Help with an IPA recipe...

[brewkinger]

A friend of mine is coming to visit on National Learn to Homebrew Day this year. I have brewed for going on 4 years and been a member of this site for a little over 2 yrs. I did 3-4 extract beers in the beginning and then switched right over to AG.

He has sampled many of my beers throughout the last couple of years and has decided that it would be a nice road trip and visit with the end result being that he can bring home his very own fermenting beverage.



He called today and said that he had stopped at HBS near his house and told the young man inside what he was planning on doing and what kind of beer he wanted.



This is what he ended up with (according to my phone conversation with my buddy)



EXTRACT with steeping grains for American IPA



7.6# Pilsen LME

0.5# CaraHell (12L)

0.5# CaraRed (23L)



1oz Simcoe [13.2%] Pellet

1oz Centennial [10.7%] Pellet

2oz Amarillo [8.8%] Pellet

1oz Amarillo [8.9%] Whole Leaf (BTW, BeerSmith lists only Amarillo Gold, are they the same?)



I had told him to forget about yeast, as I had a couple of dry packets as well as 2 or 3 washed generations of 1056, 1272 and 1084 (Irish Ale)



When I plug this recipe into BeerSmith, the numbers come up a little low for OG, so I am thinking of doing a mini-mash with the supplied grains and some additional US 2-row and some CR60L (instead of just steeping the other grains) to get the OG up into the low 1.060 range (and the color up a little bit with the CR60)



All sound good so far??



Then the hops have me all confused.

They sold him 5 oz of hops but the hop schedule is as follows:



60min: 1oz Simcoe

30min: 0.5oz Centennial

15min: 0.5oz Amarillo

10min: 0.5oz Amarillo

0min: 1oz Amarillo (guy told him this is flameout/whirlpool addition)



Dry hop 7 days: 1 oz Amarillo (leaf) and 0.5oz Centennial



Does this look like a good hop schedule?

If not, what should I change?

He is a hop lover and really wants to use all 5 oz of hops and I am along for the ride, as this beer is ultimately for him.



Looking for some advice, I want this beer to be good and lure him in (he wants that too, he is just afraid to admit it!)

 

[JR_Brewer]

Is this a 5 gallon batch? If so, 7.6 lbs of LME gets you to 1.055 OG by itself, and you'll add some gravity with the specialty malt. Not sure why you need to jack up the gravity using a mini-mash. Especially for a first time brewer, keep it simple.

As for the hopping schedule, I like to avoid the dead zone of hopping at 30 minutes (just my opinion). If you want bitterness, boil for 60 minutes. If you want flavor and aroma, move it to the last 20 minutes of the boil.

Here's what I would do

60min: 1oz Simcoe
15min: 0.5oz Centennial
10min: 0.5oz Amarillo
5min: 0.5oz Amarillo
0min (aka flameout/whirlpool): 1oz Amarillo and 0.5oz Centennial
Dry hop 7 days: 1 oz Amarillo (leaf)

 

[rodwha]

After looking at this hop utilization chart I have changed my hop schedule:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_diuBBvYgqF0/TTBwxZAigkI/AAAAAAAAB40/7427XCtkr_o/s1600/hop_utilization.jpg

As you see the peak for flavor is ~21 mins and the peak for aroma is ~7 mins.

Were it me I'd move the flavor addition to ~20 mins and the aroma to 5-7 mins.

My latest IPA had no bittering addition, but was given equal weights of hops at 30, 20, 10, and 5 mins with over 100 IBU's for a standard type IPA (~6.5%). I've yet to drink one that's ready, but I'll be doing so quite soon!

 

[brewkinger]

Is this a 5 gallon batch? If so, 7.6 lbs of LME gets you to 1.055 OG by itself, and you'll add some gravity with the specialty malt. Not sure why you need to jack up the gravity using a mini-mash. Especially for a first time brewer, keep it simple.

As for the hopping schedule, I like to avoid the dead zone of hopping at 30 minutes (just my opinion). If you want bitterness, boil for 60 minutes. If you want flavor and aroma, move it to the last 20 minutes of the boil.

Here's what I would do

60min: 1oz Simcoe
15min: 0.5oz Centennial
10min: 0.5oz Amarillo
5min: 0.5oz Amarillo
0min (aka flameout/whirlpool): 1oz Amarillo and 0.5oz Centennial
Dry hop 7 days: 1 oz Amarillo (leaf)

Thank you for the batch size correction. BS automatically sets it to 5.5 gallons for my AG setup. I just dropped it down to 5 gallons and it made the changes. Brought me up to 1.058 with just the LME.

After looking at this hop utilization chart I have changed my hop schedule:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_diuBBvYgqF0/TTBwxZAigkI/AAAAAAAAB40/7427XCtkr_o/s1600/hop_utilization.jpg

As you see the peak for flavor is ~21 mins and the peak for aroma is ~7 mins.

Were it me I'd move the flavor addition to ~20 mins and the aroma to 5-7 mins.

My latest IPA had no bittering addition, but was given equal weights of hops at 30, 20, 10, and 5 mins with over 100 IBU's for a standard type IPA (~6.5%). I've yet to drink one that's ready, but I'll be doing so quite soon!

Thanks also for your input... I made a couple of changes based on what we have discussed thus far with the addition of some thoughts and ideas that I read from some of Yooper's extract recipes.
She is an advocate of constant hop additions.

So here is the new thought process...

(60)-Bittering 1oz Simcoe

Then 1 oz of Centennial and 1 oz Amarillo added constantly from 20min right straight down until flame out (about 0.5 ounces added for each 5 min span)

And then the 1oz leaf Amarillo for 7 day DH.

Its only 4oz total of hops but it puts out just below 70 IBU according to BS.

This should make a pretty decent flavor and aroma for an IPA with a decent bittering in the background.

Only time will tell I guess.

 

[rodwha]

I tried my IPA tonight and felt it was missing the bittering addition. I doubt I'll do this again, but one never knows for sure...

 

[chickypad]

I've seen that "hop utilization" chart linked a bunch of times but no one ever links the data where this supposedly comes from. Bittering I could understand, that can be measured, but I just don't buy that a 1 min addition gives you the same amount of aroma as a 15 min addition, those both being 20% of the aroma of a 7 min addition. Then a flameout addition is supposed to be nearly zero aroma? Trying to separate flavor completely from aroma seems a lost cause anyway when our sense of taste is so dependent on our sense of smell.

OP if I were you I'd get an oz of some high alpha hop to bitter and use all your friend's nice flavor/aroma hops late in the boil plus dry hop. If you're going to bump up the gravity and make this into a real IPA I would think you'd want all 5 oz. Simcoe+amarillo makes a nice dry hop combo. I also wouldn't up the crystal any further if you've already got a full lb.

 

[brewkinger]

And to complicate matters, I decided to plug this same recipe into Brewers Friend today out of boredom and got some variations that I am wondering about.

BS says 71.9 IBU

BF says 86.8 IBU

Must be that they use different formulas to get result.

OG for BS says 1.047

OG for BF says 1.056

Gonna keep it simple and brew it as is and then bump it up at flameout to get OG into the mid 50's

I should know better than to experiment and double check stuff (damn scientific nature). All it does is complicate stuff in the end.

 

[chickypad]

It probably has to do with volume settings, when first setting up your profiles in Beersmith you need to go through all those to make sure they are correct. I suspect it has your trub/fermenter losses set high so it's calculating the gravity based on a larger post boil volume, thus the dilution of OG and IBU's.