Rate my IPA

I just got 3lb of hops from HopsDirect. I'm making an IPA, and it's my first recipe. I have Magnum, Cascade, and Willamette. My spreadsheet is calculating estimated OG 1.064, at 70% efficiency, which seems high.

10 lb 2-row
2 lb Vienna
.5 lb Crystal 60L

Mash @ 152

1 oz Magnum @ 60 min 31.1 IBU
1 oz Cascade @ 15 min 7.86 IBU
1 oz Willamette @ 15 min 7.58 IBU
1 oz Willamette @ 5 min 3.05 IBU
1 oz Cascade @ 5 min 3.15 IBU

1 oz Cascade @ dry hop
1 oz Willamette @ dry hop
Total: 52.63 IBU, according to my spreadsheet


Safale S-05

I wanted a mix of Cascade and Willamette.

got an idea of ibu?

just edited to add IBU

I like it, the gravity is low enough that it should finish nice and dry and let those flavor hops shine. Mash temp sounds good too, just a tad on the low end.

Sounds like its tending towards the american side of ipa. Hops, clean yeast, not so toasty.

So maybe increase the mash temp to 151 or 152?

This looks almost exactly like I am planning to do for a Pale Ale, except Centennial instead of Cascades.

I agree with bumping up to ~152, especially if you go with US-05.

Looks nice. I would cut down the 5min addition to 1oz. You've got 2oz of dry hopping that's gonna add tons of aroma, I don't think that extra oz of willamette is gonna come through much.

If you want more of a mixture, instead of overpowering cascades, you could to 1oz cascade and 1oz willamette @ 5minutes, and the dry hop with the same.

Cascade paired with Willamette at each step? That's actually what I had originally, but wasn't sure if the individual characters of the hops would come through. I'll probably go back to that then. Just edited OP. Also changed Crystal to 60L for a bit more color. Now 6 SRM according to beercalculus. Also, beercalculus lists the total IBU at 45.5, compared to 52.6 on my spreadsheet.

Just got back from the LHBS... they didn't have Vienna, but I didn't realize that until I got home with 2lb of Victory crushed in with the rest of the grains! I'm going to brew it anyway and see what happens. Also, had to sub US-05 for Nottingham, based on LHBS availability. How do you guys think this one will turn out?

I personally like my IPA's with more punch. FWH is also a tasty way to get some bang out of hops. A 20, 15, 5 is a great way to get extra hop flavor as well. It will be beer. Good luck!

Victory is nice, just different from Vienna

Nottingham works. Just don't ferment it too warm. Try to keep it under 70 if you can, otherwise you get some hefty fruity flavors.

Us05 makes a mighty fine American ipa.

Wait now I'm confused, do you have notty or 05? Either way, with temp control theyboth do well in the style.

I planned to use US-05, but LHBS was out, so rather than go S-04, I got Nottingham.

Edit: ... and I'm using a tub with some frozen water bottles. It keeps pretty steady in the low 60's.

I actually made an IPA that's almost exactly like this pretty recently - I used 1lb of Munich instead of the Vienna, and added 0.5 lb carapils (though that was maybe unnecessary). But the hop schedule was very almost identical! Only difference is that I used 0.5 oz each of Cascade and Willamette at 15 and 5. And I only had 0.5 oz of Willamette left to dryhop, so I dryhopped with 1 oz Cascade and 0.5 oz Willamette.

Honestly, it's probably the best beer I've made. People loved it (as did I)! I'm definitely going with that Cascade/Willamette combo again.

Just my $0.02...

erock2112 said:

Just got back from the LHBS... they didn't have Vienna, but I didn't realize that until I got home with 2lb of Victory crushed in with the rest of the grains! I'm going to brew it anyway and see what happens.

Click to expand...

The Victory will give your beer a very toasty, biscuity character with little sweetness. The Vienna would have contributed more of a rich and malty character. It's definitely going to be a different beer than originally intended, although I personally like a little toastiness in my IPA's.

Brew day went reasonably well. I've got some kind of flaw in my process, because I keep ending up with ~60% efficiency. This time I had an OG of 1.057, which by my calculation comes out to 63%. I used a ratio of 1.25 qt/lb, so just under 4 gal at dough-in, and two batch sparges of 2 gal each. I stirred probably four times during the mash, and between each sparge, for quite a while (waiting for the next sparge water to heat up). The crush looked good (LHBS, at least much better than what I've seen from Midwest), don't recall seeing any whole, uncrushed grains. Continued with the boil as usual. Pitched, and is bubbling with a little bit of krausen this morning.


Hopefully the balance isn't too out of whack.

erock, I was getting low efficiency as well and discovered that my hydrometer was off. Try sticking it in some 60F water to see if you land at 1.000.