Feedback/Critique for my "Kitchen Sink" IPA - Empty my fridge

[Matheos]

Simply looking for opinions on tweaks, and improvements on my, so called, "kitchen sink IPA".
Basically I am looking to empty my fridge of hops. I don't have any malts in storage so that part is quite freely tweakable. Same goes for yeast and water additions.

Some context about my setup:
- BIAB system (Brewzilla gen4)
- No temperature control nor pressure fermentation (Good old plastic bucket fermentation vessel) (Ambient temp around 22C (72F)
- I bottle

These hops are the ones I am looking to exclusively use:
- Cascade BBC Pure 9.5AA 15g
- Centennial 9.6AA 22g
- Citra 15AA 18g
- Fuggles 4.5AA 44g
- Northern Brewer 5.7AA 72g
- Styrian Goldings 3.4AA 40g

I don't expect to use up everything, though I don't want to leave any small amounts, like below 10g of some kind.

This is the recipe I came up with a week ago: Brewfather (Note batch size 15L - I am open to reducing the batch size further)

I am hoping for a bit lighter IPA / Pale Ale but also hoppy. The water additions are just based on brewfathers own "hoppy" profile" so I am open to modifications there too.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated! My goal is not to create the best beer ever brewed, but to empty my fridge

BrewZilla 35L Gen4​

76.4% efficiency
Batch Volume: 15 L
Boil Time: 60 min
Mash Water: 12.45 L
Sparge Water: 10.02 L @ 80 °C
Total Water: 22.47 L
Boil Volume: 20.17 L
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.040

Vitals​

Original Gravity: 1.049
Final Gravity: 1.010
IBU (Tinseth): 42
BU/GU: 0.87
Colour: 11.2 EBC

Mash​

Strike Temp — 71.7 °C
Temperature — 67 °C — 60 min

Malts (3.11 kg)​

2.5 kg (80.4%) — Viking Malt Pale Ale 2-Row — Grain — 6 EBC
460 g (14.8%) — Viking Malt Munich Light — Grain — 16 EBC
150 g (4.8%) — Viking Malt Caramel 30 — Grain — 30 EBC

Hops (95 g)​

20 g (20 IBU) — Northern Brewer 5.7% — Boil — 60 min
5 g (4 IBU) — Cascade BBC Pure 9.5% — Boil — 15 min
5 g (4 IBU) — Centennial 9.6% — Boil — 15 min
5 g (6 IBU) — Citra 15% — Boil — 15 min
5 g (2 IBU) — Styrian Goldings 3.4% — Boil — 15 min
5 g (2 IBU) — Cascade BBC Pure 9.5% — Boil — 5 min
5 g (2 IBU) — Centennial 9.6% — Boil — 5 min
5 g (3 IBU) — Citra 15% — Boil — 5 min
5 g (1 IBU) — Styrian Goldings 3.4% — Boil — 5 min
12 g — Centennial 9.6% — Dry Hop — day 5
10 g — Styrian Goldings 3.4% — Dry Hop — day 5
8 g — Citra 15% — Dry Hop — day 5
5 g — Cascade BBC Pure 9.5% — Dry Hop — day 5

Miscs​

1.8 g — Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) — Mash
3.8 g — Epsom Salt (MgSO4) — Mash
6.8 g — Gypsum (CaSO4) — Mash

Yeast​

1 pkg — Safale American US 05 80%

Fermentation​

Primary — 20 °C — 14 days
Carbonation: 2.4 CO2-vol

Water Profile​

Ca2+ 110
Mg2+ 18
Na+ 5
Cl- 50
SO42- 245
HCO3- 50

 

[day_trippr]

Sure, that'll work.
And you can call it "Mission Accomplished"...

Cheers!

 

[AlexKay]

I'd suggest more bitterness and more hops overall, using the following hop schedule:

40 g Styrian Golding @ 60 minutes
20 g Fuggle @ 60 minutes
5 g Cascade @ 10 minutes
7 g Centennial @ 10 minutes
18 g Northern Brewer @ 10 minutes
5 g Cascade, hopstand @ ~160 F for 10 minutes
7 g Centennial, hopstand @ ~160 F for 10 minutes
18 g Northern Brewer, hopstand @ ~160 F for 10 minutes
5 g Cascade, dry hop
8 g Centennial, dry hop
36 g Northern Brewer, dry hop

Cascade and Centennial of course play well with each other, and my feeling is that NB will work as part of the team. There is proportionally more of the NB because it's not as pungent a hop, and you have more of it to use up.

The bittering charge could be anything, and while it's weird to use your lowest-alpha hops here, it does help clean out the freezer. You could use less of the SG and more of the Fuggle; I use Fuggle for aroma much more often, so would be less in a hurry to use it up in a beer like this.

I might skip the SG and Fuggle and go with 10 g of Citra (it is a high-alpha hop) instead.

When I started making IPAs I used a light-ish crystal as well, but I've switched over to honey malt in its place. ~150 g is still probably the right amount.

Is your ambient temperature 20 or 22 C? I try to avoid taking US-05 over a fermentation temperature of 20 C, so if your ambient is 22 C and your fermentation a few degrees hotter, you're pushing it. I know Fermentis says 26 C, but that has not worked out well for me. I would suggest Lallemand Verdant, which in my experience makes a better beer at the high end of its temperature range. Use a blow-off tube, and just to be sure, leave your bucket to ferment somewhere where it won't be too hard to scrub the ceiling afterwards.

My personal opinion is that magnesium additions are at best unnecessary and at worst can wreck your beer. I'd skip the Epsom salts completely. If you want to use them, keep the magnesium level around 5 ppm.

 

[Matheos]

Is your ambient temperature 20 or 22 C?

It is more like 22 C, the 20 C in the recipe is from a standard profile in brewfather. I have used US-05 to ferment here many many times though, and always been pleased with the result. Might be I have never had the pleasure of fermenting US-05 much colder so I would not know the difference
That being said, I am of course always eager to try new yeasts ,verdant is for me still untested. I will need to check availability though, it seems to be out of stock at my preferred home brew store..

I created a duplicate of my recipe in Brewfather: Brewfather with your suggested hop schedule. I am quite intrigued to try multiple hop stand additions, I don't do hopstands too often. Any way to throw in the last 8g of citra anywhere? Perhaps all 8g in dry hop? Or would it be too potent? What are is your opinion.

 

[AlexKay]

To be clear, that’s one 10-minute hopstand with three types of hops.

My taste buds get overpowered by Citra very easily. I wouldn’t add it if it were my beer.

 

[micraftbeer]

Everybody has their own preferences/recommendations, here's mine...

1. I wouldn't mix Fuggle and Stryrian in with the other hops. I'd leave them aside. I think you start to cover too much of the "hop flavor spider" and will end with a muddled hop mess flavor. NB for Bittering seems like a good idea to minimize it's contribution to these other fruitier hops.
2. Other than separating out those two hops, I'd say whatever combination makes you feel happy will probably work.
3. I like Citra in combination with other hops, which is what you've got here. I've found what I find to be a "Citra sweet spot" with a 20-minute addition. I maybe sprinkle some in after and sometimes in dry hop. But that 20-minute addition seems to give it a magical effect on the palate of slickness/smoothness with a fruity component that's not over top. Sorry my brain doesn't work hops in grams, but I don't use over 1 oz. of Citra in this magical 20-minute addition.
4. I have had 100% success with Brewfather water profiles. I don't tweak them from what they suggest, I just maybe mess around with selecting the right profile for a given beer. I've used Hoppy and Hoppy Lite with favorable results to my palate.

 

[G_robertus]

Is your Northern Brewer European or American? Mainly asking because you use the sensible unit system.

European NB is supposedly very different from the American variant and that might throw off some people. In my experience European NB is very spicy, earthy and almost a strong noble-like hop. I'd use less later on in a fruity IPA, but it might blend well in a semi-English IPA with Fuggle and SG. For an American IPA I would bitter with NB and split the C hops between whirlpool and dry hop (either 1:1 or 1:2). A touch of spice from any of the other hops might blend in well, but I wouldn't overdo it. I'd also personally drop to at most ten liters to maximise what you get from your hop (but I like overly hoppy beer). That would also give you more opportunities to finish it all before bottle oxidation sets in.

Alternatively if you want some boil hops a well you could take your original recipe, remove the SG and change the 5 minute charge to a hop stand. I'd still increase total IBU to around 50 through your first addition. I've never tried the 20 minute Citra addition, but that might also be a nice idea: 1.4 g/L at 20 and if you have any left (depending on batch size) can be thrown in as part of the dry hop.

Switching yeast is also not a bad suggestion, nor is dropping the caramel malt although the latter is mostly personal preference.

 

[Matheos]

To be clear, that’s one 10-minute hopstand with three types of hops.

My taste buds get overpowered by Citra very easily. I wouldn’t add it if it were my beer.

Yes of course, I meant 3 different simultaneous for 10min. Sorry.

Is your Northern Brewer European or American? Mainly asking because you use the sensible unit system.

It is European (Germany)

My third revision of the recipe: Brewfather
I took a lot of your good advice and tried to combine them as I saw fit. I reduced the batch size to 10L and dropped the crystal alltogether as per suggestion by @G_robertus. I had actually myself wanted a lighter coloured beer too from the start, so happy to hear people don't take crystal as a "must have" for IPAs.
I dropped SG and Fuggle completely and chose to bitter with only some NB, though not a lot as my Citra adds quite a lot of IBUs. That brings me to the next thing, the 20 min citra addition. I Again followed suggestion and made it 1.4g/L @ 20. It did raise my IBUs quite a lot so I had to reduce the NB at 60.
For the other additions I split Centennial and Cascade evenly over hopstand and dry hop and used the last bit of citra in the hop stand only. I then threw in some "spicyness" in the form of a small NB addition in the dry hop. This one I am a bit unsure about but could work? Lastly, I changed to verdant IPA yeast

Any further comments on the new version? Maybe in regards to NB in the dry hop and if it makes sense to both DH and hop stand. I believe my malt bill ratios are quite ok?

Thanks again to everyone participating in the discussion

 

[micraftbeer]

I'd leave the NB just for bittering. Throwing it in late like that will give you clashing/weird aromas. Like a strawberry jam you're spreading on your toast that has just a hint of chargrilled steak.

Both have a great record of being delicious on toast, but not together. They're different intents.

 

[G_robertus]

Your malt bill seems fine, yes. I would halve or drop the Northern Brewer in the dry hop, but which one of the two is up to you. I've had some success with hops like these on the cold side, but they can also mess with the flavour profile. I'm not too familiar with Cascade so I don't know how well they mix.

Regarding a hop stand, there are some interesting articles on hop utilisation and survivable compounds which help explain why you would use such a technique. But it probably is beyond the scope of a kitchen sink beer. Going by the chart you might want to make the hop stand all Centennial and the dry hop all Cascade (sorry can't help myself giving you more to think about). I'd definitely leave the hop stand in for hop complexity and layering though.

 

[Matheos]

Okay, thank you both

I think we are getting close to the final recipe. It's not like this is the most serious beer I've ever made so let's go with both your tips. Dropping NB from DH and doing dry hop all cascade and putting all the Centennial in the hop stand. I will also throw in the last bit of Citra in the hop stand though.

Final recipe: Brewfather
A bit less complicated than originally but I think this will make an interesting beer. A lot of new concepts, which is not the best to decide which ones made the most difference but hey, it will probably make a great beer. Cheers!

 

[AlexKay]

Is your Northern Brewer European or American? Mainly asking because you use the sensible unit system.

European NB is supposedly very different from the American variant and that might throw off some people. In my experience European NB is very spicy, earthy and almost a strong noble-like hop. I'd use less later on in a fruity IPA, but it might blend well in a semi-English IPA with Fuggle and SG. For an American IPA I would bitter with NB and split the C hops between whirlpool and dry hop (either 1:1 or 1:2). A touch of spice from any of the other hops might blend in well, but I wouldn't overdo it. I'd also personally drop to at most ten liters to maximise what you get from your hop (but I like overly hoppy beer). That would also give you more opportunities to finish it all before bottle oxidation sets in.

Alternatively if you want some boil hops a well you could take your original recipe, remove the SG and change the 5 minute charge to a hop stand. I'd still increase total IBU to around 50 through your first addition. I've never tried the 20 minute Citra addition, but that might also be a nice idea: 1.4 g/L at 20 and if you have any left (depending on batch size) can be thrown in as part of the dry hop.

Switching yeast is also not a bad suggestion, nor is dropping the caramel malt although the latter is mostly personal preference.

Different NB went right under my radar. The American NB I know has a lot of pine. I agree that this matters!

 

[Matheos]

Today was brewday. Everything wen't quite smoothly, though I somehow missed my OG by around 5 points... I might still have my equipment profile a bit off, feels like my boil off is less than expected all the time, though I have already lowered it by about a litre from the default...
Another reason I think may be due to my PID not being too tuned for such a small batch, I noticed the temp was overshooting a bit in the beginning...

Here is the batch follow up for those interested: Brewfather (have my Rapt pill in there to follow fermentation, don't trust its accuracy too much as it is always lower OG than hydrometer by a few points, but good indicator of when fermentation is slowing down and stopped)

I read some more about Verdant and that people recommend a blow off tube, something I have never used. I don't have any solution at hand as I only have S-airlocks and my tubes wont fit those AND my tubing won't fit the airlock hole in my basic bucket fermenter. I don't think I will need it though as my fermenter is 30L and the fermenter vol is just around 11L.

Another thing I read about Verdant was that it is supposedly lazy for sugar priming for bottle conditioning? Not sure if this is true or not, but I don't really have any other alternative. I don't dare start adding yeast on bottling day due to fear of bottle bombs (not happened to me yet though). Should be fine?

I will try to update this thread with progress

 

[AlexKay]

Verdant does ferment vigorously, especially when it’s warm. But your fermenter is oversized and I bet you’ll be fine.

If you’re worried about yeast dropping out and so not being available to carbonate in the bottle, you could add more yeast at bottling. The only way this could cause a problem is if the bottling yeast can break down dextrins that the primary yeast cannot. CBC-1 will only go for mono- and disaccharides, so it’s as safe as you can get. Or new Verdant.

 

[Matheos]

Verdant does ferment vigorously, especially when it’s warm. But your fermenter is oversized and I bet you’ll be fine.

If you’re worried about yeast dropping out and so not being available to carbonate in the bottle, you could add more yeast at bottling. The only way this could cause a problem is if the bottling yeast can break down dextrins that the primary yeast cannot. CBC-1 will only go for mono- and disaccharides, so it’s as safe as you can get. Or new Verdant.

Yea tell me about it. It was at FG already last night :O Threw in dry hops today, apparently I had about 4 grams less than I expected, but nothing to do about that, it will make beer.

Yea blow off tube was not needed. Never had to add yeast for bottling before so I might just hope for the best here too. Not sure if this is a known thing for verdant that it would drop so much that it is totally useless? I'd say I'm not too bothered if it is a bit undercarbonated as long as I get carbonation.