American IPA Base Pale Ale Recipe for Single hop Beers

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I'm interested in this thread because buying individual 1 oz packets of hops is not cost effective, plus my process is still resulting in beers without noticeable hop aroma or flavor, despite whirlpooling and dry hopping at the suggested rates and trying to minimize O2 as much as reasonable.
 
I'm interested in this thread because buying individual 1 oz packets of hops is not cost effective, plus my process is still resulting in beers without noticeable hop aroma or flavor, despite whirlpooling and dry hopping at the suggested rates and trying to minimize O2 as much as reasonable.
Yakima Valley Hops has really fair prices for their two oz packs. If you buy 8-2oz packs you only pay about 3-4 dollars more for a pound that way but you keep the hops fresher if you don’t have you’re own vacuum sealer.

Everyone has their own best practice for eliminating o2 for their system. For example I have modified the lid of my fermonster with a liquid and gas keg posts and now it’s practically a keg so that I can pressurize it, purge serving kegs with fermentation co2, coldcrash, and close transfer all without any o2 exposure.

What are you fermenting in? And are you bottling or kegging?
 
I don't mean to hijack your thread since I've already posted by sob stories elsewhere on HBT but I fermented and dryhopped in my serving keg which prior to any temperature drop, I pressurized with CO2. It seems the cold crash took all the hops and aroma with it. I'm using a floating diptube, so it was taking very clear, light beer off the top. I gave the keg a little shake in hopes it would redistribute the hop flavor/aroma, which it did to some extent, but it seems I'm the odd person out here, since most people separate the beer completely from the hops with their transfer and I've never heard anyone say the physical separation pulled away the flavor/aroma. Last time cleaned out my keg hopped beer after it kicked, the aroma in the remaining hop sludge was overwhelming and pleasant. Yet I can't seem to get that to infuse into the beer.
 
Dgallo, funny that you mentioned Yakima Valley Hops. I just ordered a pound of the 2019 Galaxy crop from their Friday Flash Sale specifically to brew your single hop beer a few more times with it. So far I have done Galaxy, Cascade, and then Nugget this weekend. After that, it's Galaxy again, then Mosaic, Simcoe, and finally Amarillo.
 
Dgallo, funny that you mentioned Yakima Valley Hops. I just ordered a pound of the 2019 Galaxy crop from their Friday Flash Sale specifically to brew your single hop beer a few more times with it. So far I have done Galaxy, Cascade, and then Nugget this weekend. After that, it's Galaxy again, then Mosaic, Simcoe, and finally Amarillo.
I'm glad you are enjoying the recipe. I just love how simple it is but has big flavors. Mosiac is one of my favorite single hop varieties. It has a lot of complexity.
 
@Taiters do you have a detailed review of each for our benefit?
I could do a followup for each variation I do, mainly because I upped the hops to 8oz from the 6 that the original recipe uses so the hop schedule is a little different. I did this because I bought a bunch of hops from YVH in 8oz and 16oz packages. The beauty of this recipe is that the grain bill is fairly neutral but the little bit of wheat and biscuit gives it just enough flavor and it looks amazing in the glass. Check out my profile pic. It serves as a wonderful showcase of whatever hop you want to brew with.
 
I don't mean to hijack your thread since I've already posted by sob stories elsewhere on HBT but I fermented and dryhopped in my serving keg which prior to any temperature drop, I pressurized with CO2. It seems the cold crash took all the hops and aroma with it. I'm using a floating diptube, so it was taking very clear, light beer off the top. I gave the keg a little shake in hopes it would redistribute the hop flavor/aroma, which it did to some extent, but it seems I'm the odd person out here, since most people separate the beer completely from the hops with their transfer and I've never heard anyone say the physical separation pulled away the flavor/aroma. Last time cleaned out my keg hopped beer after it kicked, the aroma in the remaining hop sludge was overwhelming and pleasant. Yet I can't seem to get that to infuse into the beer.
I had similar problems like you when I was dry-hopping in my 11liter fermenter kegs after a cold crash, before I transfer them to my serving kegs. I didn't seem to be able to extract enough from the hops. I read up a bit here on the board and it seems it could be a combination of lots of things: the pellets just dropping straight to the bottom (pellets being too cold when dropped in, and my kegs being shorter than 19l kegs and resulting in a shorter travel time from top to bottom), still too much yeast present in the fermentation keg dragging down hop oils, and the inability to rouse the hops without bringing the yeast back in suspension.

So I switched to the following steps:
* purging my 9.5liter serving kegs (that are filled to the brim with star san) with fermentation CO2 from my 11 liter fermentation kegs
* no dry hops before terminal and cold crash
* cold crashing my fermentation kegs to 0-2C for 2 days to get as much yeast to drop out
* taking my hops out out the freezer plenty of time before dry hopping and also squashing the package a bit, so the pellets already break up a bit
* using a mix of T90 and Cryo (1:1) for dry hop to reduce the amount of plant matter in my serving kegs
* dropping those pellets in the purged serving kegs while flowing CO2 into the serving keg
* closed transferring my beer from the fermentation keg (which has a CBDS) to the serving keg (which has a CBDS) by using gravity
* dry hopping for 3 days at room temperature and 20-30psi in the serving kegs (the pressure helps to lock in the aroma in the beer), while flipping the kegs twice a day, in order to let the hop particles "travel" a sufficient long road through the beer. (see comment later about professional brewers and residence time of hops)
* finally cold crashing the serving kegs

I've only done this once, but I now have a 5.5% Citra pale ale ( 4oz of Citra T90 in the whirlpool, 3.5oz of Citra T90 and 3.5 oz of Citra cryo in the dry hop) for a 5 gal batch on tap which is bursting with flavour and aroma and which has a defined citra hop character and a stable haze.
It is definitely the best hoppy beer I have ever brewed and I hope I will not get any vegetal flavours later on from the hops still being in the keg.

I think the key is dropping out as much yeast out as possible and moving the beer to a purged vessel so you can sufficiently agitate the beer by gently flipping the keg twice a day. Professional brewers have less this problem of extraction as the hops have to travel a longer time when they are dropped in at the top of the fermenter and travel to the bottom of the fermenter and even they still rouse the hops with CO2 to get full extraction. In the end extraction is all about the residence time of the hops in the beer and the environment they see while travelling through the beer (temperature and hop oil concentrations). The flipping also helps with the mixing of the beer, so the hops see less high concentrations of hop oils while travelling through the beer so there will be more extraction for that specific hop particle at that specific time.

The only problems I see in this approach is leaving the beers on the hops for the whole time they are in the serving keg, but if you think that the problem in your and mine old approach was that the hops were sitting at the bottom not getting enough extraction, I'm thinking that in this case it is a good thing that the hops are sitting at the bottom of my serving keg with only slow extraction any kind of vegetal flavours at the slow rate while the beer is taken from the top of the keg with the CBDS.

Another problem I could have is possible diacetyl because of hop creep. Solutions for this could be adding a small amount of pellets during fermentation so the creep takes place when sufficient yeast is still in suspension resulting in no diacetyl or dry hopping after terminal at lower temperatures (< 16C)

Big shout out to everyone on this board and especially the regular contributors to the Northeast Style IPA thread for helping me find a way to make bright hoppy beers which are on par with a lot of the NEIPAs that are now in the market. My specific method is just an adaptation of what other people on this board have been suggesting for a while now to my specific situation where I work with shorter 11l kegs to fit in my fridge.
 
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@Rainy thank you for the advice; this is encouraging.

Also, it seems ironic that IPA is considered one of the easiest style to brew since the hops hide other brewing flaws, when simultaneously, it's one of the most revealing styles for highlighting oxygen ingress flaws.
 
@Rainy thank you for the advice; this is encouraging.

Also, it seems ironic that IPA is considered one of the easiest style to brew since the hops hide other brewing flaws, when simultaneously, it's one of the most revealing styles for highlighting oxygen ingress flaws.
That’s a myth that those who are really in to traditional styles or malt forward styles use to discredit those who brew heavily hopped beers
 
Yeah, I think brewing NEIPAs forced me to vastly improve my brewing processes, especially in terms of keeping out oxygen, but also made me realise how important technique (e.g. how and when to dry hop, doing a soft crash before dry hopping, paying attention to diacetyl, ...) is compared to the recipe for the final result.
It's funny how in the beginning a lot of the traditional brewers were calling NEIPAs lazily brewed IPAs, but it is the complete opposite if you see the effort it takes to keep oxygen out and the attention to detail in technique it asks to end up with a balanced, drinkable NEIPA with popping hop aroma and flavours.
 
Am I correct in assuming that the recipe here is not intended to be really clear based on the presence of some wheat?
I'm at 5 days in the keg on my first one and debating taking a sample today.
 
Am I correct in assuming that the recipe here is not intended to be really clear based on the presence of some wheat?
I'm at 5 days in the keg on my first one and debating taking a sample today.
You could definitely fine the beer if you wanted it to be clear but it should come out as a hazy pale but not as opaque as a heavily dryhopped NEIPA
 
Ok well I couldn't resist and just tapped it.
It is already in pretty good shape. I would have guessed 7-10 days in the keg based on my normal progression.
Slight haze, and flavor very similar to my other single hop Citra recipe, so that is encouraging and gives a good starting point for comparison for sure. Galaxy will be up next, not sure when. Will be enjoying this one in the meantime.
 
I had similar problems like you when I was dry-hopping in my 11liter fermenter kegs after a cold crash, before I transfer them to my serving kegs. I didn't seem to be able to extract enough from the hops. I read up a bit here on the board and it seems it could be a combination of lots of things: the pellets just dropping straight to the bottom (pellets being too cold when dropped in, and my kegs being shorter than 19l kegs and resulting in a shorter travel time from top to bottom), still too much yeast present in the fermentation keg dragging down hop oils, and the inability to rouse the hops without bringing the yeast back in suspension.

So I switched to the following steps:
* purging my 9.5liter serving kegs (that are filled to the brim with star san) with fermentation CO2 from my 11 liter fermentation kegs
* no dry hops before terminal and cold crash
* cold crashing my fermentation kegs to 0-2C for 2 days to get as much yeast to drop out
* taking my hops out out the freezer plenty of time before dry hopping and also squashing the package a bit, so the pellets already break up a bit
* using a mix of T90 and Cryo (1:1) for dry hop to reduce the amount of plant matter in my serving kegs
* dropping those pellets in the purged serving kegs while flowing CO2 into the serving keg
* closed transferring my beer from the fermentation keg (which has a CBDS) to the serving keg (which has a CBDS) by using gravity
* dry hopping for 3 days at room temperature and 20-30psi in the serving kegs (the pressure helps to lock in the aroma in the beer), while flipping the kegs twice a day, in order to let the hop particles "travel" a sufficient long road through the beer. (see comment later about professional brewers and residence time of hops)
* finally cold crashing the serving kegs

I've only done this once, but I now have a 5.5% Citra pale ale ( 4oz of Citra T90 in the whirlpool, 3.5oz of Citra T90 and 3.5 oz of Citra cryo in the dry hop) for a 5 gal batch on tap which is bursting with flavour and aroma and which has a defined citra hop character and a stable haze.
It is definitely the best hoppy beer I have ever brewed and I hope I will not get any vegetal flavours later on from the hops still being in the keg.

I think the key is dropping out as much yeast out as possible and moving the beer to a purged vessel so you can sufficiently agitate the beer by gently flipping the keg twice a day. Professional brewers have less this problem of extraction as the hops have to travel a longer time when they are dropped in at the top of the fermenter and travel to the bottom of the fermenter and even they still rouse the hops with CO2 to get full extraction. In the end extraction is all about the residence time of the hops in the beer and the environment they see while travelling through the beer (temperature and hop oil concentrations). The flipping also helps with the mixing of the beer, so the hops see less high concentrations of hop oils while travelling through the beer so there will be more extraction for that specific hop particle at that specific time.

The only problems I see in this approach is leaving the beers on the hops for the whole time they are in the serving keg, but if you think that the problem in your and mine old approach was that the hops were sitting at the bottom not getting enough extraction, I'm thinking that in this case it is a good thing that the hops are sitting at the bottom of my serving keg with only slow extraction any kind of vegetal flavours at the slow rate while the beer is taken from the top of the keg with the CBDS.

Another problem I could have is possible diacetyl because of hop creep. Solutions for this could be adding a small amount of pellets during fermentation so the creep takes place when sufficient yeast is still in suspension resulting in no diacetyl or dry hopping after terminal at lower temperatures (< 16C)

Big shout out to everyone on this board and especially the regular contributors to the Northeast Style IPA thread for helping me find a way to make bright hoppy beers which are on par with a lot of the NEIPAs that are now in the market. My specific method is just an adaptation of what other people on this board have been suggesting for a while now to my specific situation where I work with shorter 11l kegs to fit in my fridge.

Can I just say... Those dry hopping rates are outrageous. If cryo hops are twice as effective at dry hopping, then you are packing in nearly 11 ounces of hops in a 5 gal batch. Is this increase due to not getting adequate aroma based on the discussion above?
 
Can I just say... Those dry hopping rates are outrageous. If cryo hops are twice as effective at dry hopping, then you are packing in nearly 11 ounces of hops in a 5 gal batch. Is this increase due to not getting adequate aroma based on the discussion above?
28 grams in an ounce. He’s just over dryhoping 5 oz in 5 Gals.

it clearly makes it an ipa not at pale but still within typical range

***edit*** I got what your saying, since they’re twice as potent it would equate to that. He’s still under 2 oz a gallon (I would bet he’s got 5.5-6 gallon in the fermenter at dryhoping)
 
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28 grams in an ounce. He’s just over dryhoping 5 oz in 5 Gals.

it clearly makes it an ipa not at pale but still within typical range

***edit*** I got what your saying, since they’re twice as potent it would equate to that. He’s still under 2 oz a gallon (I would bet he’s got 5.5-6 gallon in the fermenter at dryhoping)

I don’t mean to suggest it’s too much. Who am I to say since I’ve yet to make an IPA I’ve been happy with but I sure hope it doesn’t take over 2 oz a gallon to get the hop aroma I’m looking for or I might go broke!
 
It's always confusing when using metric and imperial at the same time. :)
So with 100g (3.5oz) g T90 and 100g (3.5oz) cryo I dry hop the equivalent of 300g (10.5oz) T90 in 19l (5gal) which is about 16g/l (2.1oz/gal). This is what Cloudwater uses for their DDH pale ales, so I guess I should call it more a DDH pale ale or a DDH session ipa then. :)

The aroma is definitely bursting out of the glass, but the beer is drinking very smoothly and there's no polyphenol astringency to speak of.
I wanted to test a bit what the limits are for dry hopping a pale ale, as one hears from a lot of brewers that the lower alcohol and perceived sweetness of a pale ale, makes it only handle a max amount of dry hop load compared to IPAs and DIPAs.
10.5 oz dry hop for 5gal of a 5.5% ABV beer is definitely overkill, and you can for sure do with less. But I am just happy to see that even at such high dry hopping rates you prevent a lot of polyphenol astringency by using the right techniques.

The problem here in Europe is that usually the smallest packages for hops are 100g (3.5oz).
I only dry hop with freshly opened hop bags, so often I need to work in increments of 3.5 oz when dry hopping. I could of course always use half a bag, vacuum seal it and then use it in the whirlpool for the next brew.
Luckily I just found a webshop here in Europe which sells 50g (1.75oz) bags of hops and they seem to be decently flushed, so I will be able to trim more the amounts of my dry hops.

Anyway, I think this discussion is actually more suited for the Northeast style IPA thread, but I was frustrated like Steven Barrett for more than a year in that I could never get enough hop aroma and flavour into my beers without a lot of polyphenol astringency and I had no idea why, as I was paying attention to oxygen. So I wanted to share my experience (which is based on information from this message board), in the hope Steven Barrett doesn't struggle as long as I did. :) So my apologies for hijacking this thread.

Bottom line is that for me the biggest change in hop aroma (and flavour) and reduction in polyphenol astringency came with:
* moving more hops from the whirlpool to the dry hop (mainly more aroma): now I have 3.5oz in the Whirlpool and 10.5oz in the Dry hop, which is a 1:3 balance between whirlpool and dry hop. I think breweries like Other Half use a similar ratio for some of their beers (e.g. All together recipe)
* crashing out as much yeast as possible before dry hopping and moving the beer off the yeast (to another vessel) to dry hop (thanks to Dgallo and Couchsending for stressing this constantly)
* agitating the hops by flipping the dryhop/serving keg twice a day for 3 days, making sure extraction is done efficiently

Getting enough extraction out of the hops (by not letting them sit at the bottom of my keg) into the beer, without too much yeast being present in the beer was the big change for me and the dry hopping rates I use for this particular beer are definitely not necessary to get a lot of hop aroma and flavour.

Keep in mind that I have a CBDS in both my fermenting kegs and my dryhop/serving kegs, so with normal dip tubes you might have to use a different approach.

Anyway, let's go back to discussing Dgallo's recipe. :)
 
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New to the forum and just saw this recipe thanks to the question about hops when it showed up on my forum summary email today. Glad I did! This is a great base recipe! I usually do 2row, Vienna and crystal 20 for color, but I love the idea of biscuit malt instead. May have to try this one next time, brewing a single hop pale with Nelson Sauvin next week sometime.
 
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Here she is.
 

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Made a cheat sheet for @Dgallo hopping rates. Worked great for my last couple batches. Attached is my Citra & Mosaic version of this recipe, which kicked tonight :confused:

20% in boil, 30% whirlpool and 50% dryhop
12 ounces total: 2.4 boil / 3.6 WP / 6 DH
11 ounces total: 2.2 boil / 3.3 WP / 5.5 DH
10 ounces total: 2 boil / 3 WP / 5 DH
9 ounces total: 1.8 boil / 2.7 WP / 4.5 DH
8 ounces total: 1.6 boil / 2.4 WP / 4.5 DH
7 ounces total: 1.4 boil / 2.1 WP / 3.5 DH
6 ounces total: 1.2 boil / 1.8 WP / 3 DH
5 ounces total: 1 boil / 1.5 WP / 2.5 DH
4 ounces total: .8 boil / 1.2 WP / 2 DH

 
Early pour of the galaxy version yesterday. It is much hazier than my citra version. Has the look and flavor notes of a NEIPA. Easy to see how this is the dominant hop in many of them.

Wondering what's up next.... Cascade?
 

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What was the temp of your water to reach 152° for your mash?
I’ll have to check my notes there, but most likely 165-168*f. That being said, Strike water temp is directly dependent on the temp of your mash tun and grains.
 
Sharing a single hop base recipe for pale ale I use when I’m trying out a new variety of hops for the first time. I have not found a hop that does not work well with this beer but Strata, Galaxy, Mosaic, and Mandarina Bavaria have been stand outs so far. I’m going to use Galaxy as the hop in the recipe below;

Grains
10lb - 2row
1Lb - White Wheat
0.5lb - Biscuit

Hops
6oz Galaxy

Yeast
US05 - can use any ale yeast you prefer but like stated earlier this is my base recipe to understand the characteristics of varietal specific hop.

Water profile:
Ca:89
Mg:11
Cl: 154
So4:102
Na: 72

Mash ph of 5.35

Mash - 152* 4 gallons for 60 mins
Sparge - 168* 4 gallons , stir hard and rest for 5 mins, then drain.

Boil Hop schedule
0.5 oz Galaxy @60
0.5 oz Galaxy @10
1.0 oz Galaxy @F.O.

Whirlpool @170* for 30/40 min
2 oz Galaxy

Dryhop
2 oz Galaxy - 3 days before cold crash. Use close transfer and proper post fermentation anti-oxigen procedures.

Co2 Vol
2.5

This beer comes out slightly juicy with great mouthfeel but at the same time it’s dry enough to finish somewhat crisp. It’s a great base recipe to learn about different hops.

View attachment 660474

What do you mean by Use close transfer and proper post fermentation anti-oxigen procedures.As I'm using a carboy to ferment and also using Conan yeast where it will be in my kegerator at a low 62 temperature.
 
@Dgallo What is your fermentation temp profile for this recipe?

Looking forward to trying this out with a few hop varieties the next months :)
Since US 05 is an extremely neutral strain, i dont do anything special. I just make sure I stay from 66-72 *f
 
I'm going to try Conan yeast they say a lower temperature at 62 ° will give a nice clean fermentation and slow any thoughts.
 
Beer Gods,
I have a pouch of Cashmere hops that I want to play with. I have never used them before. I can be a little old school with my hop selection, so this is a first for me.

My question- The cashmere hops are about 8%AA. The Galaxy hops listed in original recipe are anywhere between 12-15%. Should I double (almost) the 60min and 10min hop charge to equal the bitterness and leave the later additions the same?

Thanks
 
Beer Gods,
I have a pouch of Cashmere hops that I want to play with. I have never used them before. I can be a little old school with my hop selection, so this is a first for me.

My question- The cashmere hops are about 8%AA. The Galaxy hops listed in original recipe are anywhere between 12-15%. Should I double (almost) the 60min and 10min hop charge to equal the bitterness and leave the later additions the same?

Thanks
You can certainly do that or you can plan for all your bitterness to be made up with the 60 min addition and keep the 10 min the same. That being said, I’ve never used cashmere for a bittering charge, so I do not know how smooth the bitterness will be from it.

I really like cashmere, this years crop I got great lime notes from it. If it’s an 8 oz bag you have, you could certain bump the dryhop an ounce or two to get more potency from them on the nose and flavor in the finished beer
 
In my single hop recipe, which is similar to Dgallo's, I still use magnum or warrior at 60 for bittering. That's what I'd do in a normal multi-hop recipe, and it saves the more interesting hops for flavor/aroma. Plus I can dial in the bitterness to my liking...
 
I’m currently trying something similar - modeled after Trillium Fort Point. 2 row with about 18% white wheat and a touch of crystal 15. All Columbus on the hot side and will be dry hopping with Citra after fermentation. I couldn’t find 007 locally so I’m giving Omega British Ale III a shot. Fingers crossed 😜
 
Unfortunately my quick read thermometer took a dump so this might be an "interesting" batch.
 
Unfortunately my quick read thermometer took a dump so this might be an "interesting" batch.
Oh no. I’ve been there thankfully it was post mash and just couldn’t check my sparge temp.
 
I have my backup glass thermometer.... hopefully close enough; it is just slow to respond.

So, the spreadsheets are right on the mash target of 5.36; my actual measured value was 5.44. How does that sound? Sample was taken probably 40 minutes into the mash.
 
I have my backup glass thermometer.... hopefully close enough; it is just slow to respond.

So, the spreadsheets are right on the mash target of 5.36; my actual measured value was 5.44. How does that sound? Sample was taken probably 40 minutes into the mash.
Less than a 10th is Certainly within reason. Bru’n water gets me pretty close to spot on. So you might need to update some values in the program you’re using to get closer
 

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