Advice on refining IPA recipe

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Stubb

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The following IPA came out quite well with a fine floral nose:

11 lb. Maris otter
2 lb. light Munich
1 lb. crystal malt
2 oz. Williamette hops
4 oz. Cascade hops
White Labs liquid English Ale yeast (WLP002)

Combine grains with 3.75 gal. of 162-degree water for a final temperature around 152 degrees. Mash for 60 minutes. Sparge with 180-degree water. Bring the wort to a boil and add Williamette hops. Add Irish moss during last 15 minutes of boil and 2 oz. Cascade hops during last 5. Cool and pitch yeast. Dry hop with 2 oz. of Cascade in secondary. Mix in 3/4 c. corn sugar prior to bottling.​

I've received many compliments on this beer and am looking for suggestions on tweaks for the next batch, particularly in regards to the type and timing of hops. The overall bitterness is about right, but the flavor has room for improvement.

Thanks,

Andreas
 
What are the IBU's? The 2 oz of Cascade dry hopped will make it have a great aroma and depending on the crystal, I might go lighter crystal to really help the hops jump out of the glass and not have to compete with the caramel flavor. Otherwise, why not just make a cascade IPA without the Willamette?
 
I'm not sure on the IBUs; they're not something I've tried calculating, although that process looks straightforward. Good idea on toning down the level of caramel. That would also lighten the color of the beer. Any recommendations on bittering vs. aroma hops? Perhaps Nugget for bittering and a mix of Cascade and Columbus for aroma?

Thanks,

Andreas
 
I love Columbus - it is a beast all by itself and it works very well with all the other C hops.

Stubb said:
I'm not sure on the IBUs; they're not something I've tried calculating, although that process looks straightforward. Good idea on toning down the level of caramel. That would also lighten the color of the beer. Any recommendations on bittering vs. aroma hops? Perhaps Nugget for bittering and a mix of Cascade and Columbus for aroma?

Thanks,

Andreas
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I've settled on the following for the next batch:

12 lb. Maris otter
1 lb. light Munich
1 lb. crystal malt (60L)
2 oz. Chinook hops (boiling)
2 oz. Cascade hops (flameout)
2 oz. Columbus hops (dry hop)
White Labs liquid English Ale yeast (WLP002)

We'll see how it turn out…
 
A good mix of cascade and centennial is very common for dry-hopping an 'american' style IPA, but it's common because it's so good!....summit and amarillo are two more of my favorite hops for this style......mmmm....amarillo.
 
Stubb said:
2 oz. Chinook hops (boiling)
Click to expand...

Chinooks generally have a *lot* more bittering potential than Willamette. If you liked the bitterness from your original batch, you probably will want to scale back to 1oz of Chinook, or just add the full 2oz at 30min instead of 60min.
 
Try some First Wort Hopping with some cascade. You can't go wrong. It doesn't add much in the way of bitterness, but it gives you a wonderful, smooth hop flavor.
 
I personally would first wort hop with the Chinook (which is my favorite hop variety) and dry hop with 1oz amarillo and 1oz Simcoe......it'll knock your socks off with the nice hop aroma you'll get from that combo.....I do a chinook IPA dry hopped this way and it's AWSOME and I get many compliments and request to brew it.
 
944play said:
Chinooks generally have a *lot* more bittering potential than Willamette. If you liked the bitterness from your original batch, you probably will want to scale back to 1oz of Chinook, or just add the full 2oz at 30min instead of 60min.
Click to expand...

Good call: 2 oz. of Chinook for 60 minutes would give me about 100 IBUs.

—Andreas
 

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