Please critique this IPA recipe

[Neptune]

For a 5 gallon batch...

Grain bill
13 lbs 2-row
1 lb flaked wheat
8 oz biscuit
4 oz Crystal 20
4 oz Crystal 60

Hop schedule
1 oz Chinook FWH
3 oz Glacier (steep/whirlpool @ 190 degrees and let cool naturally)
3 oz Willamette (steep/whirlpool @ 190 degrees and let cool naturally)

Dry hop
2 oz CTZ (3 days or so)

Mash low 150's

I'm about to do this because of hops I have on hand... I compiled the grain bill off of several other recipes that I like and tried to kind of bring them together. Anything unnecessary in there?

Hop combination ok?

 

[northernlad]

My calcs show an OG of 1.075 and IBU's around 35.
I would bring your OG/IBU ration closer to 1:1, move Glacier to 15 and leave the rest. If those are all the hops you have, use some of the Glacier for FWH.
IMO

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Your recipe as is sounds delicious. Though it's more like a very very low bittered English IPA. It's at the top of the EIPA expected gravity range but 5 under expected IBU.

Yeah I would move at least a little of the willamette and glacier to a 5-10 maybe even 15 minute addition. An oz of each moved to 10 minutes is a nice compromise to add a little bit more bittering to move it out of the "strong ESB" range and more decidedly into the IPA range.

I do my whirlpool additions at the same temp as you and get very little if any perceived bitterness from them. 6oz of whirlpool is awesome and gives awesome hop character to an IPA. If you have any additional chinook on hand you can use it in a 10-15 minute addition and keep your glacier/willamette whirlpool additions as is.

 

[Neptune]

Thanks for the input. With my setup I'm expecting an OG of about 1.065 (edit: the batch size is probably closer to 6 gal). I do have more Chinook, so I'll add some more of that.

It sounds like I should ignore any IBU's that beersmith is telling me are contributed in the whirlpool and bring the chinook additions up to around an IBU of 65 (for the 1:1 ratio). Sound about right?

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Yeah, that sounds about right to me. Isomerization drops off considerably as soon as you get to or under 190. When I calculate my whirlpool I use 1% as the utilization and it more closely matches the end results. If you threw in the hope right when you start cooling you'd get higher utilization. I carry my kettle inside hook up the IC and start running it, give it a few minutes then start stirring in my whirlpool addition, then shut off the IC and start my clock.

You will have to lower the calculation and then taste the beer when all is said and done. Does it taste like your IBUs are higher than calculated? Do your IBUs taste lower than calculated? Then you can sort of build up a list of sensory data and play with your numbers in BS, BF I think tells you a 5% utilization rate is normal but I find that that number is way way higher than what I and others perceive in my IPAs on my system with my recipes, I find that 1-2% is much closer to what I get in the end product.

 

[northernlad]

I like my IPA's dead center of style with emphasis on flavor and smooth, dissipating bitterness. I use Warrior to bitter, Citra or other tropical leaning hop for flavor, Willamette for flameout and Cascade for Dry.

I usually shoot for 1:1 OG:IBU. I consider IBU contributions of hops added at 15 or flameout to be 0.

If I want my face melted by bitterness I'll get a commercial.

 

[Neptune]

I use Warrior to bitter, Citra or other tropical leaning hop for flavor, Willamette for flameout and Cascade for Dry.

I like your hop choices, but what's the difference between flavor and flameout? I always kind of thought of them as the same thing...

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

I like your hop choices, but what's the difference between flavor and flameout? I always kind of thought of them as the same thing...

It seems like 10-15 minute additions are "flavor", it's suggestive of the aromatics are blown off in the boil, but the hops aren't boiled to heck before flameout.

Less than 10 is considered "aroma" cause all the aromatics are retained and the oils aren't cooked, so you add some smooth hop body.

In practice they all sort of have a unique character. I've noticed when I only do a bitter charge, and additions at less than 5 minutes approximately 1/4th total hop volume. Then whirlpool is 1/2 of the volume of hops at whirlpool, and the last quarter reserved for dry hop. You get a super oily juice hop character without heavy bitterness.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Thanks for the input. With my setup I'm expecting an OG of about 1.065 (edit: the batch size is probably closer to 6 gal). I do have more Chinook, so I'll add some more of that.

It sounds like I should ignore any IBU's that beersmith is telling me are contributed in the whirlpool and bring the chinook additions up to around an IBU of 65 (for the 1:1 ratio). Sound about right?

Beersmith assumes steep/whirlpool additions are at 100C/212F, so will have some bitterness contribution. If you do a hop-stand cooler than this, you need to fiddle the numbers a bit - I change the AA% of my hops (in beersmith) to between 1% and 2% for 80C hop stands. It is a bit of guesswork though.

 

[Neptune]

So I ended up using 1.5 oz Chinook at FWH and left the rest as planned. Maybe it won't be bitter enough, I'll have to wait and see.

I will definitely play around with the late additions some more going forward. Live and learn. Thanks for the input!

 

[northernlad]

If its not bitter enough, add more next time!