Hope schedule for this?

[Crispyvelo]

Hi All,

I drank a delicious beer a couple weeks ago from Knee Deep Brewing called "Breaking Bud". It was a delicious - danky, piney, grapefruity, with a nice balance of maltiness and a kiss of residual sweetness.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/23200/159885/

After a quick Google search, I found that nobody has tried to clone this yet on the home-brew level. I'll be taking the first swipe!

First step - research. I've already drank one, searched for existing notes online. Last step was to see what hints the brewery gives.

According to the brewery's website, they describe the beer as:

"Old school meets new school in this fresh approach to the classic IPA. At 50 IBU’s and 6.7% ABV, Breaking Bud features the restrained bitterness and alcohol of a classic IPA with newer tropical fruit hop flavors and aromas of Mosaic. Also in the hop mix are Simcoe and CTZ, creating layers of mango, passion fruit, pine and dank. A malt bill with a pinch of crystal malt and a hefty dose of flaked wheat keeps the beer crisp while adding flavor complexity."

So I went out and bought the malt. I'm going with:
14lb of 2-row pale
1lb flakes oaks
.5lb Crystal 60L

**I've been experiencing VERY low efficiency, so I'm planning 50-60%, putting my somewhere in the 6% ABV range.

For hops I picked up:
2 oz Mosaic 11.7AA
2 oz CTZ (Columbus) 17.1AA
Simcoe (I have a pound in my freezer) 12.7AA

What hop schedule would you all recommend. I plan on dry hopping for a couple weeks in secondary as well. I would love some feedback!

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Pappers_]

Never had that beer, so can't say from that point of view. From the website's description, it sounds like they are saying it is more Mosaic than the others, which would also be my choice.

Maybe bittering addition (60 minute) with the CTZ since its such a high AA. which you can use to get most of the way toward your target of 50 IBUs.

Then, for IPAs, I usually start throwing hops in around the ten minute mark, with additions at 10, 5 and 1. Maybe a split of each of the three varieties at each addition. Then dry hop with Mosaic and Simcoe. You may need to get more Mosaic. FYI, I usually don't dry hop for more than seven days - in my experience, more than that has led to grassy or herbaceous flavors.

 

[Owly055]

Your efficiency range is something that interests me.......... How are you measuring efficiency? and What is your process? People calculate efficiency in different ways.

In any case, my typical hop schedule is a bittering hop at the beginning of the boil, and everything else very late, or whirlpool. Much longer than 5 minutes in the boil and you lose a lot of flavor an aroma due to loss of essential oils. I use pellet hops almost exclusively, and I figure that anything I smell is lost. If it's in the air, it not in the beer!! I don't have a counterflow chiller, pump, and hopback, or I would probably introduce nearly all of my hops via the hopback at an extremely low rate of flow. I want my hops in my beer.......NOT in the air. In my opinion for what it's worth, adding hops at 20 and 30 minutes is pretty much wasting hops. What are you going to get out of hops that takes more than a few minutes boil except bitterness?

H.W.

 

[Crispyvelo]

Thanks for the feedback! I ended up going a little heavier in the Simcoe because I happened to have more of that. I even used the Simcoe for the 60-min bittering addition for that reason. Smelled great going into the fermenter!

 

[Crispyvelo]

Your efficiency range is something that interests me.......... How are you measuring efficiency? and What is your process? People calculate efficiency in different ways.

I plug in all my fermentables into my Brewster app and it calculates efficiency based on my OG after the boil. For my 15.5 lb of grain, I mashed with 5gal of 170F water which brought be to about 153F mash temp, the did two batch sparges with 2.5 gal of water @190, bringing my grain bed up just under 170. This yielded more wort than expected, so I actually had to boil about 1.5 gallons in a separate pot on the stove which I've never had to do before. Because I had so much volume I decided to extend the boil time to 90 mins (also a first for me).

My efficiency was my best so far at 67%! I know this is fairly average for most brewers, but I've been cursed with VERY low efficiencies, despite doing everything textbook. I've tried fly sparing, batch sparging, longer mash times, double crushing my grains, buying a second thermometer to double check my temps, upgrading my mash ton from a steel braid to s false bottom, etc. Despite all of this, I was seeing efficiencies in the 50's on a regular basis.

Feels great to break the curse! ��

 

[Qhrumphf]

I plug in all my fermentables into my Brewster app and it calculates efficiency based on my OG after the boil. For my 15.5 lb of grain, I mashed with 5gal of 170F water which brought be to about 153F mash temp, the did two batch sparges with 2.5 gal of water @190, bringing my grain bed up just under 170. This yielded more wort than expected, so I actually had to boil about 1.5 gallons in a separate pot on the stove which I've never had to do before. Because I had so much volume I decided to extend the boil time to 90 mins (also a first for me).

My efficiency was my best so far at 67%! I know this is fairly average for most brewers, but I've been cursed with VERY low efficiencies, despite doing everything textbook. I've tried fly sparing, batch sparging, longer mash times, double crushing my grains, buying a second thermometer to double check my temps, upgrading my mash ton from a steel braid to s false bottom, etc. Despite all of this, I was seeing efficiencies in the 50's on a regular basis.

Feels great to break the curse! ��

No comment on the recipe, but how are you crushing your grains? If it's a store crush, doesn't matter how many times you run it through if their mill is too coarse. If you're brewing all-grain, you need your own mill. Period. End of story.

It could also be a water issue. Incorrect mash pH parameters can impact efficiency, as well. If you're not properly treating your water, that can be your issue.

I have my own mill sit at 0.032", religiously make sure my mash pH is in the 5.3-5.5 range (room temp), and I either double batch sparge, or fly sparge, and routinely high 85% efficiency on average gravity beers, 88% on session beers, or maybe 83% on high gravity beers.

 

[Crispyvelo]

No comment on the recipe, but how are you crushing your grains? If it's a store crush, doesn't matter how many times you run it through if their mill is too coarse. If you're brewing all-grain, you need your own mill. Period. End of story.

It could also be a water issue. Incorrect mash pH parameters can impact efficiency, as well. If you're not properly treating your water, that can be your issue.

I have my own mill sit at 0.032", religiously make sure my mash pH is in the 5.3-5.5 range (room temp), and I either double batch sparge, or fly sparge, and routinely high 85% efficiency on average gravity beers, 88% on session beers, or maybe 83% on high gravity beers.

What make and model mill do you use? That may have to be my next investment. I was relying on the store to do it for me, which may have been a mistake.

 

[Qhrumphf]

What make and model mill do you use? That may have to be my next investment. I was relying on the store to do it for me, which may have been a mistake.

Can't say for sure without actually seeing the crush, but yeah, there's a lot of shops doing some VERY poor crushing of grains. When you're only steeping specialty grains it's not the end of the world. But for an all-grain beer, a bad crush will majorly impact your brew.

I use a Barley Crusher. I used to use a Corona mill, but the crush was more of a shred than a crush and took a long time and a lot of work so I upgraded, but compared to nothing, it's a fairly inexpensive step up, but not as good as the Barley Crusher. I've used a friend's Monster Mill too, which was awesome, but substantially more expensive than even the Barley Crusher. But I'd recommend the BC as a good middle ground of price, reliability, and value.

 

[whovous]

Anything to report on how this turned out? I just had this beer today, and would really love to be able to clone it.

 

[Crispyvelo]

Came out great! It's strong and a little more grippy than the real thing, but quite tasty! Tasted like sweet honey, pine, and juicy mangos. I'll do a side by side blind tasting with the real thing and post a link!

 

[whovous]

How did your efficiency and your color turn out? Anything you would change if you did it again?

BTW, I think the Barley Crusher is a good choice, so long as you do not extremely high volumes or a ton of wheat.

 

[Crispyvelo]

How did your efficiency and your color turn out? Anything you would change if you did it again?

So here is a quick video I took a couple weeks ago after just a week in the bottle. I'll take another video of a blind tasting side by side with the real thing.



I ended up hitting almost 70% efficiency, which means I overshot my ABV (since I loaded up the grain bill assuming my efficiency would suck)...should have been 6 something, but I hit 8.27%. So in hindsight, I would back off the ABV and maybe tone down the bittering addition to target 40IBU.

Oh, and my dry hop amounts were 3/8oz CTZ and 1oz Mosaic. Wouldn't change that!

 

[whovous]

Looking good.

Can you tell me your entire hop schedule? I mistakenly assumed it was in your first post, but now I see that was just what you had when you posted. I plan to do a 2.5 gallon batch and to adjust the grain bill for my own efficiency expectations.

 

[Crispyvelo]

Looking good.

Can you tell me your entire hop schedule? I mistakenly assumed it was in your first post, but now I see that was just what you had when you posted. I plan to do a 2.5 gallon batch and to adjust the grain bill for my own efficiency expectations.

Sorry about the delay! My hop schedule was a bit crazy:
60 min - .75 oz Simcoe (12.7AA)
5 min - .5 oz Columbus (17.1AA)
5 min - 1 oz Simcoe (12.7AA)
1 min - 1 oz Columbus (17.1AA)
1 min - 1 oz Mosaic (11.7AA)
10 day dry hop - .5 oz Columbus (17.1AA)
10 day dry hop - 1 oz Mosaic (11.7AA)

Total IBUs 51.5. Hope this helps!

 

[whovous]

I wrote to the brewery and got a little more information:

SRM – 5
CTZ is used with bittering addition
Heavy whirlpool addition
Heavy dry hop addition

I am going to start a new thread a little later, once I do some math...

 

[Crispyvelo]