Any tips for brewing IPAs?

[Ksub123]

My friend and I have been brewing for about four years now and this spring decided to do our first IPA. It was awful! Long story short, it had a very harsh bitterness and a rather odd flavour we hadn’t anticipated. We are going to attempt another one in a few weeks. Any pro tips for brewing a really good IPA or maybe a can’t-fail recipe?

 

[PADave]

Depends on what you are going for. Almost all my brews are IPAs, and you can be all over the spectrum. Just remember how hops work, early additions are for bittering, late additions give you flavor and aroma.
This book is really good:
For The Love of Hops: The Practical Guide to Aroma, Bitterness and the Culture of Hops (Brewing Elements)

 

[dstockwell]

Well you can look at the recipe database to find good recipes. What was your recipe, is your water IPA friendly.

 

[Ksub123]

Thanks PADave!

I’m actually about halfway through it right now.

 

[Ksub123]

I use city water. It’s very low in everything but I added some Burton salts using a calculator to get it to a more acceptable range.

Recipe was
10lb 2row
1lb honey malt
.5lb Munich
.5oz warrior 1hour
1oz summit 15min
1oz palisade 15min
1oz. Citra dry hop 10 days

 

[schematix]

Recipe:
-Simple grain bill (~90-95% 2-row, the rest choose some crystal and/or munich type malt)
-Lots of American or some varieties of AU/NZ hops (~1 lb / 5 G) - split roughly 1/8 bitter, 1/8 flavor, 1/8 aroma and the rest split between a long (>30 min) steep, and dry hop. No noble hops. A big hop steep and dry hop really bring out the big flavor and aroma.

Process:
-Use RO or distilled water plus salts. Brun'Water pale ale profile is good.
-Big yeast starter
-Good fermentation temp control (as with all beers)
-Low oxygen hot+cold side (especially the cold side). If there was one secret to making an IPA that really pops it's this, although many here will argue, but it is what it is.
-Dry hop when fermentation is still occurring, closest to the end as you can manage. I usually add them around 1.015-20 depending upon FG.

 

[ceb12]

I've had pretty good luck making them- although I only do extract, not all grain. I typically only dry hop for about 5 days. I've heard more than that can cause off flavors. I have had the occasional IPA that tasted very bitter out the gate, but then mellowed, and turned out pretty good. Was it the entire batch, or are you still drinking it?

 

[Iseneye]

Do you bottle or keg? In my opinion it is difficult (if not impossible) to make a great IPA if you are bottling. Bottling causes oxidation which stuffs up the fresh hop flavours.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

-Dry hop when fermentation is still occurring, closest to the end as you can manage. I usually add them around 1.015-20 depending upon FG.

I'm going to try this next brew. No issues? There is talk about the hop flavor escaping with the co2 out the airlock. Personally I think that's a bunch homebrew BS...Whats your take on it?

 

[Pkrd]

Use more dry hops than you think is reasonable, or sane.
Try the epic 5-10-15 rule:
For pale ales 5gm per litre.
IPAs 10
DIPAs 15

 

[VTX1300]

My first brew was a Imperial IPA. I used all distilled​ water as my tap water sucks. I used the E Z water Calculator to build a balanced water profile. Early on it was mower deck scrapings​ grassy awful. Left it age for four weeks and it was amazing. Maybe you just need to give it some time. I had the last bottle after 5 months and it was the best one.

 

[schematix]

I'm going to try this next brew. No issues? There is talk about the hop flavor escaping with the co2 out the airlock. Personally I think that's a bunch homebrew BS...Whats your take on it?

The timing is critical. Doing it during active fermentation gives the yeast a chance to scrub o2 out. The second part is doing it as close as you can to the end so you don’t blow all those great aromas out. I typically start spunding at they point too in order to raise the pressure and help hold those volatile compounds in.

Fast ferment test is really useful here to determine when these events should take place.

 

[Grod1]

a tip for an IPA -grain bill dose not matter use either 100% 2 row or maris otter its all about the dry hop.

 

[Chris-18]

Making a good IPA is several things:

Water needs to have low bicarbonate, otherwise it will increase hop alpha acid isomerization, which is why you get that nasty harsh bitterness.
For brewing NEIPA's, minimizing oxygen exposure is EVERYTHING. Doesn't matter what hops you have, what grain bill or whatever, if oxygen gets in it, especially after the dryhopping, then you will never make a good one.
Same pretty much goes with regular IPA's, the more hop aroma you want, the less oxygen exposure you can allow.
But remember, the yeast still needs oxygen to carry out fermentation, so do not minimize hot side oxygen, otherwise it will stall quickly. Aerate like normal.

Keep the grain bill simple, 3-4 ingredients MAX. I have totally stopped using crystal malt in IPA's. I don't find any need for it. Maris Otter makes for a very lovely color, so use that if you want color. Flaked oats are also a great adjunct, but they will create haze, so beware if you are trying to avoid it.

Don't bother with really complicated boil hop additions. All the lovely aroma oils are volatile in steam, so any aroma needs to come from the whirlpool or dryhopping. Boil hops just get the IBUs you want, nothing really more than that.

And get the freshest hops you can, don't settle for 2-3 year old hops from the homebrew store, if you want to make a really great IPA.

Sodium/choride ratio needs to be high. I find 3/1 is a good balance.

 

[PADave]

Wow, this thread is all over the place, as expected, because IPAs are all over the place these days. You first need to decide, do you want an old school west coast style, or a new skool NE style? And there is everything in between. In the end you can't really mess them up, just figure out what you like.

 

[PADave]

Sodium/choride ratio needs to be high. I find 3/1 is a good balance.

Don't you mean sulfate to chloride?

 

[Smellyglove]

Sulfate to chloride additions does not need to be high at all. I brew mine with a somewhat minimum from a pretty "clean" water source. The times I did what many people do, meaning just use a lot of water adjustments, has turned out as the worst ones. My water from the source is pretty easy going though, a very little of everything. But it's not difficult to taste an IPA which has been overdone with water adjustments. Terrible. They end up as tasting salty, and artificicially dry, instead of like drinking spring water, with the IPA-part added to it.

I do 32PPM Caso4, 34PPM CaCl. Very low RA. I use phosphoric to tailor the pH. I don't know why people would load a beer artificially with numbers in the hundreds.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

1oz summit 15min
1oz palisade 15min

My guess is that the 15-minute Summit can explain both the "very harsh bitterness and a rather odd flavour we hadn’t anticipated". You're effectively using a bittering hop as an aroma addition, which will impart both a fairly raw alpha in there (the harsh bitterness) and I'm guessing you're getting the onioniness that Summit is notorious for (some people even get garlic from it).

Save Summit for 60-minute bittering additions, and use something else late in the kettle. If you have any commercial beers in mind that you like, then the board can suggest hops that will get you going in the right direction.

 

[Ksub123]

Wow! I can’t get over the action this post has received. Thanks for all the suggestions. I checked out the Yakima page for summit and I definitely think that’s my biggest problem. The description of summit from my HBS was citrus including orange, tangerine and grapefruit which is exactly what I was aiming for. I think even without the summit it still would have been flawed though, temperature control and oxygenation were questionable. I guess you can’t hit a home run every time.

 

[Craigmn]

I use summit for my IPA that I brew 3-4 times a year, it's a good complimentary hop with other citrusy hops but needs to be used carefully because of its aa content

 

[Chris-18]

Don't you mean sulfate to chloride?

Exactly