Plain old American IPA

CornyKegs 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Yooper

Yooper

Ale's What Cures You!
Staff member
Admin
Mod
HBT Supporter
Joined
Jun 4, 2006
Messages
75,115
Reaction score
13,266
Location
UP/Snowbird in Florida
I want to brew today, and I have a need for some hops. What do you guys think of something like this:

11 pounds US two-row
1 pound Crystal 10L
.75 pound Munich malt
.25 pound Crystal 40L

1.25 Centennial (FWH)
1.00 ounce centennial (10 minutes)
1.00 ounce Simcoe (5 minutes)
1.00 ounce Amarillo (0 minutes)

Neutral dry yeast- probably S-05. Mash low at 149-150, to get full attenuation.
Simple, but hoppy?
 
Looks good, on the hig side of the scale with crystal it seems. Nice hop combo, I just used the same three on an IPA I brewed yesterday and the smell of the wort was amazing. If you've got enough, you might want to consider using simcoe for your FWH addition. It has the lowes cohumulone of the three hops you're using and would provide a smoother bitterness. It may not ne significant enough to be noticable though so your original recipe would probably be awesome.
 
yeah, I've never used that much Crystal before. I have to go check and see what I have- if I don't have crystal 10L, then I may just use .50 pound of Crystal 20L instead.

I do have plenty of simcoe, so I may want to FWH with it. I will wait to see if it's going to be dryhopped. Thanks for the input!
 
The only thing I would do is swap the amounts of Munich and Crystal 10L.


Hope you have some brew assistants on this Mother's Day morning!
 
yeah, I remember you saying several times in the past that you didn't like a lot of crystal in your IPAs and preferred them dry. I thought maybe you were trying something new to go along with the new name though! :)
 
I would go 1 to 1.5#'s on the munich and skip the 10l altogether. And I wouldn't fwh the centennial. Who want's smooth bitterness in an IPA?:D

I am not a fan of the fwh.
 
Well, I ended up making a few changes- thanks! I kept the Munich the same, but didn't have any crystal 10L anyway. I did have crystal 20L, but thought one pound of crystal combos would be good, so used .75 pound of it. I decided to drop the centennial to 60 minutes and to 1 ounce (thanks wildwest) and go ahead and use .25 ounce of simcoe for FWH. I had a stray .25 ounce waiting to be used. So, the final recipe came out to be:

11 pounds US two-row
.75 pound Crystal 20L
.75 pound Munich malt
.25 pound Crystal 40L

.25 Simcoe (FWH)
1.00 Centennial (60 minutes)
1.00 ounce centennial (10 minutes)
1.00 ounce Simcoe (5 minutes)
1.00 ounce Amarillo (0 minutes)


Better? Or just different?

should be OG of about 1.067, and IBUs at 59.
 
I've been wanting to brew an IPA for a while. I've never brewed one before. :eek:

The hops you have listed there are the same varieties I have sitting in my freezer. I think I may give this one a try as well. I may have to special order a few packs of US-05 from my LHBS since that is reportedly one of the best strains for American IPAs.
 
Doog_Si_Reeb said:
I've been wanting to brew an IPA for a while. I've never brewed one before. :eek:

The hops you have listed there are the same varieties I have sitting in my freezer. I think I may give this one a try as well. I may have to special order a few packs of US-05 from my LHBS since that is reportedly one of the best strains for American IPAs.
Click to expand...

I LOVE s-05 for IPAs, but have also really liked Nottingham if it's fermented really low (like 60-62 degrees). For liquid yeast, I've really liked Pacific ale yeast, WLP001, and Wyeast 1056 in IPAs.

For some reason, my efficiency was terrible today, so this beer may be more bitter than planned! I'm going to try to boil it down a bit, to see if that will increase my OG somewhat before I start the hopping.
 
I used to have firm thoughts on overly crystal IPAs and APAs, but from my experiences now I don't think excessive amounts of low Lovibond crystals are terrible in IPAs. I believe that you can do better controlling fermentability with your mash temp (150-151) and yeast and still wind up with a dry beer that still has the necessary body to balance the hop load out.

I did a pale that was like 97% pale and 3% crystal, mashed normal at 154 and with S-05 and it just seemed too dry. I then did an IPA (not the best experiment since there were two different styles, but you get my jist) that had 10% of crystal 20, I think, along with some carapils and mashing lower at 151 and using the same S-05, it was nice and dry (1.009, I think) but still retained the sweetness and body of the crystal to balance things out. It was much better than a watery APA that was just too bitter.

Just my $0.02
 
PseudoChef said:
I used to have firm thoughts on overly crystal IPAs and APAs, but from my experiences now I don't think excessive amounts of low Lovibond crystals are terrible in IPAs. I believe that you can do better controlling fermentability with your mash temp (150-151) and yeast and still wind up with a dry beer that still has the necessary body to balance the hop load out.

I did a pale that was like 97% pale and 3% crystal, mashed normal at 154 and with S-05 and it just seemed too dry. I then did an IPA (not the best experiment since there were two different styles, but you get my jist) that had 10% of crystal 20, I think, along with some carapils and mashing lower at 151 and using the same S-05, it was nice and dry (1.009, I think) but still retained the sweetness and body of the crystal to balance things out. It was much better than a watery APA that was just too bitter.

Just my $0.02
Click to expand...

I think that you've expresed some of my "new" thinking. I've had way sweet IPAs and blamed the crystal, which I swear I could taste! But I'm thinking that a lower lovibond crystal might give me the flavor I want, without the sweetness of something like crystal 60L. I don't think I have the guts to use 10% crystal yet, but maybe I'll give it a whirl in the future. Since the lowest crystal I had was 20L, I did back off of the crystal quite a bit. I'm going to buy some lighter crystal and then start adding more each time. I made a terribly sweet IPA once, by using just a pound of crystal (60L, I believe) and MO as the base malt and it made me paranoid about sweet IPAs.

I mashed today at 150, so I'm expecting a low FG. Hopefully not too dry, though.

Oh, BTW, congrats on winning first on your group brew! That's awesome.
 
Yoopernatrix said:
11 pounds US two-row
.75 pound Crystal 20L
.75 pound Munich malt
.25 pound Crystal 40L

.25 Simcoe (FWH)
1.00 Centennial (60 minutes)
1.00 ounce centennial (10 minutes)
1.00 ounce Simcoe (5 minutes)
1.00 ounce Amarillo (0 minutes)


Better? Or just different?
Click to expand...


That looks good!
 
Ok, it's only a week old, but I checked the FG and wanted to see if it needed dryhopping.

My impressions:
Great taste! The munich is discernable, but just enough to balance the hops. There is slight grapefruit aftertaste, from the amarillo hops.

I ended up mashing low (like 149-150) and it finished at 1.007 or so. Yikes! A bit drier than I planned, but it works ok in this beer.
 
Sounds nice! I just brewed this yesterday and put it on a cake of Pacman. It's going gangbusters. I also mashed low at ~149 for 90 minutes. I had a few issues, but in the end, it should be a pretty good IPA.

One thing I did different is that I used Magnum for my 60 minute addition. Other than that, I kept the hops the same.

I'll probably dry hop with an ounce of cascade and 2/3 of an ounce of amarillo.
 
I haven't decided on the dryhopping yet. I thought I'd use some amarillo and simcoe, but haven't committed to it yet. I'll taste it again in a week or so and decide then. Or, I might decide to wait for another week, too. You can never tell with me- I might decide just to keg it as is, too. :D
 
We're having a little poker night next Saturday. Will this beer be tolerable by then? I'm thinking about moving it to secondary and dry hopping it this weekend. Then I'll keg it Wednesday, carb it Thursday, drink it Saturday. Is three weeks grain-to-glass too quick for IPA? (Bear in mind I have never brewed an IPA)
 
Funny you bumped this thread today! I just kegged this a couple of days ago, and finally took a sample tonight.

It's good! I didn't do any dryhopping. Warm, it was really good- slightly bitter with a grapefruit aftertaste. After chilling, I think it could use more amarillo hops as a dry hop addition, in the keg. I'm a bit "beersy" tonight, but I will plan on trying it again tomorrow evening to see if my impressions still stand.
 
Sweet. I think I'm about one week behind you so I will move it to secondary this weekend and throw some Amarillo in for DH. Maybe a little Cascade too. I'd like to dry hop it for about 5 days and then move it to a keg to have it next Saturday. I'm looking forward to a good hoppy beer on tap!
 
I might dryhop mine. It's in the keg, and it's beautifully clear, but I'm getting some bitterness in the aftertaste that I think would go better with some dryhopping. I think I'll put some cascade and amarillo in, that's a great idea!
 
I kegged this the other day and carbed it up. It is freakin tasty! I am really happy with the way this one came out! Even for being three weeks young, the bitterness isn't too sharp and it tastes well balanced. The hop aroma is excellent as well. We'll see how long it lasts tonight at out party.
 
Doog_Si_Reeb said:
I kegged this the other day and carbed it up. It is freakin tasty! I am really happy with the way this one came out! Even for being three weeks young, the bitterness isn't too sharp and it tastes well balanced. The hop aroma is excellent as well. We'll see how long it lasts tonight at out party.
Click to expand...


I must be the only person on HBT (except Denny) that loves a young IPA. They are good at 3 months, but just a different good than at 2-3 weeks
 
I really like the way this one tastes at 3 weeks. The aroma from the dry-hopping is nice and fresh, the hop flavors are up-front and noticeable. I expected the bitterness to be a little sharp with the FG at 1.006, but it wasn't overbearing at all.

It tastes great and got compliments from multiple people at our party Saturday night. One of my coworkers said he doesn't usually like IPAs but he had at least three pints of it that night and was still talking about it this morning.
 
Our keg is almost gone, I'm sure. The two of us have been hitting it pretty hard, since we both prefer it over the other two on tap. It turned out really nice!
 

Similar threads

HM-2
Double IPA "Eldritch Terror" - West Coast Imperial IPA
Replies
3
Views
508
JAReeves
JAReeves
O
American Amber with Centennial and Mosaic
Replies
15
Views
2K
Squelch
Squelch
anteater8
West Coast IPA Feedback
Replies
11
Views
3K
oldschool
oldschool
R
"This IPA" from Cascade Lakes Brewing
Replies
5
Views
1K
Biggz1313
Biggz1313
MrEggSandwich
American IPA Cryo/Hornidal Kviek
Replies
0
Views
648
MrEggSandwich
MrEggSandwich
BrewSwag 300

Latest posts

Back
Top