IIPA Recipe for review

Lately, I have wanted to go back to simpler recipes (there is beauty in simplicity). Here is an Imperial IPA I think I'm going to brew tomorrow. I have amber malt on hand and have never used it, I figured I'll give it a whirl. I have 1.2 lbs of Amarillo, hence, why I'm using only that (and because they are the best hop-ever). I am going the hop burst method for this one (first time experiment). The corn sugar is to dry it out a bit and boost the gravity. Oh, I'm a ridiculous hop head, I live right by 3 Floyds so...

5 gallon batch

Anticipated OG 1.095

16.00 #'s Pilsner malt
1.00 #'s Amber malt
1.00 #'s Corn sugar

.25 oz Amarillo 60 min
.50 oz Amarillo 45 min
1.50 oz Amarillo 30 min
2.00 oz Amarillo 10 min
3.00 oz Amarillo 5 min HAHAHAHA
2.00 oz Amarillo 1 min
??? oz Amarillo Dry Hop

Mash @ 149 for 60 min

Thoughts? Criticisms? What do you guys think?
Thanks,
Adam

What yeast are you using? Do you have an FG that you are shooting for? The corn sugar scares me a bit.

The hops schedule looks good to me. You have hops at every point, which is what you want. I think the late hops will work out nicely, especially since you love Amarillo.

As a point of reference, here is the recipe for Blue Dot Imperial IPA given to me by the brewer at Hair of The Dog. Nice and simple:

For 10 gal Blue Dot, 30lb Organic Pilsner and 5 lb flaked rye. 7oz hops 75 min, 7oz 30min and 7oz end of boil. 12oz in the secondary fermenter
I like strong hops, any will do.

Click to expand...

I had to scale the grain down for my high efficiency, but I'm making this on Friday.

Your recipe looks good except that I have never worked with amber malt before. Maybe sub it out for rye if you have some and it will be darn close to Blue Dot. I know Hair of the Dog uses a lot of Amarillo also.

I'm using 1056 for a yeast

I like amber malt- but I use 6 ounces in 5 gallons of my DFH clone. It's pretty noticeable, so you may want to consider scaling it back to .50 pound unless you're sure.

1056 is a pretty good attenuator. I would probably scale back the corn sugar and get a more fermentable wort by going with a thinner mash. That's just me though since I'm unsure how the corn sugar will affect the final flavor. If you need a higher OG, you probably wouldn't be able to detect a pound of DME, but that would complicate your attenuation.

I'd definitely keep the corn sugar. That's a big beer, and without the corn sugar, I'm not sure it will get as dry as I would like, personally. CA Ale/1056 can attenuate well, but I haven't been able to get it to work as I would like it to in a beer of this size. It needs a little help.

For example, Pliny is a much smaller beer (around 1.074), but it uses a pretty low mash temp (150-152) AND a pound of sugar. There are a few variations out there, but this is pretty close to all of them:

Pliny The Elder

I guarantee you won't notice the corn sugar in the flavor of the finished beer. The "cidery" taste most people reference just hasn't showed up in anything I've brewed, even with more sugar than you're using. Unless you're using a TON of it, I don't think it's a risk to the flavor of your beer, especially with all the hops you're using.

the corn sugar is fine. i have brewed 3 iipas lately and all of them have had a pound of corn sugar in them. you will not taste it in the final product its just to dry it out a bit. i would definatly dry hop this thing mabey 3oz or so. i love amarillo and like the way this recipe is going.

I may cut down the amber a bit after eating some of it today, it's strong tasting. 10 oz maybe.

Yes, keep the sugar. As for the amber, I think I'd cut back a bit too, maybe even to 8 oz.

I'd think about doubling the corn sugar

Well, I like it too. I try to get around 60% of my IBU's as bittering, the rest I try to get out of the 20min or less. I am not sure if you have enough bitter or not. Otherwise, it looks good.

I ended up cutting the amber malt to 8 oz; I'm glad I did. The wort has a nice orange tint to it. The amount of hop sludge in the kettle is ridiculous. It chills as we speak.