American IPA Recipe Help

[adrian078]

I just created and brewed my first own recipe. It's been 3 weeks now and I finally got to taste it.

It tasted pretty good actually. Head retention was amazing and lasted until I finished the beer. Colour was darker than I wanted and also more orangey.

For taste, it was pretty good. The hops were excellent but overall I felt it was a tiny bit too bitter or didn't have enough sweetness to balance it.

Also I would have liked it a little stronger in alcohol.

Here's the grainbill:

IBU: 66
ABV: 5.9%
Yeast: US-05
EBC: 42

0.24 kg Caramel Rye - 4.9 %
0.24 kg Caramunich I - 4.9 %
0.15 kg Crystal Malt - 60L - 3.2 %
0.10 kg Carafa III - 2.0 %
4kg Light DME - 84%

Questions are:

1) To balance the bitterness, should I be thinking of reducing the bittering hops or adding something like a light crystal? Or none of the above


2) The colour was too dark. Should I ditch the carafa or reduce it? How do I also get it more red in colour or at least golden? Will adding carared do it?

What colour should I aim for?

3) For the ABV, I know adding me DME will increase it. But how will this affect the overall balance of the beer?

Aside from the colour being out of character, the rest of the beer is within the parameters in beersmith.

What do you reckon?

 

[Ctownbrewery]

What was your mash temp for the grains? OG,FG?

The grain bill looks good to me, but if your trying to get a lighter color, I would switch the crystal to say 20L or 10L depending on what your shooting for.
Also you may have scorched your DME(resulting in a darker color)

As for balancing the bitterness, I wouldn't take any IBUs away (personally I like my API to be in the mid 70's.) if I wanted to add more sweetness, I'd adjust my mash temp.

Just a disclosure, this is for my likings and my method. I'm sure there will be others that will chime in here.

 

[timrox1212]

I would drop carafa all together. That would probably get you to where you want color wise. And as for sweetness maybe go down to crystal 20 or 40 and add more of it to get more sweetness without adding more color.


Sent from my iPhone

 

[JordanKnudson]

I agree, I would drop the carafa, and perhaps the caramel rye as well. The latter depends entirely on your tastes, but if you're using Caramunich and C60, you'll still get sweetness. If you're concerned about color, this will lighten it substantially. Then add your extract at the end of your boil, and you will solve a bunch of your color issues.

To bring up your abv, simply add additional DME and maybe a small amount of simple sugar to dry it out (dextrose is a popular choice). Just make sure you pitch an appropriate amount of yeast.

I'm not seeing your hop schedule, but here are a few suggestions for creating an IPA with pleasant (rather than overwhelming or gross) bitterness:
1. Use a lot of your hops at the end of the boil, and definitely include a hop stand. Use a single 60-min bittering charge.
2. Try to dry out your beer. You, as an extract brewer, don't have control over mash temperature, so you'll probably get a medium body from your extract, but you can use simple sugar like dextrose or honey along with a highly attenuative yeast to dry it out.
3. Personally, I find that sweetness is very hard to balance well against hop flavor and bitterness. The sweet and bitter flavors we use in beer are each great on their own, but that doesn't mean that they always go well together (kind of like grapefruit and toothpaste). This again can be solved by aiming for a more dry beer.
4. Use a big dry hop. Period. 3-4 ounces in a 5 gallon batch is what I would call a minimum for a great hop character.

Now, bear in mind that these are only a few suggestions. It's not a complete list. Other people will have different (perhaps even contrary) advice. There is no one correct answer, so the biggest thing for you is to experiment! Figure out what works and what doesn't by making adjustments to each subsequent batch. Obviously this forum is a great source of knowledge, but there's no substitute for your own experience!!

 

[Ctownbrewery]

Wait, no control of mash temp? How do you figure when there's grains involved?

 

[Ctownbrewery]

Ha never mind, opened my big mouth before rereading. Sorry

 

[Yooper]

I just created and brewed my first own recipe. It's been 3 weeks now and I finally got to taste it.

It tasted pretty good actually. Head retention was amazing and lasted until I finished the beer. Colour was darker than I wanted and also more orangey.

For taste, it was pretty good. The hops were excellent but overall I felt it was a tiny bit too bitter or didn't have enough sweetness to balance it.

Also I would have liked it a little stronger in alcohol.

Here's the grainbill:

IBU: 66
ABV: 5.9%
Yeast: US-05
EBC: 42

0.24 kg Caramel Rye - 4.9 %
0.24 kg Caramunich I - 4.9 %
0.15 kg Crystal Malt - 60L - 3.2 %
0.10 kg Carafa III - 2.0 %
4kg Light DME - 84%

Questions are:

1) To balance the bitterness, should I be thinking of reducing the bittering hops or adding something like a light crystal? Or none of the above


2) The colour was too dark. Should I ditch the carafa or reduce it? How do I also get it more red in colour or at least golden? Will adding carared do it?

What colour should I aim for?

3) For the ABV, I know adding me DME will increase it. But how will this affect the overall balance of the beer?

Aside from the colour being out of character, the rest of the beer is within the parameters in beersmith.

What do you reckon?

1. You've got a boatload of crystal/cara malts already. You have over 13% already- that's a lot, and most people would use only about 5-7% crystal in an IPA. The caramel rye is a weird crystal, as it's still crystal malt but with a bit of spicy flavor. I'd not use that, and instead go ahead and keep a lighter crystal or the caramunich.

2. Ditch the carafa, unless you want a dark colored IPA.

3. Adding more DME, or using some base grain like two-row instead of all of the crystal/cara malts will give you a higher OG and a higher ABV. Also, some people like a drier IPA (most do, in fact) and use corn sugar or table sugar in about pound at the end of the boil to help boost the ABV but not add increased body. You may consider that.

Without having any idea on what the hopping schedule was, I cannot comment on why it feels too bitter, but the grainbill itself looks pretty sweet.

 

[snowtires]

If it tastes like a dry mouth kind of bitterness it could be astringency cause by squeezing the grain bag too much or sparging too hot?

 

[adrian078]

The OG 1.058 was and FG was 1.018.

Since it didn't attenuate quite as well as I hoped maybe as suggested a little dextrose will do the trick - will 400g (1lb) do it?


By popular demand, here's the hop schedule I should have included in my initial post (28g is about 1 Oz - for you US guys)

78.68 g Cascade - Boil 60.0 min - 47.5 IBUs
17.21 g Amarillo - Boil 10.0 min - 5.2 IBUs
11.56 g Galaxy - Boil 10.0 min - 4.9 IBUs
8.61 g Galaxy - Boil 5.0 min - 2.0 IBUs
8.61 g Nelson Sauvin - Boil 5.0 min - 2.0 IBUs
4.92 g Amarillo - Boil 5.0 min - 12 0.8 IBUs
8.40 g Galaxy - Boil 0.0 min - 0.0 IBUs
8.40 g Nelson Sauvin - Boil 0.0 min
7.93 g Amarillo - Boil 0.0 min
22.17 g Amarillo - Day 7, Dry Hop for 7.0 Days
21.00 g Galaxy - Day 7, Dry Hop for 7.0 Days
18.67 g Nelson Sauvin - Day 7, Dry Hop for 7.0 Days



I think I might drop the carafa and replace the crystal 60 with something a little lighter too. I want to keep the rye in there to give it some spiceyness.

How will drying the beer out more with dextrose affect the perceived bitterness/sweetness?

I liked the aroma and overall flavour of the beer and hops. Any improvements anyone can see with the hop schedule?

 

[Yooper]

The OG 1.058 was and FG was 1.018.

Since it didn't attenuate quite as well as I hoped maybe as suggested a little dextrose will do the trick - will 400g (1lb) do it?


By popular demand, here's the hop schedule I should have included in my initial post (28g is about 1 Oz - for you US guys)

78.68 g Cascade - Boil 60.0 min - 47.5 IBUs
17.21 g Amarillo - Boil 10.0 min - 5.2 IBUs
11.56 g Galaxy - Boil 10.0 min - 4.9 IBUs
8.61 g Galaxy - Boil 5.0 min - 2.0 IBUs
8.61 g Nelson Sauvin - Boil 5.0 min - 2.0 IBUs
4.92 g Amarillo - Boil 5.0 min - 12 0.8 IBUs
8.40 g Galaxy - Boil 0.0 min - 0.0 IBUs
8.40 g Nelson Sauvin - Boil 0.0 min
7.93 g Amarillo - Boil 0.0 min
22.17 g Amarillo - Day 7, Dry Hop for 7.0 Days
21.00 g Galaxy - Day 7, Dry Hop for 7.0 Days
18.67 g Nelson Sauvin - Day 7, Dry Hop for 7.0 Days



I think I might drop the carafa and replace the crystal 60 with something a little lighter too. I want to keep the rye in there to give it some spiceyness.

How will drying the beer out more with dextrose affect the perceived bitterness/sweetness?

I liked the aroma and overall flavour of the beer and hops. Any improvements anyone can see with the hop schedule?

Instead of caramel rye (which is a crystal malt), if you want some rye spiciness, why not use some flaked rye or malted rye? That would be perfect if you want some rye flavor, and not overload your beer with cara-type malts. That's probably the reason it stopped at 1.018- way too much cara/crystal malts, although that beer should be pretty sweet and not dry at all.

 

[adrian078]

Instead of caramel rye (which is a crystal malt), if you want some rye spiciness, why not use some flaked rye or malted rye? That would be perfect if you want some rye flavor, and not overload your beer with cara-type malts. That's probably the reason it stopped at 1.018- way too much cara/crystal malts, although that beer should be pretty sweet and not dry at all.

Ok. I'm not sure what the advantage of replacing the caramel rye with flaked or malted rye is. Is it to get the spiciness from the rye but without adding more crystal and therefore sweetness?