Honey IPA (w/ some wheat?) recipe---critique please!

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Sshamash

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Hi All,

Building a recipe, pretty new to designing, so please critique! (No worries, I have thick skin....)

Honey IPA (all-grain):

6 # 2-row
2.75 # Honey malt
1 # wheat malt (too little for character to come out?)
1 # Munich 10 L (too much?)

.5 oz CTZ @ 60min
.5 oz Citra @ 60min
1 oz Citra @5min

YeastL WLP001



ABV:5.11%
IBU:57

Looking for simple, light IPA with a nice honey character and a nice subtle wheaty mouth feel. Thoughts?

Cheers,
Saul
 
I am not an expert at designing recipes but I don't think you have enough late hop additions to get good flavor and aroma. I would bump up late hop additions as well. 2.75 lbs of honey malt may also be a little strong. You might think about adding a couple pounds of honey instead. Just a couple of thoughts.
 
Hmm, thanks for the feedback. I was considering adding some more late hop additions for the aroma, maybe even a dry hop...
Regarding the honey, I threw honey in the boil one time and it went straight to fermentables, with no trace of it in the taste. If I do use honey, is there a moe opportune time with respect to taste?
I am trying to keep it a low abv beer...summer-y.
 
I would reduce that honey malt.. by atleast half... Seriously.

That beer will so sweet, it will be cloying and hard to drink I'd think.


The munich is fine, will add some bready, malty notes.. The wheat is fine, will give you a little more mouth feel, and good foam retention, with a softer grain note to the whole grist.

I'd keep it the same, but maybe do .75# of honey malt.. If you use a ton of it, and remember it's a crystal malt, then I'd be sure to have a long, and low mash.

If you are wanting a honey note, then kick back the honey malt, and mash normal, add some honey at high krausen in the primary. You'll get some honey in the finish, along with the sweet honey flavor of the honey malt as well, without being overpowering.
 
Second the need to reduce honey malt. Half pound should do you. Replace the rest with your base malt. As for late hop additions I would do at least a flavor addition at fifteen minutes and an aroma addition which your five minute one should work for. Dry hopping would be good too.

Overall, on the right track.
 
I'd cut the honey malt way, way down- .25-.5 pound max if you love honey.

Increase the base malt, so you can hit your desired OG, or if you want a wheat flavor increase the wheat malt as well (or use some flaked wheat).

Hops should be changed up to have the bittering hops at 60 minutes (they are fine where you have them), and then 15 minutes for flavor hops, and 0-5 minutes for the late hops.

Like this:

CTZ .5 ounce 60 minutes
1 oz flavor hops 15 minutes
1 oz aroma hops 5 minutes
1-2 ounce hops dryhopping.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I have never used honey malt before, and didnt realize it was so strong. I am going to scale it down to .75#. And increase the base malt and wheat.

What are the thoughts on doing 1# wheat malt and 1# of flaked wheat? Or 1.5# wheat malt and .5# flaked?


I will add a 15 min and dry hop addition as well.
 
I'd do .5# of honey malt, 1.5# of white wheat and then the rest of it I'd do a simple 2 row to round out your grist.
 
Okay, cool. I still really want that strong sweet flavor...here is where I am at now.

6.5 # 2-row
.75 # Honey malt
1.5 # wheat malt (white?)
.5# of flaked oats (does this matter? good ratio? etc)
1 # Munich 10 L

.5 oz CTZ @ 60min
.5 oz Citra @ 60min
1 oz Citra @15min
1 oz Citra @5min

Yeast: WLP001

Maybe: Dry hop with 1 oz of Citra
Maybe: Depending on how it tastes, add some honey to fermentor (after initial fermentation)

Thoughts?
 
It seems you really want some honey to come through. Perhaps you'd be best with another style? An IPA is about the hops, not the adjuncts you add to it. Why not a honey wheat hefe or Blonde.

I'd drop the oats, those arent doing anything the wheat wouldn't do, and you won't taste them in there.

Keep it simple, I know you said you are new at recipe formulation, so just start easy. Adding tons of stuff to a beer doesn't make it taste any better, or always more complex. The best beers, ironically are the simple ones, and trust me, I've found that out.

Do the 2 row, the wheat and the honey malt. If you want to toss in the Munich, have at it. Ditch the oats, and put that back to your 2 row.

You hop schedule is okay, the Citra at 60 will do nothing but bitter, so I'd suggest dropping it off, and using the half ounce at flame out, and do a hop stand and add it when you've cooled to 180* and then stop for 20 minutes.

If you need the IBU's ( and I'm sure you will with that much honey malt ), then up the CTZ addition, and keep all else the same, but add the Flame out/ Hop stand .5 ounce.

Also- Depending on your mash schedule, and gravity, adding the honey could help or harm. If you add it after fermentation, it will kick start it again. If you beer ends up dry, it'll dry it out even more, and you could end up with a thin beer despite the wheat, and something probably a bit boozy, and hot.

If you mash high, and leave some body to it, you'll risk having an issue with the honey malt and the beer being too heavy and sweet. Adding the honey could help to thin the body a bit, but again, will leave some residual honey aroma to the beer, that personally I doubt you will pick up that great since you are using Citra. Worth a shot if you want to give it a go!
 
Hmm, all really good points. I am looking for that honey taste. Call it what you want, but I want a slight bitterness to it, maybe more of a pale than an IPA.

I wanted the Munich to give it some more character and malty notes.
I am going to drop the oats, you are right.

Do you think the Citra hop would be a funny pairing with the honey malt? Do you think CTZ would be a better choice throughout?

I intend on doing a higher mash (156 or so) to add more body. The honey addition will be a game time one.

Thanks again for all the feedback.
 
I think the hops will probably over power most of the honey flavor but it's probably still going to taste good. Your beer doesn't have to fit a style. If you know the flavor profile you want then that's all you need.

I think one thing that helps me with recipe design is to look at each ingredient and be able to say exactly why it is there and in that amount.

One suggestion would be to dry hop with 1oz citra and 1oz cascade. Blends of hops that are of similar families are interesting and cascade is a classic. Plus dry hopping is awesome.
 
Thinking about it a little more... you could go a different direction completely and make a nice cream ale which would be much less hoppy with this grain bill which might highlight the honey malt well. Just change the hop schedule to something with a lot less ibus and a single small flavor addition at 10 min.

Or another thing to think about is that for an ipa with this grai bill more floral hops might go better with this than the awesome citrusy American hops you proposed. Maybe goldings or some thing like mt. Hood. Other people probably have a better idea of what would play nice
 
Interesting points. I want to keep it as a Pale Ale/IPA type ish. You make a good point about overpowering the honey. I was originally thinking floral hops, but noticed citra was used a lot with honey.
In order to combat the overpowering, what do you think about raising the honey to 1#? As well as changing the hop schedule a bit...like this:

Grain:
6.5# 2-row (base)
2# Wheat (mouth feel)
1# Honey (sweet matly taste)
1#Munich (malty notes)

Hops:
.75 oz CMZ (60min)
.5 oz goldings/mt hood/something floral (15min)
.5 oz goldings/mt hood/something floral (5min)
1-2 oz goldings/mt hood/something floral (dry hop)
 
If you want malty with some good layers of flavor, use Maris Otter instead of 2 row, drop the munich all together. Simple is best, trust me..

If you are wanting some obviously sweet and malty, then look for some styles that will flow with that, and call it an IPA if you want.

I would not raise the honey malt, at all from .75.. Thats already a fair, fair bit in there. You seem to really want to keep adding so, go ahead and experiment with it, and don't ask for any more opinions. Just because this isn't a recipe most people would use, doesn't mean it might not be good, so dive on it, and have fun with it.
 
Yeah you can't raise the honey malt too much because it's going to make the final product too sweet. You could add 1-2 lb of honey which will dry it out and counter balance the sweetness.

Maybe you should try to prioritize your motivation for this beer. Hop flavor, honey flavor, malty, color, bitterness, abv, mouthfeel, head retention, sweetness. Obviously you want all of these but what are most important. Its easy to build in one or two attributes into a beer but optimization of all those is difficult so it's good to know what can be compromised.
 
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