Critique/Tips First Partial Mash Recipe

GioGomez2010 said:

P.S. I made this using the BIAB sticky so thanks for the good info sir! Also, a shout out to WilsenBrewer who gave me good tips on crushing with a blender, since I don't have a mill as of yet.

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bobbrews said:

For American IPAs, I like to use lesser amounts of the very pale crystal malts (10-20 L) or none at all. Using 1 lb. of C60 is certainly not wrong, but it's definitely something that I would not do more than once after learning what it contributes. IMO, too much deep raisiny sweetness is uncharacteristic of the style. For partial mash IPAs, I like to use 0-5% light crystal. A simple sugar supplement of about 8-12% of the grist is also a good recommendation since it will help to dry out the beer and give you something more crisp. You'll want to use more of it than the typical 0-6% recommendation for an all-grain beer that does not use any extract which can impede the brewer's ability to reach a low preferred 1.015 FG (or better yet less) for the style.

Mashing below 151 F is important to me because the extract was most likely made at a higher temperature with added dextrins. So the lower mash temperature that you do will help to balance out the extract and make the wort more fermentable. You can certainly experiment with more than just American 2-row. That's the whole point of doing a partial mash IPA I think... to use something different than the base malt used in the extract. If I use British DME extract, I'll mash American 2-row, maybe 7% Light Munich, some Wheat Malt, etc. Or you can do the opposite and use American 2-row with Maris Otter, Pearl, Pils malt, Golden Promise, etc. etc. ~ I usually boil the beer for 60 minutes and add the extract around the 15 minute mark to boost hop utilization and decrease melanoidin formation... even under a full volume boil, which I tend to always do. I think full volume boils are very important, especially for the IPA style.

You have a 5 gallon batch here and only 3 oz. total hops in your recipe. In addition, you have more of a DIPA here, which requires more hops than your standard IPA. For American DIPAs, I would say 9-12 oz. total hops is average. I like to get anywhere from 20-60 IBUs with the first addition, maybe round it out at 30 minutes with another small addition, and then pound it with late addition hops and dryhops. Depending on the strength of the beer, dryhopping with pellets at the rate of 0.50 oz. to 1.00 oz. per gallon of beer is a good general guideline. Pellets offer more beneficial oils in a shorter amount of time than leaf hops, which is why I also use them for a warm whirlpool addition. Start experimenting with different hop combos to boost complexity.

Lastly, if you're going to continue brewing big OG beers, I would definitely recommend looking into liquid yeast starters vs. using dry yeast. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

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ATXbrew said:

I would go ahead and only do a 60 minute boil and choose a hop with a higher alpha acid rating to make up for the shorter boil. This will help your OG readings by boiling off less water. I would go ahead and find a good aroma hop to dry hop in a secondary fermentor for about 2 weeks which will help with aroma and flavor. Your ingredients look great but I would use the following link to read into what each ingredient will do to your recipe and experiment around.

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GioGomez2010 said:

Thanks for all the good tips gentlemen and thanks for all the good info Bobbrews! I just have a few questions. What hops are good to use at 60 minutes to get the higher bitterness in an IPA? And what do you recommend for the 30 minute hop addition for example? Also If I'm going to use sugar to dry it out do you mean 8-12% of the total lbs of fermentables? Again I appreciate all the help! Thanks!

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GioGomez2010 said:

Hey ATX,

Will definitely look into those different hops to help out with my brew. Do you have the link that you mention in your quote? Thanks for the help!

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