thoughts on an IPA

This is going to be my first recipe thrown together on my own. I was looking for something heavy in Aroma with a piney/citrus taste. This is what I tried and it is already in the secondary.

9 lbs of DME
2 oz of Chinook @ 60 min
1 oz of Simcoe @ 30 min
1 oz of Northern Brewer @ 10 min
1 oz of Crystal @ flameout
2 oz of Citra for dryhop

WLP099 High gravity yeast

I didn't do a starter and I am learning that this is almost always used. The primary went really strong for about a week and then started to mellow out. I did put a blow off tube on the primary but I didn't realize that you were supposed to put the other end of the tube in water or another substance. I didn't have anything other than air. Anyways, I was wondering what everyones thoughts on the recipe were.

Thanks, Nick

looks to be a real bitter hop schedule without much of a malt backbone.

Your 60 and 30 minute additions are going to be mostly pure bittering without a whole lot of flavor. Then just 1oz under 20 minutes during the boil for flavoring. Your flameout and dry hop with be mostly aroma.

The beautiful thing about homebrewing is theres no real right or wrong when it comes to hopping beers. Try it, see what you get, learn from it and let us know what happens!!!!

i have never done citra as a dryhop, but chinook has a pretty good piney aroma to it as a dryhop. let us know how you like it!

2oz of Citra will give you a "punch in the nose!" mango aroma! I used half an ounce at flameout and half an ounce dry hopped once and the mango shined through like nothing I had ever experienced. 2oz will put mine to shame.

I just finished a kegged IPA tonight that was dry hopped with 1 oz of Citra. I thought it gave a great aroma and flavor to the brew. I got a mango taste early on, but it mellowed nicely to more citrusy.

I like the high AA% hops for dry hopping, especially Simcoe! :rockin:

You'll need some sort of caramel hop to balance the hop bitterness. On an IPA you want the hops to be the star, but you need a decent malt backbone too.

Enjoy the journey of exploring all the options you have in homebrewing...its really fun as you start crafting and tweaking your own recipes.

Specifically regarding your desire for "something heavy in Aroma with a piney/citrus taste," you're headed the right direction whenever you dry hop in order to get some great hop aroma. I personally love dry hopping with Amarillo.

For a piney/citrusy flavor, you can go with Ahtanum (piney and citrusy) or if you can't find that, go with both Simcoe (piney) and Centennial (citrusy) around 20-15 minutes instead of the Northern Brewer.

Finally, I personally love bittering with Chinook or Columbus hops.

dougdecinces said:

You'll need some sort of caramel hop to balance the hop bitterness. On an IPA you want the hops to be the star, but you need a decent malt backbone too.

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...unless your going for a West Coast IPA which is even more aggressive on the hops (bitter, flavor, aroma, and often dry-hopped) with hardly any malt character. For example, Stone Brewing's IPA only has about 10% specialty grain (15L)...the rest is standard 2-row.

West Coast IPA's aren't for everybody but I love 'em!

I forgot to mention the one pound of crystal40 for the specialty grain. Thanks for all the advice.
-Nick

surferdrew said:

...unless your going for a West Coast IPA which is even more aggressive on the hops (bitter, flavor, aroma, and often dry-hopped) with hardly any malt character. For example, Stone Brewing's IPA only has about 10% specialty grain (15L)...the rest is standard 2-row.

West Coast IPA's aren't for everybody but I love 'em!

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Of course, of course. I was alluding to only a nominal malt backbone--nothing to fancy. I brewed an IPA that had only 1.5 lbs of caramel malts for a 5 gallon batch and it turned out great.

Yum...now I've got IPA on the brain.

Just cracked some of these open last night. Super bitter and very high alcohol content. I was pretty buzzed after just two. Smell was great, very hoppy...but the hoppiness didn't come out in the taste. Not a bad beer, just didn't hit my target. Any suggestions?

My thoughts..... Change the hop schedule
Go with California ale yeast instead
Change some hops?

Thanks, Nick

I'd think that it would have alot of hop character, but my suggestion is that you sort of run the gamete of hops there. Let me explain, you're bittering with what I consider to be solid west coast IPA type hops, but then your flavor and flameout hops are more mild type hops that'd be used in beers that aren't featuring the hop.
Northern Brewer I think of as the hop used for california common and english beers. It's very mild IMO
Crystal is similar. Look up styles using Crystal and you'll see it in ESB, belgians, etc. Not really an IPA hop-forward beer type of hop.

You started out strong, I'd have kept going with the chinook and simcoe instead of NB and Crystal.