Thoughts on IPA recipe?

Edit: Please note that I have come up with a new recipe that is probably much closer to the original Pako's. It's on page 5 of this thread.

I'm hoping to come up with a semblance of Snake River's Pako's Eye-P-A. One of the brewery guys gave me the ingredient list and gravities and said "heavy on the finishing & dry hops." the website says 6.8% abv and 60+ ibus. So here's what I've come up with using BrewPal:

6gal batch
13.25# 2 row
1# dark carastan 35l
.75# dark munich 20l

20g columbus 13% - 60min
14g columbus - 15min
14g simcoe 13% - 15min
14g columbus - 5min
14g simcoe - 5min
14g columbus - 1min
14g simcoe - 1min

28g each simcoe & columbus - dry hop

Mash at 151
Yeast - safale us05

This gives me a 1.063 starting gravity, 1.013 finshing; 6.6% abv; & 61 ibus. I was told the final gravity is 2.5 deg plato which is about 1.010 but i can't figure out how to get those last 3 points. I'm not too worried about it but am open to suggestions.

Any thoughts on the recipe in general?

A longer mash might help to gain a few extra points

what mash temp are you planning. A lower mash temp not a longer one will give you better attenuation. you could also replace some of the base malt with simple sugar like corn sugar or honey.

also why the two different hop varieties at 60 minutes? Would be better to conserve the precious simcoe and just use more columbus or something cheaper.

Planning to go with 152 but maybe 150 will be better. I lowered the mash temp in brewpal but it didn't change the gravity, one of its flaws, i guess. Glad it was only $0.99. Might extend the mash time a bit to make sure it fully converts too.

It's all columbus & simcoe so i thought I'd combine them for all of the additions but it totally makes sense to use just the columbus for the 60 minute. I'm new at formulating recipes and it didn't occur to me to use just one bittering hop, even though every batch I've ever made has had only one...duh.

Use a teaspoon of yeast nutrient if you are really wanting to knock the FG down as far as possible. When I mashed at 150 and used us05 I had trouble going too far. My 1050 beer finished at 1.005

Okay, so I think for my first try I'll stick with the above except I'll bump the bittering addition to 20g columbus & drop the simcoe and I'll mash at 149 to try & dry it out. I think I'll try the yeast nutrient too. I have some that I use for starters but have never used it in a batch. Thanks for the feedback, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Can't wait to hear how this turns out. I had a Pako's recently and absolutely loved it. Been wanting to get a good IPA homebrew going, so this thread was perfect timing.

Any thoughts on what you'd do for the malt if you were going extract with specialty grains? (I'm a newbie.)

Don't forget to add gypsum to the boil.....

Substitute 8# DME for the 2 row and steep the other grains as usual. And yes, I would add some gypsum to boil unless you have pretty hard water.

I brewed this last thursday and was just a couple points over my target OG, the fermenter smells heavenly. Looking forward to a sample in another week or so.

Dunerunner said:

Don't forget to add gypsum to the boil.....

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What for? I don't understand.

If I mash around 149-151 for over 60 minutes on an IPA with US-05 I always get over 80% attenuation fermenting at 67F. Rework your numbers with higher attenuation and see if you can get those last points.

Yooper said:

What for? I don't understand.

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Flavor adjustment, adds some sulfate which accentuates the bitterness.

I mashed at 151 for 60 mins. I'm going to let it sit in primary for at least 2 weeks and then take a reading. I'll let you know what I hit.

From How to Brew, gypsum is "Useful for adding calcium if the water is low in sulfate. Can be used to add sulfate "crispness" to the hop bitterness." My opinion is that you should brew with the water you have and make sure everything else is dialed in before you start playing with water chemistry. I know that my water source is quite soft so I add gypsum to my strike & sparge water in hopes of improving the bitterness.

hogwash said:

Substitute 8# DME for the 2 row and steep the other grains as usual. And yes, I would add some gypsum to boil unless you have pretty hard water.

I brewed this last thursday and was just a couple points over my target OG, the fermenter smells heavenly. Looking forward to a sample in another week or so.

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Nice! Did you already dry hop? Or is that typically after fermentation is complete (a week or so)?

Dry hopping occurs after fermentation is complete. I'll transfer to a secondary tank & drop my dry hops in another week or so.

Yooper said:

What for? I don't understand.

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Yea, it is going to depend on the water in Virginia. I'm not sure what he has so adding CaSO4 (Gypsum) may not be necessary.

As Ray Daniels writes in "Designing Great Beers", "The presence of bicarbonate at significant levels in your brewing water can undermine the crisp, clean bitterness you are trying to achieve in these styles of beer. As a result, if carbonate levels exceed 50 ppm in your brewing water, you should take appropriate steps to remove it or dilute it before brewing these styles.

Once this is done, you can add gypsum (calcium sulfate) or Burdon water salts (a combination of minerals) to help achieve the mineral profile in table16.21."

From the table:

Calcium 294 ppm
Magnesium 24 ppm
Sodium 24 ppm
Sulfate 801 ppm
Chloride 36 ppm
Bicarbonate 0 ppm

Personally, I have found that by adding 1 Tbsp of gypsum to my brewing water when doing an IPA makes the hops pop. But my brewing water is relatively neutral.

I follow these guides for IPA's:

Add gypsum to the boil - 1 gram per gallon = 61.5 ppm Calcium and 147.4 ppm Sulfate
Mash on the cooler side 148-152 degrees
Target my FG for 1.010-1.012
Add lots of hops in the boil using progressively larger charges
Cool quickly and ferment with a neutral ale yeast at a cool temperature
Dry hop twice... Once in primary, then again when racking to secondary at the rate of 1 ounce per 5 gallons on each addition.

Dunerunner, what do you feel you get from 2 dry hop additions that you don't get from one? I'm guessing you have noticed a difference in the 2 processes. Curious about this. If I can get more aroma from 2 additions, I may go for it.

Oh and how many days for each addition?

I have a very specific IPA I make that I love. I dry hop at Primary with 2 oz of Amarillo, then again at mid-fermentation (7 days) with 2 oz of Chinook. I feel I get a sweeter aroma and a promise of that Grapefruit citrus I was shooting for. I've only done this in the past three 10 gallon batches, the last was Amarillo and Palisade, cause like a fool, I didn't check my hop supply before brewing.

The second dry hop seems to support the aroma quite well.

Shift said:

Flavor adjustment, adds some sulfate which accentuates the bitterness.

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Well, true. Except that if it's needed, it should go in the mash and not just in the kettle unless the pH is too low (not likely). It should never be added willy nilly for "flavor adjustment" unless it's needed and it's probably not needed if unless the water is extremely low in sulfate or the recipe was brewed previously and it was found that the mash pH was good but the flavor needed some sulfate to accentuate the hops. But that would be very unlikely.

Dunerunner said:

I have a very specific IPA I make that I love. I dry hop at Primary with 2 oz of Amarillo, then again at mid-fermentation (7 days) with 2 oz of Chinook. I feel I get a sweeter aroma and a promise of that Grapefruit citrus I was shooting for. I've only done this in the past three 10 gallon batches, the last was Amarillo and Palisade, cause like a fool, I didn't check my hop supply before brewing.

The second dry hop seems to support the aroma quite well.

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Interesting.

Yooper said:

Well, true. Except that if it's needed, it should go in the mash and not just in the kettle unless the pH is too low (not likely). It should never be added willy nilly for "flavor adjustment" unless it's needed and it's probably not needed if unless the water is extremely low in sulfate or the recipe was brewed previously and it was found that the mash pH was good but the flavor needed some sulfate to accentuate the hops. But that would be very unlikely.

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I've started using a pH stabalizer in the mash, and still add the gypsum in the boil. I'm not so concerned with stabalizing the mash pH with the Calcium Sulfate as I am in having the mineral content in the boil to help accentuate the bittering, flavor and aroma from the hop additions. Therefore it applies to extract as well as all grain brewers.

My water analysis has more zeros in it than the National Debt. Coastal Dunal Aquifer......the biggest sand filter on the planet!

Dunerunner said:

I've started using a pH stabalizer in the mash, and still add the gypsum in the boil. I'm not so concerned with stabalizing the mash pH with the Calcium Sulfate as I am in having the mineral content in the boil to help accentuate the bittering, flavor and aroma from the hop additions. Therefore it applies to extract as well as all grain brewers.

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If your mash pH is in the 5.4-5.6 range without the CaS04, that's fine. But it's not really good for extract brewers (or AG brewers either) just to add if they don't even know their mash pH. If your results are good, that's wonderful. But it's not for everybody and probably not for most people.

So I'm planning to brew this (using extract instead of all-grain) this week. Anybody have thoughts on how much time this will need? I was thinking:

-One week to 10 days in the primary (assuming the gravity checks confirm complete fermentation), and then rack to secondary. I think I should get it off the trub pretty quick since I have to use pellets for the Simcoe.

-Start the dry hop when I rack to secondary with the ounce of Simcoe and ounce of Columbus and let it sit approx one week to 10 days.

-Bottle and wait 10 days to 2 weeks before throwing a few in the fridge and crossing my fingers for a new favorite homebrew.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

I gotta say it's pretty cool to know that someone else is going to brew my recipe! Just know that I can't promise that this will turn out like pako's but I think it will be pretty nice.

I'm going to rack to secondary after 14 days in primary (that will be this thursday) and dry hop for no more than 7 days (probably 5) to avoid any grassy flavors. I might let it sit in secondary for a week before i dryhop just to let it clear a little more.

I'll report back on gravity and flavor either tomorrow night or thursday.

Oh, and remember to change the 60 min addition to 20g of just Columbus, no Simcoe on that one.

edit: I just changed it in the first post.

hogwash said:

I lowered the mash temp in brewpal but it didn't change the gravity, one of its flaws, i guess. Glad it was only $0.99. Might extend the mash time a bit to make sure it fully converts too.

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I don't know of any brewing software that estimates final gravities based on mash temperature do you?

Beersmith, Beer Tools Pro, Pro Mash I know do not.

foltster said:

I don't know of any brewing software that estimates final gravities based on mash temperature do you?

Beersmith, Beer Tools Pro, Pro Mash I know do not.

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I'm only familiar with Brewpal and have only done 3 recipes on it. So I guess it's not a flaw. Is that not easily accounted for?

I use brew pal most the time and its been very pleasing as far as results of recipes.

Took my hydrometer reading and i'm at 1018. I think i'm going to let it sit in primary at least another week. The sample tasted pretty darn good, nice & hoppy for sure.

I bet you'll hit your 1.010 target in a couple days. Looking forward to reading the updates. I'll post some status on mine here as well once I get her going...hopefully before the weekend, but it may have to wait for Saturday.

henrik,

You'll also want to sub munich extract for the munich malt. I would just go ahead and do 3/4s of a pound. Sorry I didn't mention that earlier, I got caught up in converting the 2 row & forgot about the munich. If you've already got your grains, it's pretty easy to do a partial mash as long as you have 2 pots or maybe a small cooler, and a mesh bag. I can walk you through it or check out Deathbrewer's post w/ pictures on partial mash brewing. Also, the columbus I got was 15% so you may want to adjust your amounts to match the IBUs in the recipe if yours are also 15. Since this is an experimental beer, and because I forgot, I did not adjust so I'll end up with something over 70 IBUs.

I hope you're right about the gravity, I'm not too worried either way though. It will be a good beer.

Thanks for the heads-up on the alpha acids. I'll have to double check mine, although I honestly wouldn't be too bummed if my IBUs came in a bit high also.

Regarding the grains, yeah, I do already have them and I'm just planning to do a partial mash. Deathbrewer's how-to post looks more thorough and probably achieves a higher efficiency than the method I've used, so I'll definitely try that route.

Oh yeah, one question, hogwash. I noticed in your recipe on the first post that you wrote this for a 6 gal batch. Did you mean a 6 gal boil with a target final volume of 5 gal? Any of the calculators I use only seem to get to the numbers you projected when I'm calculating based on a 5 gal target. (In my case I'll be doing a smaller boil and adding water at the end to get my 5 gal total.)

Brewed this tonight. My recipe ended up getting tweaked a bit from the exact recipe stated here. I used 8.75 lb golden light LME plus the specialty grains in a partial mash.

One thing I'm a bit worried about, however, is when I bought grains from the LHBS, they didn't have "Carastan." They recommended Roasted Barley as a sub and I didn't question them. Once I did the partial mash, though, it was way darker and much more...well...roasty than I'd imagined. Looking up subs for Carastan online during the brew I found most recommend various versions of the Crystal Malt instead. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

Anyway, I did hit the target OG almost on the nose. Mine came in at 1.064 and the batch size was just over 5 gal to allow for some loss when racking.

Hops smell freaking great. Looking forward to the dry hop in about a week and trying this stuff several weeks later. Thanks again for the help and base recipe!

I couldn't find carastan either. I should have mentioned earlier that I subbed C40 for it. I'm sure your beer will be great and who knows you might turn out something really special. But I don't think I'd take advice from that shop anymore.

I have tried to get ingredients several times from one of my local shops and they are always out of something or many things I need, usually hop varieties, then they tell me I can sub this for that and that for this. Well I suppose I could do that but then I wouldn't be making the beer I want to make, would I? Drives me nuts. I don't fool with them anymore. They've even tried to do that with equipment. I know what I want and if you don't have it, I'm not going to get something of lesser quality just because you're my local shop.

Quick update on my batch:

I transferred today to secondary after 8 days in primary. As noted in an earlier entry, my original gravity was 1.064 and today's reading was approx 1.014-1.015. I decided to up the amounts on the dry hop compared to what was called for in the recipe mostly just because I had plenty still on hand after brewing. For the dry hop I used just over 4 oz total of a combination of the Simcoe pellets and the whole leaf Columbus.

The sample I used to take the gravity reading tasted nice. Reasonably hoppy and there was definitely the toasted/roasted taste from that toasted barley grain I used instead of the Carastan (again, should have substituted a crystal instead). But it was kind of a pleasant addition. A little more coffee effect than I'm used to in IPAs, but we'll see how it ends up in the long run. Can't wait to try it after the dry hop.

Cool. I transferred mine on friday & dry hopped, plan to bottle this coming thursday. My FG was around 1.016. Still tasted good, I kind of want it to be a little bit maltier but I suppose I should wait until I taste the finished, carbonated product before I think about tweaking the recipe.

henrik, sounds like you have a Black IPA on your hands.

hogwash said:

henrik, sounds like you have a Black IPA on your hands.

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Exactly what I was thinking.

I bottled mine yesterday. It was quite good with a very heavy hop aroma. I think the body was spot on, actually. Again, I'll have to wait & see what it's like once it's carbonated. The bittering hop is a little sharp/soapy but hopefully that will round out a little after a month or so in the bottle. Overall, I'm very pleased with my first recipe attempt. I can't speak to whether it tastes like Pako's or not because I live in VA and don't have ready access to it. I'll update again once I have the finished product.

edit: I'm calling it TKO IPA. I label my bottle caps with a 3 or 4 letter code so I know what they are, for example when I did Yooper's Stone Ruination clone I wrote "RUI" on the cap. For this one I started writing "PKO" short for Pako but my wife suggested I call it Tako's IPA so I started writing "TKO." But also, my name is Tom so we decided it could stand for "Tom's Knock Off" IPA or, the one I like, "Technical Knock Out" IPA.

Update:
After trying my hydrometer sample at bottling I had been worrying more and more about how my batch was going to turn out. Yesterday after only 5 days of bottle conditioning I couldn't help myself and tossed a couple bottles in the fridge to try out later in the evening.

Result = fantastic. Here's a quick review:

A: The roasted barley definitely created a dark beer - something close to a dark walnut. You'd have to hold it up to a light to "see through" the beer. The head it pours is wonderful - very creamy and lasted long enough that my final tip of the glass still included a nice bit for a creamy finish.

S: Obviously the roasted barley comes through in the smell - a touch of toasted nut. But more than anything, the floral hop aroma dominates. The Simcoe and Columbus hops do amazing things here.

T: Again, definitely a roasted presence compared to Pako's, but even in the 5 days since bottling the bitterness I associated with the roasted barley has either mellowed or changed with bottle conditioning and the roasted flavor that remains is actually quite nice - a touch of nut and biscuit. The hop flavors are fantastic and really shine through. For having been worried about it being overly bitter after tasting my hydrometer sample at bottling I was surprised to find how smooth it tasted overall. Definitely a good bitterness going on, but it is well-balanced.

M: For only 5 days of bottle conditioning the carbonation is already where I want it. I hope the carbonation doesn't increase much with more time in the bottle, but I worry it may and could affect the wonderful, creamy head I'm getting right now. Medium bodied - not too heavy, definitely not light.

O: I'm very impressed/happy with this beer. It's one of the better IPAs I've had. While I like the character my accidental substitution using roasted barley gave it, I do think I would have preferred a more standard IPA profile that the Carastan (as the recipe in this thread actually called for) would have provided. But that's just nit-picking as this stuff is great and it's kind of cool to have something on my hands that you don't normally find in an IPA. I'm glad I upped the amount of hops in the dry hop because the Simco/Columbus aroma and taste are what make this beer standout. I've always thought the "ASTMO" review was missing a crucial component, "B," which would stand for "burp" or "belch" since this (gross or not) can be one of my favorite parts about some good beers. And this is a particular area this IPA and the Simcoe/Columbus hops shine.