Another recipe feedback request-American IPA

So I'm relatively new to brewing and the forums. I have one finished red ale (kit) that is starting to taste pretty good IMO and am planning on brewing another kit very soon. In the meantime I am working on a recipe for my third beer, an extract with specialty grains American IPA. I pulled together this recipe by taking bits and pieces of various recipes on this site and others, as well as by researching hops etc. Being new, I am very open to feedback and would love to hear what you have to say.

6lbs. light DME
1 lb. Victory Malt (25L)
1 lb. Crystal Malt 20L

1 oz. Columbus hops (60 mins)
.5 oz. Centennial hops (60 mins)
.5 oz. Centennial hops (20 mins)
2.5 oz. Cascade hops (.5 oz. 20 mins, 2 oz dry hop for 2 weeks in secondary)

White Labs WLP001 (am planning on making a starter)

3 gal. boil.
OG: 1.060
FG: 1.015
60 IBU (Tinseth)
~11 SRM
(I used the beer recipator found here)

Looks pretty standard to me. Go for it.

Yeah, looks pretty solid.

You can cut the Crystal 20L in half to a 1/2 lb. but that just depends on how much sweetness you are looking for in your IPA.

When I look back at a lot of my older IPA recipes I found that when I used 1+ lbs. of Crystal malts my IPA's were too sweet for my taste.

I found that my IPA recipes that used less then a pound of Crystal malt (i.e. 1/2 lb.) were more to my liking.

I would also throw in another 1/2 oz. to an oz. of Centennial at (5 mins) but that's just me.

In all, the recipe looks good. Brew it up and adjust next time.

The only thing I'd suggest changing is the hops schedule a bit. Adding all the hops at 60 minutes and 20 minutes won't give much hops flavor or aroma.

I'd check the IBUs in the calculator, to make sure your IBU is acceptable for an IPA; and then add hops at 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and 0 minutes rather than at 20 minutes. Dryhopping is good, but the late hops additions really make an IPA.

I had referred to the chart in this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/useful-hop-utilization-graph-36622/

I guess I'll play around with a few late minute additions and see where it gets me.

Okay, I've been messing with this on and off for the last couple weeks and during that time I decided that I might as well just go for a partial mash a la DB's guide.

Here's the updated recipe:
3.5 gallon boil
5 gallon batch

5 lbs. DME

Mash: I'll probably aim for 153ishF for 45 min. with 1.25 qt/lb. water, with a 2.75 gallon sparge. I don't know much about this so any advice on this is appreciated.
2.5 lbs. 2 row
.5 lbs. Crystal 20L
1 lb. Victory

Hops:
1 oz. Columbus 60 min.
1 oz. Centennial 20 min.
.5 oz. Centennial and .25 oz. Cascade 15 min.
.25 oz. Centennial and .25 oz. Cascade 10 min.
.25 oz. Centennial and .25 oz. Cascade 5 min.
.25 oz. Cascade 0 min.
1 oz. Cascade dry hop 2 weeks
(Total hops: 1 oz. Columbus, 2 oz. Centennial, 2 oz. Cascade)
IBUs: 66
OG: 1.065

Yeast: Ale yeast from New Holland Brewery.

Thanks.

Looks like a very tasty IPA! I like the every-5-minute additions late in the game, should give a nice rounded transition between bitterness and flavor/aroma.

Do you know what yeast New Holland uses? I may have to pick up a sixer of Mad Hatter and harvest it.

Anyway, looks good!

As far as I know, New Holland just uses a typical American Ale yeast. Acting on a tip from a friend, I just went to their brewery and asked for some.

I brewed this recipe on Saturday and I'm pretty sure the mash didn't go so well. I was either mashing close to 160 or close to 140, but I'm not sure which because I think I might have misread the thermometer, but I might have read it correctly. I still hit an OG of 1.060, so I'm not too worried about it. I am definitely going to get a floating thermometer before I try a PM again though.

All in all it was a huge win because I gained some partial mash experience (aka learned some things not to do) and I'm going to get beer out of it too.

slowbie said:

I brewed this recipe on Saturday and I'm pretty sure the mash didn't go so well. I was either mashing close to 160 or close to 140, but I'm not sure which because I think I might have misread the thermometer, but I might have read it correctly. I still hit an OG of 1.060, so I'm not too worried about it. I am definitely going to get a floating thermometer before I try a PM again though.

All in all it was a huge win because I gained some partial mash experience (aka learned some things not to do) and I'm going to get beer out of it too.

Click to expand...

For a good mashing thermometer, go to Amazon.com and get an electronic kitchen thermometer, kind of like this one. Just put the probe in the middle of the mash, set the display on top of the cooler, and you're golden!

I racked this to secondary to dry hop today. I took a gravity reading and it got all the way down to 1.012

It smells amazing and I can't wait until this is in my glass.