Judge my IPA please!!

[brewsterk2]

I'm reposting thius to see if anyone has anything constructive to say. Sorry if you've seen it in the Beginner's forum.

My roommate and I wrote this without any real help besides our own research and calculations.

It's still a work-in-progress but this is our second time brewing it and we've adjusted a few things and so far it tastes BOMB.


We call it "Assassination"

Partial-Mash/5 gallon batch
Yeast: Wyeast 1056
Starter: No
OG:1.065
FG:1.013

Malts:

6 lbs. Pale DME
2 lbs. German Munich
1 lbs. French Caramel Vienna

Hops:

3 oz. Chinook@14%
4 oz. Cascade@4% + 2 oz. for dry hopping
2 oz. Willamette@4%

Yeast - Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Schedule:

60 min - 1 oz. Chinook
45 min - n/a
30 min - 2 oz. Chinook
15 min - 2 oz. Willamette, 1 oz. Cascade
Flameout - 3 oz. Cascade

Notes:

6 Gallon boil
Grains "steeped" at 158F for 45 minutes, sparged at 170F for 10 min
DME added as follows: 2.5 lbs @60min, 2.5 lbs @40min, and 1 lbs @20min
Brew dry-hopped in secondary fermenter with 2 oz. Cascade for 5 days
Bottle conditioned with corn sugar


So what do you guys think? I haven't paid attention to too many other details, but as I become more and more experienced, I'm sure that will change. Anything I should be on the look out for?

 

[permo]

I think your IBU's are going to be way to high and your beer will be unbalanced.

You are steeping 3# of specialty grains for this beer?

I think you may want to go back to the drawing board....maybe check out beersmith or an online recipe development tool and get some guidelines to follow for your beer.

You can brew whatever you want, but I advise against brewing with that hop schedule on such a light amount of fermentables.

 

[brewsterk2]

Thank you! Yeah as far as I can tell from tasting during fermentation, the beer is infact very bitter. I was aware that we'd have a very high IBU count so I'm ok with this (love me a bitter ipa). As far as it being unbalanced, I can't say.

What does an unbalanced beer say to the pallette? If you know what I mean. Serious question.

 

[permo]

Thank you! Yeah as far as I can tell from tasting during fermentation, the beer is infact very bitter. I was aware that we'd have a very high IBU count so I'm ok with this (love me a bitter ipa). As far as it being unbalanced, I can't say.

What does an unbalanced beer say to the pallette? If you know what I mean. Serious question.

It will just be very bitter and leave a bad taste on your tongue. There won't be enough malt and alcohol to balance it out. i am thinking that adding some dextrose to the fermenter might be a good way to dry it out and add some alcohol to balance the IBU. I am not sure, but I think your IBU will be well over 70 on this one.

 

[beerjunky828]

I have used Chinook extensively and will say that it is a very pungent and hard hitting hop when used in flavoring a beer. Out of the 4 oz. hops used for my IIPA for the flavor addition, I can distinctly pick that hop over the other 3 I used. I would say that this beer will be very, very hoppy

 

[AnOldUR]

. . . but I think your IBU will be well over 70 on this one.

I get about 115 IBU's for a 1.065 beer.
That puts the bitterness ratio at 1.8!

Pucker up. :cross:

 

[hercher]

Yeah, your hops are too high. An easy fix for the next time is to just get rid of the second Chinook addition. You'll still have a hoppy beer, but at least you'll be able to taste the malt as well.

Frankly, for a beginner, I would tend to shy away from the high alpha hops in general. My personal taste is to use hops that have lower alpha acid content. This way you can use slightly more hops by weight, and I find you get better flavor that way. I would also suggest limiting your varieties to one or two in a single batch. You'll become more familiar with the flavor of different hops that way. I've been brewing for 15 years now, and still only tend to use 2 different strains of hops in a single recipe. (I also like simple grain bills -- yours is fine here.)

 

[jlpred55]

LOL. I don't know- you did go ape sh*t with the hops but you might be suprised. My Tailwater IPA on tap right now used a schedule like this:

60- 2oz Chinook
30- 1oz Chinook
10- 1.5oz Cascade
0- 1.5oz Cascade
DH 1oz Chinook 1oz Cascade

It has a good firm bitterness that is not overwhelming IMO and tons of hop flavor, a bit like drinking grapefruit juice. Of course I used a touch of Amber Malt and MO as the base with some Crystal so there is plenty of malt there to balance. I also didn't tap it until about 8 or 9 week mark knowing it was going to need some mellowing. It is now 3 months old IIRC, and is really coming into its own. So yours may need some age but those hops will eventually balance out to give you something that isn't going to blow your face off. LOL.

Also, I doubt you got much out of that munich unless you mashed it.

 

[hercher]

jlpred makes a good point. A little more crystal malt can help balance out those hops. I love hoppy beers myself, but you don't want the flavor to be so lopsided. You don't want "bitter beer face." Using some malt that will lend unfermentables creates a base to support all those hops.