American IPA Lazy Day SESSION IPA - 2nd Place!

So early last year I started out on a quest to brew a lower alcohol IPA (highly hopped pale ale or whatever you want to call it). One that I could have a few of while working around the house and still be able to take the family to dinner later in the day. I am a huge IPA fan but I prefer IPAs that are big on hop flavor and aroma, not so much on bitterness. I searched everywhere scouring all the information I could find on how to brew this elusive version of an IPA. I say elusive because I read and discovered it is not as easy to pull off this beer as one may think. Well after around twenty 5 gallon batches and one 2nd place finish out of 23 entries in the 2012 Palmetto State Brewers Open (check it out http://www.palmettostatebrewers.com/psbopen/, Category 23A), I think I have my version ready to share:

Batch Size: 12 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.010
Color: 7.5 SRM
IBU: 46.8
Boil Time: 60min
Partial Mash

12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 64.0 %
2 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) Grain 2 10.7 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.0 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Caramunich I (Weyermann) (51.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.7 %
2 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 5 10.7 %

0.50 oz Chinook [11.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min - 9.6 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min - 2.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [8.70 %] - Boil 20.0 min - 4.3 IBUs
0.50 oz Citra [13.70 %] - Boil 20.0 min - 6.2 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min -2.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Citra [13.70 %] - Boil 15.0 min - 5.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min - 2.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [13.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min - 7.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min - 1.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [13.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min - 4.1 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [8.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min - 1.4 IBUs
2.00 oz Citra [13.70 %] - Boil 0.0 min - 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min - 9 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [8.70 %] - Boil 0.0 min - 0.0 IBUs
3.00 oz Citra [13.70 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days - 0.0 IBUs
2.00 oz Cascade [5.00 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days - 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [8.70 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days - 0.0 IBUs

2 Whirlfloc tabs at 15 min.
I have used WLP-01 or S-01, I haven't been making starters because the OG is low.

I brew this recipe BIAB and my mash temps vary from 154 to 158 deg (still working on that).

Notice most all of my hop additions are from 20 minutes and under. I have brewed this with different hop varieties like Simcoe and Amarillo and they all turned out great. I think I started trying other hop varieties because of the Simcoe and Amarillo shortages actually. I will say that some variation with Citra has been my favorite. The dry hop additions are to be split up in each secondary or keg (I skip the secondary and dry hop in the keg).

I will say this is a consistently great beer. It is a year round resident in my far left tap. I even have to have at least 1 keg in reserve or people start getting twitchy. Let me know what you think.

Looks delicious! In your trial batches did you ever try to get the abv in the 3.5%-4% range? I am wanting to get somehting like this but less than 4%. I guess just upping the carapils or crystal malts for this?

brettwasbtd said:

Looks delicious! In your trial batches did you ever try to get the abv in the 3.5%-4% range? I am wanting to get somehting like this but less than 4%. I guess just upping the carapils or crystal malts for this?

Click to expand...

Thanks! Let me know if you brew this or some variant. I actually brewed it last night because I'm down to my last keg. The hop schedule included simcoe, amarillo, and citra.

The lowest I have gotten this beer was 4.2%. I haven't tried to go lower. The problem with session IPA's is that the lower the ABV, the more unbalanced the beer is and the more important having grains other than 2-row is (to give it more complexity to combat the unbalance). So my first instinct is just to take this grain bill and reduce the 2-row to get the gravity you want (as opposed to just scaling everything back equally). That way, you have a larger percentage of the more specialty grains to help beef up the beer. You would also want to reduce the hops as well I would say. Also perhaps cutting the crystal back a little might be good to avoid undo sweetness.

I think mashing at a higher temp than typically recommended for IPA's helps this beer as well. It gives it a bit more body and mouthfeel.

Let me know what you come up with!

I'm looking to do a session IPA and this looks delicious. I only have the capability of doing 5 gallon batches. What's the best way to adjust the grain and hop bill?

I'm a newbie...only done about a dozen all grain batches and I don't have a beersmith program.

Thanks

Jbatten22 said:

I'm looking to do a session IPA and this looks delicious. I only have the capability of doing 5 gallon batches. What's the best way to adjust the grain and hop bill?

I'm a newbie...only done about a dozen all grain batches and I don't have a beersmith program.

Thanks

Click to expand...

This is going off memory, but I think the conversion from grain to dme is 2/3. So 12lbs of 2-row would be 8 lbs of dme. Add that to the 2 lbs already in the recipe and you have 10 total pounds of dme required for 12 gal. Then take half of everything in the recipe and you should be good to go for a 6 gal batch. If you need to get to 5 gal, multiply everything by 5/6. If this seems iffy, let me know and I can scale it down in beersmith for you.

If you end up brewing it, let me know how it turned out. Good luck.