Double IPA

[Bopper]

Last night I brewed a double ipa. Would anyone suggest anything other than the traditional 1-2-3 method. I know I will rack to secondary after approx 1 week but am not sure how long i should leave in the secondary (I am dry hopping with cascade) How long will it take in bottles to reach its peak?

This is my first really big beer.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Rusty]

Last night I brewed a double ipa. Would anyone suggest anything other than the traditional 1-2-3 method. I know I will rack to secondary after approx 1 week but am not sure how long i should leave in the secondary (I am dry hopping with cascade) How long will it take in bottles to reach its peak?

This is my first really big beer.

Thanks,

Jim

What was your OG?
What was your hop schedule? (IBU's?)

Keep in mind that a High gravity IIPA will need plenty of time to ferment out and extra time to age for a nice blended flavor.

 

[jeffg]

Maybe it is because I keep a cool house for fermenting ales (65-68), but I basically never rack out of my primary within a week. my primary fermentiations usually take at least 10 days and I really don't like to rack beer while it is actively fermenting for a variety of reasons. I like to wait until the bubbles stop, krausen falls or 14-17 days if there is still activity and then I rack. I'd give a big beer with dryhopping at least two weeks in the secondary and then at least a month in the bottle...but I have become much more patient than I used to be.

 

[squatch]

Hello,

I did a Double IPA a few months back and here is what I did:

Primary: 10 days
Secondary: Four weeks (dry hopped with 2 oz of Horizon)
Bottle: Six weeks

I followed a recipe from Austin Homebrew Supply and I thought the results were great. Two other friends told me the results were fantastic. I hope they weren't just being nice. I hope this helps.

-Casey

 

[drengel]

Maybe it is because I keep a cool house for fermenting ales (65-68), but I basically never rack out of my primary within a week. my primary fermentiations usually take at least 10 days and I really don't like to rack beer while it is actively fermenting for a variety of reasons. I like to wait until the bubbles stop, krausen falls or 14-17 days if there is still activity and then I rack. I'd give a big beer with dryhopping at least two weeks in the secondary and then at least a month in the bottle...but I have become much more patient than I used to be.

I know this is not on topic for the thread but...even at those temps you should be good to go after about 5 days. make a larger starter. aerate better. the longer in the primary, sitting on yeast trub, the more off flavors (fusel alcohols and the like) get absorbed in the beer. the secondary is not as big of a deal.

for a double IPA i'd wait a month and a half to 2 months. it will round it and mellow the bitterness out.

 

[Ivan Lendl]

i would double everything with a BIG beer like that...do 2-4-6

whatever you do a longer secondary would be preferable, just play it by ear, if the primary seems to have slowed down enough to drop it then do it, its better to get it off all the trub your probably going to have. once its in the secondary let it sit for AT lEAST 4 weeks. bottle and start drinking after 2 more.(or better yet start drinking after 6 weeks...)

 

[El Pistolero]

I know this is not on topic for the thread but...even at those temps you should be good to go after about 5 days. make a larger starter. aerate better. the longer in the primary, sitting on yeast trub, the more off flavors (fusel alcohols and the like) get absorbed in the beer.

Got to disagree with you on this one drengel...autolysis is not going to be a factor in 5 days.

 

[Bopper]

I know this is not on topic for the thread but...even at those temps you should be good to go after about 5 days. make a larger starter. aerate better. the longer in the primary, sitting on yeast trub, the more off flavors (fusel alcohols and the like) get absorbed in the beer. the secondary is not as big of a deal.

for a double IPA i'd wait a month and a half to 2 months. it will round it and mellow the bitterness out.

A month and a half - 2 months in the secondary? bottles? or both?

 

[Salsgebom]

I'd leave it in primary for at least 2 weeks to make sure the yeast gets as high attenuation as possible, especially for a big beer. I'd leave it in secondary for a month and bottles for at least a couple months before sampling. My next batch will be an IIPA around 1.095 and I plan to primary for 2.5weeks, secondary 1 month, cold condition 2 weeks and then keg till late summer.

 

[jeffg]

I know this is not on topic for the thread but...even at those temps you should be good to go after about 5 days. make a larger starter. aerate better. the longer in the primary, sitting on yeast trub, the more off flavors (fusel alcohols and the like) get absorbed in the beer. the secondary is not as big of a deal.

I must respectfully disagree. In my experience you have much more to risk by racking a beer while it is still actively fermenting than you do by waiting until the beer has fully fermented out. You can stall fermentation and reduce attenuation by racking the beer too early, plus you end up with more yeast in the secondary, which I like as clean as possible if the brew is going to sit in there for any appreciable length of time. And I have never, ever had off-flavors from two weeks in the primary in ten years of brewing. I think people get too hung up on that. i pretty much rack when it's done--when the airlock is down below a bubble every two minutes, krausen has fallen and the yeast has settled out--whether it takes five, ten or 15 days. In the colder months it generally takes way more than five days, but hey, your mileage may vary.

 

[drengel]

A month and a half - 2 months in the secondary? bottles? or both?

sorry, in the bottles. I'd probably give it 1 in the primary (make a big starter, don't just sit and wait for the yeast to do it's thing, it will wind up taking 2 weeks), 2-3 in the secondary, at least a month at cellar temp., then another month cold conditioned if you can.

In response to JeffG- True, you do not want to rack before it's attenuated, but it should only take 3-7 days to attenuate, depending on style. If it takes longer it is because you are under-pitching your yeast, or your wort is severely under-oxygenated. Scientifically, there are many compounds in your krausen that cause off-flavors that will re-absorb themselves in the beer if you do not either 1) rack it off the fallen krausen ASAP when it's done fermenting in the primary, or 2) use a blow-off tube. If you read interviews with award-winning homebrewers one of the recurring pieces of advice is to not wait on your primary, meaning when it's done its done, get it off that trub as fast as possible, there is so much potential for off-flavors sitting right there in that trub. Or to use a blow off tube or skim the krausen off during fermentation (which is a tricky process).

Do you make a starter? I ferment at 64 in the colder months and still the beer is done within 5 days usually.

 

[todd_k]

Bopper,

Can you post the recipe and the OG?

 

[El Pistolero]

it should only take 3-7 days to attenuate, depending on style. If it takes longer it is because you are under-pitching your yeast, or your wort is severely under-oxygenated. Scientifically, there are many compounds in your krausen that cause off-flavors that will re-absorb themselves in the beer if you do not either 1) rack it off the fallen krausen ASAP when it's done fermenting in the primary, or 2) use a blow-off tube. If you read interviews with award-winning homebrewers one of the recurring pieces of advice is to not wait on your primary, meaning when it's done its done, get it off that trub as fast as possible, there is so much potential for off-flavors sitting right there in that trub. Or to use a blow off tube or skim the krausen off during fermentation (which is a tricky process).

Respectfully drengel...this is bunk. I pitch big starters, and I oxygenate very well with pure oxygen, and sometimes the beer takes two weeks to ferment out. I'd really like you to post links to some of the interviews you're referring to here. You keep talking about the dire effects of autolysis, but can you point to even one credible source that points to it being a problem in anything under a month? As a matter of fact, there have been several discussions on the green board of late that seem to indicate that autolysis will never be a problem in high gravity beers.

Of course everyone should do what works best for them, but advising people that they have 5 days to get their beer off the trub before it starts going bad certainly seems to fly in the face of pretty much every piece of conventional wisdom I've ever read.

OK, off my soapbox now.

 

[jeffg]

It is not my intent to get in a pissing contest about this, but based on my personal brewing experience I just simply can't agree with you. Like I said, when the beer is done, I rack it. If it is a week, great, if it is two, so be it. It would be inaccurate for me to make any sweeping generalizations about how long all my beers take because we all know every style is different, as is every yeast, and temperature plays a major role in the equation (in fact temperature plays a much greater role in producing off flavors than practically anything else in the primary equation assuming you cleaned everything properly), but most of my beers take more than 3-5 days with the possible exception of simlpe low gravity bitters.

Either way, to be honest I stopped stressing about screwing up my beers a long time ago. I take the "relax" approach and I have only screwed up one beer in a little over ten years (first experiment with honey). Plenty of the beers i brew take more than 7 days to ferment out, and if I am busy and have to wait until the weekend it may sit for two weeks. I have never, ever noticed an off-flavor from doing this. You are probably correct that proper approach is to rack as soon as possible, but my philosphy is that sometimes you have to peel back the science and do a reality check--my bet is that if we made identical batches of beer, say a pale ale, and let one sit in the primary for 3-5 days and one sit for 7-14 days, did equal stretches in the secondary and kegged you would not be able to taste the difference. Of course, I could be totally wrong too :cross:

The main thing for me is, if I were going to advise a new brewer on this subject, I'd err on the side of waiting longer than 3-5 days if the beer is still bubbling because, as I said before, I think the risk of stalling out an active fermentation early is a much greater practical risk to a homebrewer than producing off-flavors by waiting a few days for the airlock to stop bubbling. Just my two cents. We all do what ever works best for us.

 

[Bopper]

Bopper,

Can you post the recipe and the OG?

0.75 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils
0.25 lbs. Briess Caramel 120
12 lbs. Pale Malt Syrup
1 oz. Yakima Magnum (60 min)
1 oz. Liberty (30 min)
1 oz. Yakima Magnum (10 min)
2 oz. Northern Brewer (Leaf) (0 min)
1 oz. Cascade Hops (dry hop)



Yeast - Whitelabs California Ale Yeast


I could not take a OG reading as I broke my hydrometer before I had a chance...i estimate it is somewhere around 1.095 or so