Conan Rye IIPA - thoughts?

I'm kegging a pale ale with conan yeast this weekend and looking to do a IIPA with some of the cake. How's this sound?

5.5gal, OG: 1.09ish, IBUs: 120ish, SRM 7ish

15# 2-row (75%)
3# rye (15%)
0.5# Honey Malt (2.5%)
0.5# Viennna (2.5%)
1# sugar (5%)

2oz CTZ @60
2oz CTZ @30
2oz CTZ @5
2oz Amarillo @0
2oz Centennial @0
4oz Simcoe @0
2oz Amarillo @Dry Hop
1.5oz Centennial @Dry Hop
2.5oz Simcoe @Dry Hop
Conan slurry

mash @148F, ferment @64F

A little heavy/hefty for my liking. I would cut some of the fermentables & hops and then mash 3 degrees higher.

What do you expect to gain from 2.5% Vienna Malt?

What are your goals with the hop schedule? Something Pliny-esque it appears? But with 20 oz. hops!!

For only 5 - 5.5 gallons after fermentation, 2 oz. hops at 5 min. + 8 oz. hops at 0 min. + 6 oz. hops at dryhop combined with the peachy/fruity Conan will yield "fruity hop juice" instead of beer.

seems really aggressive. But hey, 20oz of hops could be fun. I just see it as overkill. I see nothing wrong with the grainbill but you will see some diminishing returns in the hop schedule

The only thing you really need to tone down is that flameout addition. 8oz is way more than needed, even for a massive double IPA. I'd cut it in half. That's the only glaring issue, everything below this is subtle tweaks.

6oz of dry hops is fine -- Amarillo/Centennial/Simcoe all blend beautifully. Consider dividing that six ounces up into multiple additions though.

Grain bill looks good. I agree with Bob that the Vienna should probably be increased, or gotten rid of completely. You're not going to get much character from 2.5%. 5-7% would be better, assuming you want to taste it.

My two final notes: Extend your rest at that temperature. Consider mashing for 75-90min to make sure it fully converts. Secondly, don't pitch onto your entire yeast cake. Use a pitch rate calculator. mrmalty works well.

I would move 2 oz to Fwh, 2oz @ 60, cut and out the 30, bring the cenntenial to 15, amarillo to 10, and continuously hop with simcoe 5-0.
You should get more piney fruity tones with the bitterness to back it up. I like the amount of hops your using but i think more hops in the boil would do it better.

Also your going to loose all that honey malt and vienna behind the rye.
Not to crazy about huge rye DIPAs. IMO rye needs to shine and all these hops are going to mask it.
Cut the rye to 2 pounds and replace with vienna. Never crazy about honey malt also. I would mash higher if you want that residual sweetness.

Too many hops are gonna make that beer taste like yard clippings, come back with the hop amount. Less is more with hops, there is a point where your just completely overloading senses and you taste less of the actual hops in your beer.

I like the amount of hops, I don't think you can add too much from 5 min to flameout. We are talking about IIPA here. This guy on basic brewing http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr04-12-12hopbomb.mp3 added a kg of hops at flameout, and it actually tasted pretty good according to James.

ok i guess i left a few details out of the OP

-mash will be for 90mins
-the flameout add is being split at KO and 15mins later once I've cooled it a bit
-the dry hop is being split over 4 adds
-only using 1-2cups of the cake (depending on thickness)

agreed, 20oz of hops is a lot, but I don't get the complaints about it. will i get diminished returns? probably. will it be detrimental to the beer? i doubt it. will it be "fruity hop juice"? no. we're only talking about an oz more of late hops than Mike's PtY clone (9oz flameout btw): http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/12/pliny-younger-clone-recipe.html

anyway, I decided I wanted it a lil darker & danker, so here's an updated recipe:
5.5Gal, 1.09ish OG, 120ish IBUs, 8.5ish SRM
15# 2-row
3# rye
0.5# melanoidin
0.5# caramunich I
1# sugar

1.5oz CTZ @60
1.5oz CTZ @30
1oz Amarillo @5
1oz Centennial @5
2oz CTZ @5
2oz Simcoe @5
1oz Amarillo @0
1oz Centennial @0
2oz Simcoe @0
1.25oz Amarillo @DH
1.25oz Centennial @DH
1.5oz CTZ @DH
2.5oz Simcoe @DH
conan slurry

Trust me... It's gonna be fruity hop juice.

I hope this recipe turns out well, as I have something very similar planned for tomorrow. Imperial Rye IPA, Summit, Nugget, CTZ and Cascade, fermented with WLP006 Bedford. I'm comfortable with diminished returns; I have over 4lbs of pellets in my freezer and keep having to talk myself out of buying more. If I end up with 2 cases of fruity hop juice, I suppose there are worse fates.

dcp27 said:

I'm kegging a pale ale with conan yeast this weekend and looking to do a IIPA with some of the cake. How's this sound?

5.5gal, OG: 1.09ish, IBUs: 120ish, SRM 7ish

15# 2-row (75%)
3# rye (15%)
0.5# Honey Malt (2.5%)
0.5# Viennna (2.5%)
1# sugar (5%)

2oz CTZ @60
2oz CTZ @30
2oz CTZ @5
2oz Amarillo @0
2oz Centennial @0
4oz Simcoe @0
2oz Amarillo @Dry Hop
1.5oz Centennial @Dry Hop
2.5oz Simcoe @Dry Hop
Conan slurry

mash @148F, ferment @64F

Click to expand...

I don't know if I'd brew it, but I'd certainly want to drink some!

bobbrews said:

Trust me... It's gonna be fruity hop juice.

Click to expand...

Is that a bad thing? I mean, the point of an iipa is to showcase hops, so wouldnt fruity hop juice be the ideal?

Fruity hop juice actually sounds kind of awesome imho...

I've brewed fruity hop juice a couple times. It's awesome when you are new at brewing and you create something that tastes different. But it's more juice-like in flavor and less identifiable as beer. Especially when you start throwing in tons of Citra, Topaz, Amarillo, Galaxy, and similar fruity hops.

If someone gave me a glass of fruity hop juice before I knew anything about brewing, there would be no way I would believe it was beer I was drinking. I'm a total hophead, but I guess I prefer beer flavor with lots of hops. Not hop juice with little to no beery-ness.

You need to really think about the % of your additions (beginning, middle, late, dryhop) in order to have something like PtE. Brewing that way is definitely a craft. To produce something smooth and beer-like with tons of hop character, but not so much that it yield "juice".

The OP has the right idea, but may want to shift the hops around a bit and use less overall. Though I wonder how the higher OG (but similar FG as Pliny) will work here in the end if he were to brew as is. Thoughts? I think he needs more early & middle additions, and less late & dryhop additions.

Remember, PtE only uses 12.5 oz. total hops for about the same batch size in the fermenter:
-----(Hop Additions = 28% early, 14% middle, 28% late, and 30% dryhop)

So you will have hop juice if you're upping that to 20 oz. hops and follow something like:
-----(Hop Additions = 10% early, 10% middle, 40% late, and 40% dryhop)

The more hops added late, the more that fruity/juicy character will dominate. Not to mention he is ALSO using fruity Conan yeast. Pliny uses clean Cali yeast.