 and is 9.7% ABV. BJCP guidelines are just that - guidelines. Don't be afraid to stretch them if you want. It's your beer .

crushingblackdoom said:

Hey dude. I aerate with an immersion blender. Some call it a stick blender. I just sanitize that thang, and dip it in enough to create a heavy foam in the wort. It seems to work for me, but I'm also a noob working out the kinks, so take it for what it's worth. Dunno mang. If you got an immersion blender, it could make your pitching period a lot less, well, physical.
But I "No-Chill"chill... So whatever...

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Are you talkin about those blenders for like protien shakes? If so, I have one. Suppose it wouldn't hurt. Thanks!