An IPA critique please

[ElmhurstBrew]

I have created this IPA recipe and was hoping some of you fine brewers could have a look and let me know what you think, things you would change etc. Recipe is as follows:

3.3lbs Amber LME (late addition @ 15 min)
3.3lbs Maris Otter LME (late addition @ 15 min)
2.5 lbs Light DME
1lb Crystal 20
1/2lb Biscuit
1/2lb Carafoam
1/4lb Flaked Wheat

Grains steeped in 2.5 gallons of 150f water for 40 min, sparged with 2 quarts water at 170, DME added then a 60 min boil.

1.5oz Centennial @ 60 min
1oz Centennial @ 30 min
1oz Cascade @ 5 min
1oz Citra @ 5 min
1/2oz Centennial @ 5 min

Ferment at 65f using US-05

Dry hop in secondary for 5 days with:

1oz Cascade
1oz Citra

Beer will then be cold crashed, kegged and force carbed.

All criticism is welcome as this is my first IPA recipe.

 

[TheMadKing]

Ok first impression: (I did NOT run this through beersmith so this is an eyeball from a fairly experienced brewer, take that for what it's worth)

Your color is going to be a little dark with that much amber and crystal 20. You will also have a very sweet finish for an IPA IMO. You also don't need both flaked wheat and carafoam as they both accomplish roughly the same thing. I would modify the malts as follows:

1 lb of amber LME
3.3 lb of Maris Otter LME
2.5-4 lb of DME (scale to keep your OG between 1.048-1.06, wherever you prefer it)
.5 lb crystal 20
.5 lb of biscuit
6 oz of flaked wheat

Your hop schedule looks heavy at the front end to me. A good IPA needs lots of juicy aroma and hop flavor with solid but not overpowering bitterness. I would do:

.5 oz of centennial at 60
.5 oz of centennial at 10
1 oz of citra at 5
1 oz of centennial at whirlpool (chill to 175, turn off the chiller, add hops, and keep it around 175 for 20-30 minutes with the hops in there, then continue chilling)
1 oz Citra at whirlpool
1 oz of cascade at whirlpool

I would also dry hop directly in primary as soon as the krausen falls for 7 days.

As always, recipe critiques are just opinions, so that's my $.02 Good luck!

 

[ElmhurstBrew]

Very interesting, I guess I didn't take into account the residual sweetness that all that Amber LME might leave behind. I was trying to boost the OG to around 1.065-1.070, hopefully end up around the 7% abv range. I realize I did get a bit carried away with the carafoam/flaked wheat, but I have struggled with head retention issues in the past. That hop schedule looks very interesting, thanks again for your input!

 

[Bramstoker17]

I'd personally drop the crystal down quite a bit, or even cut it out completely. If you're using Amber LME, it likely has some crystal already. If you haven't already purchased your ingredients I'd only use light extract and get your color and flavor from specialty grains. This is closer to all grain, and you get more control over your beer since you don't know exactly what goes into the amber extract. I'd maybe drop or reduce the biscuit as well. The Maris Otter already has a bready/biscuit taste, you don't want too much of that or it will detract from the hops.

If you can, I'd buy an ounce of something like Warrior or Apollo or another high alpha acid hop to bitter with and move that Centennial to the dry hop. I'd also move that 30 minute addition to flameout or the dry hop. My hop schedule for an IPA usually looks something like:

An ounce or less at 60. An ounce if its West Coast, .5 or .25 if its New England style

2 ounces at 10 minutes

3 to 5 ounces at flameout with a 30 to 45 minute hop stand

between 4 and 8 ounces dry hop.

Now these amounts make some hop bombs and you can make a great IPA with less hops for sure, but the timing of that hop schedule works really well to get the most flavor and aroma from the hops in my opinion. Good luck!

 

[saltymirv]

Ok, so I ran this through beersmith, the OG came out to be 1.075 and IBU of 82. That puts you a little over a standard IPA and into double territory if you care about style guidelines. I wouldn't worry about it. The color is 10.9 SRM, which isn't too dark according to the guidelines, but its gonna be too sweet brewed as is. Good IPAs shouldn't be overly sweet

I think your malt bill has way too much going on. You could easily simplify it to 1 can of amber LME and the rest gold light LME/DME. If you wanted to keep the base malt half golden light and half maris otter that's fine too.

The amber contains caramel and munich malts along with the base, so you can get rid of the caramel 20 altogether. The golden light has base and carapils, so you can get rid of the carafoam and flaked wheat.

The biscuit is ok to stay, I don't think it's really needed though. You have plenty going on for an IPA malt bill, we're not making an amber here.

Here's what I would do for the malts:

3lbs Light DME
3.3lbs Maris Otter LME
3.3lbs Amber LME

that will get you to 1.070 OG in a 5.5g batch

For the hops I agree with @themadking , aim for 3-5oz in late kettle additions and 3-5oz in the dry hop. You will like it!

 

[dmtaylor]

That’s an awful lot of malt, assuming 5 gallons. Amber extract already has crystal in it, so ditch the Crystal 20 and Carafoam. A half pound of biscuit is too much IMO so take that down to 1/4 lb. Flaked wheat needs to be mashed, so throw that out. Biscuit malt should probably be mashed too but fine, keep it in for flavor. The 30-minute addition should be saved for the end of the boil for more flavor and aroma. It’s not doing much for you at 30.

So that’s what I would suggest.

 

[OkanaganMike]

All good suggestions. Only thing I'd add is about the cold crashing and force carbing. I presume you want to cold crash for a clearer beer yes? I just discovered after reading it somewhere that force carbonation creates haze/cloudiness and its best to cold crash in a separate cold crash keg under positive pressure. After cold crashing for a few days, transfer over to the serving keg and carbonate at 10-12psi for a week or so.

I haven't tried this yet and maybe shouldn't even be suggesting it but after seeing your procedure thought I'd chime in. Anyone else heard of this?

 

[ElmhurstBrew]

All good suggestions. Only thing I'd add is about the cold crashing and force carbing. I presume you want to cold crash for a clearer beer yes? I just discovered after reading it somewhere that force carbonation creates haze/cloudiness and its best to cold crash in a separate cold crash keg under positive pressure. After cold crashing for a few days, transfer over to the serving keg and carbonate at 10-12psi for a week or so.

I haven't tried this yet and maybe shouldn't even be suggesting it but after seeing your procedure thought I'd chime in. Anyone else heard of this?

First I am hearing of this procedure, but that is no surprise as I am still a bit of a newbie. Sounds like it might work well and I'd be interested to give it a try, but as I only have one keg at the moment... Definitely something worth trying down the road though.

 

[ElmhurstBrew]

Well I had better come clean with you guys, this is already in the fermenter as is. Last week I started playing around with this recipe on brewers friend and ended up running to my LHBS on the way home from work one evening and getting the supplies, brewed it on Saturday. As is usually the case, I started second guessing my recipe choices and posted on here. Well at least now I know for next time, and hopefully in the future have the good sense to come here for advice on a recipe first.

 

[TheMadKing]

All good suggestions. Only thing I'd add is about the cold crashing and force carbing. I presume you want to cold crash for a clearer beer yes? I just discovered after reading it somewhere that force carbonation creates haze/cloudiness and its best to cold crash in a separate cold crash keg under positive pressure. After cold crashing for a few days, transfer over to the serving keg and carbonate at 10-12psi for a week or so.

I haven't tried this yet and maybe shouldn't even be suggesting it but after seeing your procedure thought I'd chime in. Anyone else heard of this?

No offense mike, but I'm highly skeptical of that procedure.

Chill haze is a well known phenomenon that is the result of proteins in beer that has been cooled too slowly. There's no way that force carbonation can result in cloudiness. Literally every perfectly clear beer commercially available is force carbonated.

I cold crash directly in primary before kegging on every batch, and every single one of them clears up over time; faster if I use gelatin as a fining agent.

 

[TheMadKing]

Well I had better come clean with you guys, this is already in the fermenter as is. Last week I started playing around with this recipe on brewers friend and ended up running to my LHBS on the way home from work one evening and getting the supplies, brewed it on Saturday. As is usually the case, I started second guessing my recipe choices and posted on here. Well at least now I know for next time, and hopefully in the future have the good sense to come here for advice on a recipe first.

Done that several times myself.. As I said in my first post, these are all suggestions and opinions. I doubt very much is what you've made will taste bad, just not particularly to style. Don't worry about it and drink it anyway!

 

[JLEEFELDMAN]

i would add a # of 2 row to convert the adjuncts during the steep. Probably add some body and mouthfeel.

 

[kristiismean]

Yep, The grains in the OP read like an ESB and not an IPA to me. (The hops all IPA

For an IPA, you might want to keep it simple. Drop the maris otter, drop most of the specialty grains down and do with Just a light late addition LME / DME .

but hey! it's already brewing, and you know what, it'll be beer, and it'll be good.

 

[dmtaylor]

Well I had better come clean with you guys, this is already in the fermenter as is. Last week I started playing around with this recipe on brewers friend and ended up running to my LHBS on the way home from work one evening and getting the supplies, brewed it on Saturday. As is usually the case, I started second guessing my recipe choices and posted on here. Well at least now I know for next time, and hopefully in the future have the good sense to come here for advice on a recipe first.

Oh, okay. Expect it to be very thick, sweet, and hazy. Those are the main things. And very high in alcohol.

 

[OkanaganMike]

No offense mike, but I'm highly skeptical of that procedure.

Chill haze is a well known phenomenon that is the result of proteins in beer that has been cooled too slowly. There's no way that force carbonation can result in cloudiness. Literally every perfectly clear beer commercially available is force carbonated.

I cold crash directly in primary before kegging on every batch, and every single one of them clears up over time; faster if I use gelatin as a fining agent.

Fair enough. I'm fairly new to the kegging procedure. Been enjoying clear beer in bottles and have only seen the haze in the kegging without changing any procedures. Only main change is I've been brewing more hoppy IPA's. Maybe its the hops? Can't remember where I read it, think it was maybe BYO magazine and the main point was about cold crashing in a positive pressure vessel vs. Carboy as it will suck fridge oxygen as the CO2 cools.

 

[TheMadKing]

Fair enough. I'm fairly new to the kegging procedure. Been enjoying clear beer in bottles and have only seen the haze in the kegging without changing any procedures. Only main change is I've been brewing more hoppy IPA's. Maybe its the hops? Can't remember where I read it, think it was maybe BYO magazine and the main point was about cold crashing in a positive pressure vessel vs. Carboy as it will suck fridge oxygen as the CO2 cools.

Hop oils can certainly cause haziness, especially if you've dry-hopped heavily. Chill haze is also more common in bulk cooling because it takes longer for the larger volume of beer to get cold, so you don't get the thermal shock that you'd get in bottles.

I can certainly agree that cold crashing pulls oxygen into the fermentor, so if oxidation is a huge worry for you then I'd wait to chill it until it's in the keg on gas. I usually remove my airlock and cover the fermentor in a double layer of Seran wrap, it sucks in quite a bit as the beer cools, and I've never had a noticeable (to me) issue with oxidation. There are some people who are extremely anal about oxygen exposure. I'm not one of them, but that doesn't mean I'm right.

Sorry OP, didn't mean to wander so far!

 

[OkanaganMike]

Good info thanks MadKing.

 

[ElmhurstBrew]

Well I went down today to take a gravity reading and perhaps perform the dry hopping. Take the lid off the fermentor and the krausen hasn't dropped at all yet. Didn't even bother with the reading, put the lid back on and walked away. Figure this experiment needs at least a few more days before I even think about dry hopping.