Ithaca Flower Power Clone - Thoughts?

Hey all,

I'm attempting my first clone recipe in trying to match Ithaca's Flower Power IPA. I found the grain bill, which is pretty straightforward:

14 lb American Two-row Pale
8 oz Honey Malt
6 oz Acidulated Malt (edit from 8 oz)

The Hop Additions, however, were a bit more tricky:

boil 60 mins 0.5oz Centennial
boil 60 mins 0.5oz Simcoe
boil 30 mins 0.5oz Centennial
boil 30 mins 0.5oz Simcoe
boil 15 mins 1.0oz Ahtanum
boil 15 mins 1.0oz Cascade
boil 1 min 1.0oz Ahtanum
boil 1 min 1.0oz Cascade
boil 1 min 1.0oz Centennial
dry hop 7 days 1.0oz Cascade
dry hop 7 days 0.5oz Chinook
dry hop 7 days 1.0oz Citra
dry hop 7 days 1.0oz Simcoe
dry hop 7 days 0.5oz Sorachi Ace

This equals out to about 75.5 IBU on hopville.com, which is right on target. I used the Ithaca website for the hop varieties, and added the Citra and Sorachi Ace because some internet snooping revealed they may use these as well to dry hop the beer.

Thoughts on these hop choices/amounts/times? Again, this is my first attempt at coming up with my own hop schedule based on a specific beer I'm trying to clone, so any input would be greatly appreciated.

I also haven't settled on a yeast yet, so any suggestions from Flower Power fans would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

Subscribed because this is my favorite IPA, one of the few I personally can drink more than one of. I visited the brewery last year and they wouldn't tell me anything! I'm going to see if I can find some this week to refresh my memory with so I can help out.

FWIW, I wrote BYO about cloning this beer for the Replicator column and they wrote back stating that it is one of their most requested beers. Hopefully they get around to it one day.

Airborneguy said:

Subscribed because this is my favorite IPA, one of the few I personally can drink more than one of. I visited the brewery last year and they wouldn't tell me anything! I'm going to see if I can find some this week to refresh my memory with so I can help out.

FWIW, I wrote BYO about cloning this beer for the Replicator column and they wrote back stating that it is one of their most requested beers. Hopefully they get around to it one day.

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In a ballsy move on my part, I actually contacted Ithaca and flat out asked for their hop schedule. Needless to say, I didn't receive a response........ Worth a shot, though!

Regarding trying to figure out the hops, it feels akin to trying to figure out how gravity works after taking a single physics class...

They change Flower Power every year. I emailed them a couple years ago, because they changed the site and I was trying to figure out which version I had tasted, and they responded saying they change based quality & availability of hops for the season. 3 years ago it was 2-row, munich & honey malt, with Cascade, Palisade, & Simcoe. Then 2 years ago it was 2-row, honey malt with Ahtanum, Cascade & Columbus and then Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe for dryhops. Then it next said Cascade, Citra, & Simcoe for dryhop. Last year it said Chinook, Simcoe, Citra, Ahtanum, with Centennial, Simcoe, & Amarillo dryhop. And now their site says different hops this year too. I would just go off whatever they list when you had it and go from there. The only consistent thing everytime has been Simcoe in the dry hop.

IMac6 - did the recipe you found include acidilated malt or did you add based on your water profile?

pickles said:

IMac6 - did the recipe you found include acidilated malt or did you add based on your water profile?

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Both. I found it online, but I also know that my water is basic and has carbonates like many municipal water supplies, so the acidulated couldn't hurt. Should I back off on it a bit?

Can anyone possibly convert this to 5 gal Partial Mash? I am not all that sure of conversions as of yet.

PLEASE!!!

I wouldn't add acidulated malt unless I knew what pH resulted when mashing that grist with my brewing water. That amount would drop your pH by roughly 0.2; which is significant.

pickles said:

I wouldn't add acidulated malt unless I knew what pH resulted when mashing that grist with my brewing water. That amount would drop your pH by roughly 0.2; which is significant.

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Okay. What would you replace it with? More 2-row or the Honey malt? I don't want it too sweet, so I don't think I would want to add too much more Honey to that.

Since conversion works better at lower pH, what is the harm of using a little too much acidulated?

Perhaps, but how low; 5.0, 4.5, 4.25? If you don't know what the pH is you can't make an assumption to its adjustment. Ideally you want your mash to hav a pH of 5.2-5.4 at room temp. Id just leave it out and not replace it; or just add its amount as base malt. To stay on topic; I love this beer! I think I'll give it a go this Friday. What is the batch size for the recipe listed?

pickles said:

I love this beer! I think I'll give it a go this Friday. What is the batch size for the recipe listed?

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It's 5.5 gallons with an average boil of 6-6.5 gals over 90 mins. Given my setup, I start with 8 gals of wort and boil down to 5.5.

The hop varieties and schedule are my best guess given the Ithaca website and my Hopville calculations. I'm thinking California ale yeast or American Ale yeast from Wyeast for this, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm also going to give this a shot on Saturday - I'm going to show some friends who have extract brewed the all-grain process. Don't worry, we have plenty of Classic American Pilsner in the keg to use as "supplemental educational materials".

For some reason, I thought only Pilsener malt and 5% Honey malt was used in this beer. *Scratches head* - I think I remember hearing on good authority that this was the case. Maybe a combo of American 2-row pale and German 2-row pils?

Frankiesurf said:

Can anyone possibly convert this to 5 gal Partial Mash? I am not all that sure of conversions as of yet.

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It's easy. What's your starting boil volume? Hopefully, you would be doing a full wort boil.

bobbrews said:

For some reason, I thought only Pilsener malt and 5% Honey malt was used in this beer. *Scratches head* - I think I remember hearing on good authority that this was the case. Maybe a combo of American 2-row pale and German 2-row pils?

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Regarding the grain bill, I've seen several different recipes listed for the Flower Power. The one I've seen the most is the american 2 row and the honey with acidulated if necessary.

bobbrews said:

It's easy. What's your starting boil volume? Hopefully, you would be doing a full wort boil.

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Agreed. For a mega-hopped beer like this, you need to do a full boil or else you will not get the hop utilization necessary to achieve the :rockin:awesome factor:rockin: of the Flower Power IPA.

So, I went with the Whitbread yeast from Wyeast. The starter is vortexing on the stir plate as I type. I decided I'm going to use some pilsner malt in place of the two row as well.

Okay, brewed today. Made some modifications to the recipe (see http://hopville.com/recipe/1266227/american-ipa-recipes/flower-power-clone).

Mashed at 154 degrees for 75 mins, mashed out and batch sparged to approx 9 gallons. Boiled for about 110-120 mins to get down to the volume I wanted. OG of 1.078, just about 5.75 gal went into the fermenter to give some wiggle room for losses to the dry hopping. Pitched the starter at 66 degrees. Looks fantastic, even the wort tastes great. I can't wait for this one to be ready!

Mash temp (154) and projected FG (1.021) look a little high to really be a clone of this beer. I doubt that yeast will attenuate much further than 72%. Lastly, I would've moved those 30 minute hop additions to 10. These are minor things though. You should still have a good IPA on your hands.

I would definitely recommend keeping this in the primary for 2 weeks as low in the 60s as possible. Then following up in the secondary for another 10-12 days on the dryhops (instead of 7). I've done it many times, and this seems to be the sweet spot for an IPA like this. You'll definitely get a blast of citrusy, fruity aroma.

Keep us posted.

bobbrews said:

Mash temp (154) and projected FG (1.021) look a little high to really be a clone of this beer. I doubt that yeast will attenuate much further than 72%. Lastly, I would've moved those 30 minute hop additions to 10. These are minor things though. You should still have a good IPA on your hands.

I would definitely recommend keeping this in the primary for 2 weeks as low in the 60s as possible. Then following up in the secondary for another 10-12 days on the dryhops (instead of 7). I've done it many times, and this seems to be the sweet spot for an IPA like this. You'll definitely get a blast of citrusy, fruity aroma.

Keep us posted.

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Thanks for the feedback! I figured as much with the FG. I intended this to be one of those "instructional" beers in that I would learn something new about my process/recipe/brewing skills each time I made it.

I already learned one thing - I ALWAYS need to start off with a blowoff tube. I came home this evening to see that the airlock had blown off inside my son-of-a-fermentation-chiller. Any big beer will need one, apparently. Lesson learned.

Dry hop day 6 - I tasted the beer and it is amazing :rockin:. Smells of passionfruit and grapefruit, tastes very balanced with a good bitterness and a great mouthfeel.

I made the mistake with the Whitbread yeast of allowing the fermentation temperature to drop too low during primary fermentation. As a result, when I racked the beer to the secondary the gravity was still at 1.028. However, today it was measured at 1.024, which is almost down to the FG, which leads me to believe the yeast has been working now the temperature is back up to around 70 degrees. So, I figure a few more days on the hops will bring the gravity down a few more points so it will be ready to keg.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to filter out the dry hops and recover as much liquid as I can from the hop leaves! So far so good!

How is the bitterness of your version? I have seen another version with 130+ IBU's.

I will be doing a partial mash with
6lbs of Extra Light DME Edit:(3lbs @ 60min, 3lbs @ FO)
2 pounds American 2 row,
1lb Honey Malt
8 oz Caramel 60 L in a 3 gallon boil.

The hop schedule is

1.5oz Centennial @60
1.0oz Amarillo @45
1.0oz Simcoe @30
1.0oz Ahtanum @20
2.0oz Cascade @10
1.0oz Chinook @5
Irish Moss @15
dry hop: 1oz each of Amarillo, Chinook, Simcoe leaf for 7 days


I am at odds on the IBU's though. With the 3 gal boil (5 gal batch) the IBU from the other (AG full boil) recipe drops to 126 but I am fearing that this is much too bitter.

I love the aroma and flavor of Flower Power but I don't want to be tearing up after every sip.

Frankiesurf said:

How is the bitterness of your version? I have seen another version with 130+ IBU's.

I will be doing a partial mash with
6lbs of Extra Light DME Edit:(3lbs @ 60min, 3lbs @ FO)
2 pounds American 2 row,
1lb Honey Malt
8 oz Caramel 60 L in a 3 gallon boil.

The hop schedule is

1.5oz Centennial @60
1.0oz Amarillo @45
1.0oz Simcoe @30
1.0oz Ahtanum @20
2.0oz Cascade @10
1.0oz Chinook @5
Irish Moss @15
dry hop: 1oz each of Amarillo, Chinook, Simcoe leaf for 7 days


I am at odds on the IBU's though. With the 3 gal boil (5 gal batch) the IBU from the other (AG full boil) recipe drops to 126 but I am fearing that this is much too bitter.

I love the aroma and flavor of Flower Power but I don't want to be tearing up after every sip.

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It is a very balanced bitterness. I think 130 IBUs would be downright unpleasant given the flavor that 75 IBUs provides. The magic is less in the boil hops and more in the dry hops. The dry hops shouldn't figure into the total IBUs, so that may be where someone got 130 from - by entering dry hops as boil hops in the recipe calculator. Either way, make sure to use a yeast that will get you down to at least a 1.015 FG or lower - the Whitbread Ale yeast I used only got me down to 1.021. I would also look into combining some of those hop additions and do the 5 and 10 minute ones at flameout. How about Simcoe at 40 mins and Ahtanum & Amarillo at 20mins? It'll be great regardless. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply and clearing up the hops issue.

I adjusted the hop schedule to decrease the IBU's to 74.5.

60 mins 0.7 Centennial 10.
40 mins 0.75 Simcoe 13.0
20 mins 1.0 Ahtanum 6.0
20 mins 1.0 Amarillo 7.0
FO 2.0 Cascade 5.5
FO 1.0 Chinook 13.0

dry hop 7 days 1.0 Amarillo 7.0
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Chinook 13.0
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Simcoe 13.0


I am thinking of using WLP007 for the medium/high attenuation and high flocculation.