What specialty grains would you use for regional IIPA?

I want to brew an American IIPA meaning all American ingredients. I'm going for real high IBU 80+ and I want a decent malty backbone.

Partial mash, I'm using US 2-row. I was going to use some caramel 20L and 60L that I nicked from an IPA recipe, but now I've learned that real hoppy American ales aren't good with too much caramel. I am adding sugar to dry it out.

Any suggestions?

batches_brew said:

I want to brew an American IIPA meaning all American ingredients. I'm going for real high IBU 80+ and I want a decent malty backbone.

Partial mash, I'm using US 2-row. I was going to use some caramel 20L and 60L that I nicked from an IPA recipe, but now I've learned that real hoppy American ales aren't good with too much caramel. I am adding sugar to dry it out.

Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

Be sure to forward the memo to Rogue and Sierra Nevada.

remilard said:

Be sure to forward the memo to Rogue and Sierra Nevada.

Click to expand...

Are you being sarcastic? or do you agree. Tell me if I learned wrong. that would be more helpful, but thanks anyway. :rockin:

Many IPA recipes including American ones have caramel malt. Take a look in the recipe database and you'll see that caramel malt is a fairly common ingredient, so yes I think you got some bad info somewhere.

McKBrew said:

Many IPA recipes including American ones have caramel malt. Take a look in the recipe database and you'll see that caramel malt is a fairly common ingredient, so yes I think you got some bad info somewhere.

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Wuddya make of this?

http://www.brew-monkey.com/articles/Better_Hoppy_Beers.pdf

says keep your crystal malt to a minimum

As a percentage that isn't really bad advice, but probably based more on personal preference. If you only used one other malt like 2-row that would equate to about .5# which isn't a bad amount. Personally I like my IPA's a bit darker and sweeter and use about a pound for a typical batch. I can tell you from my experience that many west coast IPA's I've had are this way and are damned good.

Cool, thanks. how about this?

OG 1.078
4 lbs 2-row
.5 lbs caramel 10L
.5 lbs caramel 60L
1.5 lbs sugar
6 lbs extract

that's about 8% caramel. should I ease it back a little?

Thanks a lot.

batches_brew said:

Are you being sarcastic? or do you agree. Tell me if I learned wrong. that would be more helpful, but thanks anyway. :rockin:

Click to expand...

Celebration is easily 10% crystal and I think that it is a very good IPA. I like Vinnie's IPAs too.

Cool. I'm going to go for it. Cheers.

How does this look?

Partial Mash OG 1.080 IBU 104

Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 5.00 lb
US Caramel 10L Malt 0.50 lb
US Caramel 60L Malt 0.25 lb
German CaraAmber 0.25 lb
Extract - Light Liquid Malt Extract 6.00 lb
Sugar - White Sugar/Sucrose 1.00 lb

Hops
US Galena 12.0 % 2.15 oz Bagged Pellet Hops All Of Boil
US Cascade 5.5 % 1.00 oz Bagged Pellet Hops 15 Min From End
US Amarillo 9.3 % 0.50 oz Bagged Whole Hops 15 Min From End
US Cascade 5.5 % 0.50 oz Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Amarillo 9.3 % 0.50 oz Bagged Whole Hops At turn off
US Cascade 5.5 % 2.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops Dry-Hopped
US Amarillo 5.0 % 1.00 oz Loose Whole Hops Dry-Hopped

Yeast
DCL US-05 2 packets