Honey IPA Recipe Question

[achanez]

Hi all!

A friend and I started brewing not too long ago and after following a few recipes and reading through the John Palmer book, we decided to venture into making our own recipe. There were a couple issues we ran into along the way during brewing that need not be discussed, but anyway, the beer came out with 0 flavor. Our first recipe and our first pour out batch

Anyway, I think I know what could have gone wrong but we really want to rebrew it after correcting our mistakes. First, I want to check-in here to see if there is anything obviously stupid about the recipe or if the mistakes we made in the brewing process really were the cause of such a terrible beer. Here it is:

Yeast:
London Ale or White Labs WLP001



Fermentables Qty

Cara-Pils (crushed) 4 oz
Honey Malt (Crushed) 8 oz
Wild Flower Honey 3 lbs
Pale Malt (LME) 3.3 lbs
Amber Malt (DME) 1.0 lbs
Golden Light (DME) 1.5 lbs

Target OG: ~1.069


Hops
Qty(oz) Time

Galena 1.3 60min

Cascade 1.0 30min

Amarillo 0.5 30min

Cascade 0.5 15min

Amarillo 1.0 15min

Fuggle 1.0 Dry
Cascade 0.5 Dry




Thanks and

 

[Calder]

Some comments:

- The extract already has carapils, no reason to add it, and it may not add anything to the beer since you are just steeping. Don't waste your money on it. I think I would add 8 ozs of C40 or C60 instead.

- 8 ozs is a lot of honeymalt in my opinion. Certainly do not go greater than 8 ozs. It will not add any fermentables since you are just steeping.

- 3 lbs of honey is almost 30% of the fermentables. Most people would say 10% was the high end for simple sugar additional. I really don't think you get much honey flavor from honey and it is a waste; might as well just add simple sugar, and keep it to about a lb. The honey malt will overpower any subtle flavor you get from the honey.

- 30 minute hop additions really don't do much. You don't maximize their bittering addition, and you get no flavor.

- Fuggle and Cascade as dry hop. Not sure they mix. Not sure the fuggle will be noticed.

That's all I got, take what you want and reject the rest! Everyone needs to experiment.

 

[rodwha]

I make a honey wheat that is very similar to Blue Moon's honey wheat. I use 1/2 lb of honey malt and 2+ lbs of honey at flameout. The flavor isn't exactly like a shot of honey in your glass, but it does have a honey-like quality.

I'm at a loss for why your beer had 0 flavor. 3 lbs of honey may have made it a bit too thin. I did one similar and didn't care for it. about 2 1/2 lbs in 5.5 gals is my threshold.

Golden light, if Briess, has cara-pils in it. The amber, if Briess, doesn't say, and if the pale LME is from MoreBeer it does not have cara-pils or any other head retention helping grain.

When I used golden light LME as ~1/2 of my recipe (I partial mash) I also used 1/4 lb of something like that to help with head retention. Briess shows they use 1% cara-pils in the golden light extracts, and 5% is about the max you'd want to use from what I've read.

I've not heard that steeping cara-pils is a waste, but that it does work. MoreBeer puts cara-pils into some of their extract kits. I doubt they'd do it if it didn't work.