A little help for a new brewer?

[docubus]

Hello everyone.

I am trying to develop my first IIPA recipe, and I was hoping for a little help from the people on the HBT forums. Any suggestions on how I can make this better? I am hoping for something similar to DFH 90, but with more citrus bite, so I started with BYO's extract DFH recipe and made some substitutions. What do you think?

Also, my LHBS does not have Amber malt 35*L. I have read that you can roast pale malt relatively easily as a substitute, but all they have is "Belgian Pale Ale." Would that work?

They also don't carry WYEAST 1099. Does White Labs have a similar substitute? I can order both the Amber Malt and the WYEAST if I need to, but I was hoping to avoid that if possible.

Thank you for your help!

1.75 lbs Two-Row Malt
1.66 lbs Amber Malt 35*L

6.4 lbs Pale LME

Boiling Hops
• 16 AAU Citra hops (90-0 mins)
• 8.0 AAU Chinook hops (90-0 mins)
• 8.0 AAU Amarillo hops (90-0 mins)


Dry Hops
• 1 oz. Citra hops (dry hops)
• 0.5 oz. Chinook hops (dry hops)
• 0.5 oz. Amarillo hops (dry hops)

1 tsp. Irish moss (15 mins)
Wyeast 1099 (Whitbread Ale) yeast
.75 cups corn sugar (for priming)

Steep crushed grains in 1.1 gallons (4 L) of water at 150 *F for 45 minutes.

Boil the wort for 105 minutes. Starting with 90 minutes left in the boil, begin slowly and evenly adding hops. Ferment in Primary for 10 days. Dry hop in secondary at 71 *F for 5 days. Transfer back to bottling bucket for another week. Prime and bottle. Condition for 3(?) weeks.

Sorry to ask so many questions. I look forward to hearing your feedback!

 

[Newgene]

Two general comments:

1.) Getting the citrus flavor, to me, is about picking one of the citrus flavored hops, and putting it in near the end of the boil, or dry. I didn't dig into your timing, but it looks like you're doing that. Generally, for flavor, I would target somewhere around the last 15 minutes, and for aroma, go with a dry hop. Hops descriptions can be found here:
http://***********/resources/hops?style=16

2.) As for the 35L, I would use whatever they have that's close. I wouldn't even worry if you used all 40L. I personally can't tell much of a difference in a 10L shift (at least not in flavor).

I'm actually at the point now where I really enjoy brewing from whatever the heck I have in the stash. It's almost like reaching in the cabinet and freezer and saying I bet this would be good together. So, I would use whatever citrus flavored hops you have, or can get (i.e. Amarillo, galena, cascade, etc.), and use whatever crystal you have that's really close. I guarantee the beer would be very good, and you'll have all your buddies amazed that you can just throw anything together and make great beer.

 

[Poobah58]

That's a lot of Amber malt. Try a 1/2 lb for your first batch. A little goes a long way. Especially if your doing a partial mash (LME has unfermentables). You can sub victory, biscuit, melanoiden or aromatic if need be. You can also use S-04 dry yeast if needed. Also, a little sugar is not a bad idea for a IIPA to dry it up a bit and give the yeast a little extra to munch on (that partial mash thing again!).

 

[Yooper]

Amber malt is a malt that has very strong flavor. If you have to sub it, you could try biscuit malt or aromatic malt. It won't be the same, but it's a reasonable sub.

 

[docubus]

Thanks for the help! I will probably sub the aromatic for the amber. Any thoughts on the conditioning time or a White Labs sub for WYEAST 1099?

 

[Poobah58]

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

S-04 dry yeast is 1099...

 

[docubus]

Whoops, sorry, I didn't see that before. Thanks!