Why are my IPA's so malty?

I want to brew a dank, bitter, super hoppy west coast style IPA. I've tried several times now, and what I get is more like an east coast IPA. Some good hoppiness, but also malt forward flavor.

Any suggestions off the top of your head?

Check your water. Get higher attenuation/lower finishing gravity. Go for a bitterness ratio of at least 1.8


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Show us a recipe and tell us what your doing

kcmobrewer said:

Check your water. Get higher attenuation/lower finishing gravity. Go for a bitterness ratio of at least 1.8


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Click to expand...

What is a bitterness ratio?

Heres a good article to explain: http://www.pencilandspoon.com/2012/11/forgot-ibu-think-about-bugu.html?m=1

Best to post your recipe and process and if you have a water report it would help as well. Water chemistry can play a big part in how your beer turns out. Some water make ups are better suited to certain styles than others but modifying your water or using different water sources can improve certain styles


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Go online and find a west coast IPA clone recipe and brew it.

Recipe and process will be necessary to decipher the problem.

It is like asking "Why is my spaghetti sauce so spicy?", without saying what went into the recipe.

Yeah, recipe is necessary to critique method, but definitely NO to 1.8 ratio, IMHO. Super bitter, not what I think of in the best West Coast IPAs. I make a darn good IPA (and I live on the west coast and they're never above 1.3 (unless it's above 100 IBUs which is theoretically not soluble). Lots of base malt, a little carapils (or wheat or something flaked) and cane sugar. Low or no crystal malt in the grain bill. Then lots and lots of hops, mostly late additions/whirlpool and 2 big dry hops, one in the keg. I use around 12 oz of high alpha hops in most of my IPAs, split between dank and citrusy varieties. This is also a great resource to start:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/top-10-tips-super-hoppy-ipa.html

I prefer them pretty bitter, just a personal preference. 1.3 will be good I'm sure


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Totally personal preference. Looking back some of my best Imperial IPAs were 1.5-1.6. I think it's a curve based on gravity. I also use a really light grain bill, often no crystal malt. I'm sure that factors in. Cheers!

Bitterness ratio is an utterly useless concept because of the recent rise of late hopping (aka hop bursting) and the inability of IBU formulas to correctly calculate IBUs for such additions. You can make a super-hoppy IPA with several oz of high-alpha late additions, at a calculated IBU of 20-30. Clearly the IBU formulas don't work.

Hopefully, this will help the poster and myself out. My pales and ipas, while I feel bitterness is great, have more of a malty flavor than most pales/ipas. Personally, I like malty beers, but if I were to submit a recipe to a competition i'm sure it would get knocked for malty obviously. Here is a recent recipe that I was told was too malty.

6lb 2-row 52%
5lb German Pils 43%
0.5lb Brown 4% - purely to up srm a smidge

1oz Apollo 17% - 60min
.25oz cluster 7% 10min
.5oz cascade 5.75% 0min - flameout

Safale US-05

(I have a small mashtun, 5gal, so I often have to lower my mash and raise my sparge water amount --- maybe my prob....)
3.8 gallon mash
3.8 gallon sparge - batch sparge

actual batch 5.5gal

mash temp 154f

I don't recall the exact fermentation process because a lot has been going on but it would have been about

10 days first stage 72f
10 days second stage 72f

natural carb in keg with ~4oz of priming suger (mix of 50/50 corn/table)

Then cold condition for a week or so.

In my opinion and all of my friends the beer came out delicious. Was told by several one of their favorite balances between bitterness, drinkability, etc.

OG 1054 - this is my target OG, I actually forgot to take a reading
FG 1011
abv 5.7%
srm 7
ibu 58

Not sure if this will help or not, but this is as detailed as I can recall on the process, ask any other questions if need be but thanks for your input. In general I have made other similar recipes that seem to come out malty as well, I think at least one thing I need is more aroma (maybe dry hope).

Thanks

Do you whirlpool? I noticed a huge change in hop aroma when I started whirlpooling 15-20 minutes after flameout. Also, looks like you don't have enough late addition hops in there and you definitely need to dry hop.

bkbillma said:

6lb 2-row 52%
5lb German Pils 43%
0.5lb Brown 4% - purely to up srm a smidge

1oz Apollo 17% - 60min
.25oz cluster 7% 10min
.5oz cascade 5.75% 0min - flameout


Thanks

Click to expand...

Well, the beer tastes malty since there are almost no hops in it.

You have plenty of bittering hops, perhaps too much for the amount of malt. But you have .25 oz ounce of cluster, and .5 ounces of cascade later in the boil. That is almost nothing, and especially for an IPA.

First, cluster doesn't have much flavor at all, and .25 ounces is like adding two granules of salt to an order of french fries- way too little to even make a difference.

For an IPA, you want something more like:
.5 oz bittering hops 60 minutes
1 oz flavor hops 15 minutes
1oz aroma hops 5 minutes
1 oz aroma hops 0 minutes
Dryhop with 2 oz hops

Go with traditional IPA hops, if you are unsure of which ones you like. For an American IPA, you can't go wrong with cascade, centennial, chinook, amarillo, etc.

I agree with not enough late hops.
My last batch was an amber ale with more hops then that in the late add or at least the same.
Im thinking you need to dry hop the sheet out of it.

+1 on what Yooper said. I also think your mash temperature is a little high. I usually mash my IPA's around 150°F

Make some smash pale ales.

10# base malt, mash at 150*F
Equivalent of 4oz of 7.5%ish hops - 1 @60, 1 @ 15, 2 @ flameout
1 pack S05
Dry hop with additional 1-2 oz

Thanks for the input, I think for me (not sure if it helps the OG poster) I try to go for ibu but don't do aroma enough, and prolly mash to high as one stated. Thanks a ton guys and/or girls.

TBH I started making my own recipes way before I should have. I started brewing like I cook and just make stuff up basically, only the last few months have a spent more time on BJCP and such.

You're halfway there with a keg. Toss some hops in there and force carbonate for two weeks as the keg chills. Use US-05 to ferment.

I agree with the others about the total amount of hops. I tend to push it a bit more, but 5 or 6 ounces should make you a nice hoppy IPA.

Try this
1.5 oz Columbus FWH
1 oz Centennial 10
1 oz each Centennial and Cascade whirlpool
1 oz each Centennial, Cascade and and 0.5 oz Columbus keg hop

For your fermentables, try something like this mashed at 151...
12 lbs 2 row
.5 lbs light crystal or honey malt
.5 lbs carapils
.75 lbs sugar

Follow the above and you should have a solid IPA, light in color with nice bitterness and a light sweetness... but far from what I would call malty. The hops are cheap, easy to come by and always go well together.

Oh, on the note of whirlpool, and maybe another factor. I do not whirlpool, and I also try to keep as much of the hop sediment out of my fermenter as possible. I watched someone transfer to fermenter and try to get a lot of the hop junk in there recently, so figure that may be a part of it as well. I have only been brewing regularly for about a year now, and I brew on average every 12-15 days the past 10-11 months. I am at a stage where I want to get a couple of home beers that I brew semi reg as well as some seasonals, and ipa/pale is something that has always been on the malty side from my recipes.

Thanks to everyone for their replies. I don't have water testing equipment nor the patience for it, it is what it is. I use R/O water. Here is the last recipe I brewed, a scaled down 4 gallon version:

8.4# Pale 2-row
1.00 Crystal 40L
.40 Carapils
1oz Chinook @ 60;
.50 oz Chinook @ 30;
.75 Chinook @ flamout
.25 Cascade + 1oz Centennial Dry hop

I mashed at 152 using a ratio of 1.25 quarts per lb of grain. I fly sparged using approximately 1.5x the amount of strike water. My yeast was US-05.

The beer came out clear enough, looks good, but the aroma isn't the dankness I had hoped for and the tasted is very, very similar to an east coast IPA, more malty than hoppy. I'm a bit of a hop head, so the average beer drinker would probably say it's plenty hoppy, but c'mon, you hop heads know what I mean.

I don't remember the original and final gravity readings, but they were in line with what's to be expected. It finished around 6.8% ABV.

Hope this helps......

You doing a whirlpool after flameout? How long you dry hopping? When are you dry hopping?
Maybe add some hops at 15 mins and 5 mins of the boil? Also, are you putting them in loose or in a hop bag?
I would say try try changing one thing at a time.
Want more bitterness? Add more during the boil. More hop aroma and flavor without the bitterness? Do a 30 min whirlpool after your flameout addition. Do a taste test before and
during your dry hop to see if you should extend it.
If you are a real hop head, your recipe isn't all that hoppy compared to some others I've seen. There are online IBU calculators available. What is your total IBU?

OP, do you know what your OG and FG figures were? It really looks to me like there isn't a lot of hops in the recipe. There is almost nothing in late additions.

Without knowing the FG figure, I'm guessing maybe not enough attenuation, too little late hop additions, not enough dry hopping, and maybe a bit too much crystal. But again, really just guessing here. I know you said you don't care to worry about water chem, but it's recently come to light (at least for me) that your water chem can really affect the hop profile of late additions. The presence of chlorine and/or chloramine will dull and soften the hop flavors. Removing these will brighten them up. I have put off water chemistry for so long because it seemed complicated, but I got sick of making dull beers and couldn't think of any where else to make improvements. This might help: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/understanding-brewing-water.html

Hope this helps! Best of luck.

OP, you might want to add a little gypsum to your RO water to enhance the bitterness as well

The hop quantities don't really stand out to me as being a problem. That should settle in plenty bitter. I could see some improvement from gypsum being added to the boil. Don't add it to the mash. 1 tsp in 5 gallons would be plenty. The thing that sticks out to me is the pound of crystal 40. The more IPA's I make the more I move away from crystal. I slowly moved down the scale to 10L and even then at only a half a pound. Now I use no crystal in IPA's and instead use 10L Munich for maltiness. I believe that an IPA should be light in body and should be very hop forward. Crystal malts can easily overpower things and over time as the hopiness decreases, the flavors of crystal malt will become stronger. If it's malty when young, just wait until it ages! I don't like the raisin flavors that develop from crystal over time. It only gets worse the darker it is. If you want to keep crystal in the recipe, I'd stick to 10L, 15L or 20L and no more than 1/2 lb in a 5 gallon batch. I also like my IPA's to be dryer. I mash mine for 90 minutes at 149°. An IPA was originally a very light beer. The lightest. Pilsners sought to copy their color. While I use some Vienna and Munich in mine and it isn't ultra light, it still favors lower body and more maltiness hints in flavor as opposed to crystal sweetness. I've also moved my own hopping to be only bittering hops at the beginning of the boil, finishing hops at flameout, and dry hopping for no more than 7 days in the secondary. That's my take on it.

I would second what round house said. I use Maris otter rather then Munich but take your choice. If you want more color add an ounce of debittered black malt.

If you want more dankness add another 3/4 oz chinook at 10 minutes.

Hummm this starting to sound good. Might have to add it to my list.


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To sixth (or seventh) what the previous 5 or 6 posters said:

• You got too much crystal 40L malt. Cut that to 0.5# and/or swap it for 20L, Victory, or Munich malt.
• You need more late hops. As in 1 to 2 more oz, added during wort cooling / whirlpooling, and allowed to sit 30 min.
• You could use more dry hop, maybe 2-3oz total.
• You have to get your sulfate level up if you want the hops to pop. In IPA's I've recently been going as high as 300ppm sulfate (and only 50-60ppm chloride), starting from distilled water, and that has made a world of difference.

Yes, and as mentioned earlier, cool your mash a bit. going above 150 will bring out more of that malt flavor. Dropping it to 150 or even a tad lower will kick up the fermentable sugars and bring out more of the hops character.

ArizonaGoalie said:

Thanks to everyone for their replies. I don't have water testing equipment nor the patience for it, it is what it is. I use R/O water. Here is the last recipe I brewed, a scaled down 4 gallon version:

8.4# Pale 2-row
1.00 Crystal 40L
.40 Carapils
1oz Chinook @ 60;
.50 oz Chinook @ 30;
.75 Chinook @ flamout
.25 Cascade + 1oz Centennial Dry hop

I mashed at 152 using a ratio of 1.25 quarts per lb of grain. I fly sparged using approximately 1.5x the amount of strike water. My yeast was US-05.

The beer came out clear enough, looks good, but the aroma isn't the dankness I had hoped for and the tasted is very, very similar to an east coast IPA, more malty than hoppy. I'm a bit of a hop head, so the average beer drinker would probably say it's plenty hoppy, but c'mon, you hop heads know what I mean.

I don't remember the original and final gravity readings, but they were in line with what's to be expected. It finished around 6.8% ABV.

Hope this helps......

Click to expand...

I'd definitely lower the crystal malt- with the crystal and carapils, you have about 14% crystal malt. That's too much. Go with 7% crystal malt in whatever form you choose as a max.

Then, move the 30 minute hops to 0 minutes, and add a couple more ounces at 15 and 5. Add 2 ounces at flameout. Dryhop with 2 ounces or thereabouts.

Add 1 teaspoon of gypsum per 5 gallons of RO water used, so probably 1.5 teaspoons total, to your mash water. Also, one of the things that could be an issue here is mash pH. If you take a look at something like the water calculator in Brewer's Friend, EZ water, or Bru'nwater, target a mash pH of 5.4 or so. I think your mash pH may be higher than that, also causing some loss of hops flavors.

I think just these simple tweaks will take your IPAs over the top to great!

What these guys said. I use only 2 row, munich 20 (for color and a little flavor), and a bit of oats or wheat for mouthfeel to compensate for lack of residual sugar (crystal malt) and lower mash temps. I would knock out the carapils altogether unless your having retention issues which I would doubt using RO.
You can use a simple water calculator to figure some mineral additions:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/
Water chemistry can spiral quickly, so right now I would focus on a gypsum addition (1g/gal) to boost your Ca content (yeast health) and sulfates (hop pop), then maybe a little epsom salt (.5g/gal) for a little Mg (yeast health).
Not really knowing your volumes etc. I'm guessing this would put you in PH range with a decent amount of Ca and Mg and roughly 200ppm on the sulfates. You could push it higher with the gypsum if you wanted to.

Are you currently treating your water at all?

You need more late addition hops.... and +1 on are you doing anything to treat your water? If not you should at the very least follow Yoopers suggestions, as usual she is on point!

Edited to add: take a look at what a happy west coast ipa recipe looks like here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/stone-enjoy-ipa-420167/

I love dank IPAs too, Breakside IPA out of Portland is my absolute favorite but I can't get it here in MN. I emailed the brewery and they gave me the hops they use: Columbus at 60 and 30 minutes, falconers flight at 10, and what they called "insane amounts" of citra at flame out and for dry hopping. They didn't give me amounts but I figured an ounce for each boil addition and 3 oz at flame out, with 3 more dry hopping would do it. If you want dank, give this a shot!


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