First brew Simcoe IPA help appreciated

[KilgoreT]

Hey everybody!
I've been lurking the forums for a little while now and I am finally at the point where I am ready to start brewing. I've read through a lot of John Palmer's How to Brew and browsed the forums a good amount and feel like I have a basic grasp of what I want to brew. I love simcoe hops and want to make a beer that really pronounces the simcoe flavor. I feel like any opinions or suggestions on what I have in mind could be a great help. I'm also unsure on the amounts of materials I want to use. I don't want to use a kit.
This is what I'm thinking:

I'd like to steep some specialty grain but am not sure what to use
Breiss Golden DME(how much for 5 gallon batch?)
6 oz simcoe hop pellets
2 oz mosaic
2 oz Amarillo
Burton IPA Wyeast

Basically what I'm trying to figure out is what the best hop addition would be and what hop to use for dry hop. And if there are any suggestions on Malt extracts I'm open to that.

Thanks a lot!

 

[beergolf]

The recipe will depend on the gravity/ABV you want.

Once you know that, then it is easy to calculate how much DME to use. You can then steep some Crystal 40, About 8 oz will work.

The hope schedule is somewhat dependant on the gravity. The higher the gravity the mor ehops you need. The hops you have all play well together so we can help you come up with a hop schedule that will work with your gravity.

 

[KilgoreT]

I'd like to make a higher gravity beer, but not really high. Somewhere around 7% abv would be ideal to me.

 

[beergolf]

7 lbs of DME will give you about 6.4%. 8 lbs will give you 7.3%

Do you know the AA of the hops you have? We will need that to calculate bitterness.

 

[KilgoreT]

Simcoe 12.3% AA
Mosaic 12.7% AA
Amarillo I am unsure at the moment. I'm waiting for the brew supply store to open then I'm going to pick up what I dont have

 

[beergolf]

Since you are going to the brew store, pick up some Magnum to bitter with. No need to use the good flavorful hops for bittering.

Let it know when you get back with the hs and have the AA.

Pick up about 8oz of Crystal 40 for steeping. Use the light DME.

 

[KilgoreT]

Sound good, Thanks! They open in a half-hour so I will be back in about an hour. 2 oz magnum?

 

[Adaman05]

Assuming you are picking up Magnum to bitter, I would do something like this for the rest of your hop schedule:

1 oz Simcoe 15
2 oz Simcoe 5
2 oz Simcoe, 1 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Mosaic 0
Dry hop 2 oz Simcoe, 1 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Mosaic

This would give you a Simcoe bomb with some fruitiness added (Amarillo, Mosaic) to round out the flavor.

 

[chickypad]

Going with what beergolf suggested here is something to get you started. It's for 5.25 gal post boil. Amarillo with simcoe is a very nice pairing, the mosaic tends to overwhelm when I use it and since you want to highlight simcoe I left it out. Of course you can sub it in as you see fit. With all that extract I thought you might need a little sugar especially since that yeast looks a little less attenuative than some strains. If you add the steeping hops after its cooled under about 170 and let them sit you should get mostly flavor/aroma without more bitterness (and since I didn't know the AA of your amarillo). You may need to adjust the warrior:

Batch Size: 5.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.068 SG
Estimated Color: 9.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 73.7 IBUs

8.0 oz Caramel Malt - 40L 5.9 %
7 lbs 4.0 oz Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) 85.3 %
12.0 oz Cane (Beet) Sugar 8.8 %
1.00 oz Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 50.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] - Boil 10.0 min 15.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min 8.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool
2.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] - Steep/Whirlpool
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days
2.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days

Edit: a little slow, but looks like Adaman and I are thinking along the same lines I just left out the mosaic.

 

[KilgoreT]

Back from the brew store. They were out of Amarillo :/ so I picked up 2 oz of Cascade instead. cascade AA is 6.9% I would like to use the 2 oz of Mosaic I have as well. Picked up 7 lbs of Golden Light DME and 8 oz of Crystal 40.

 

[KilgoreT]

My question right now is how much water should I steep the malts in?

 

[chickypad]

My question right now is how much water should I steep the malts in?

Doesn't really matter for steeping, a gallon is fine. You can just swap the cascade in place of the amarillo and add in the mosaic at flameout and dry hop without changing the specs, basically what Adaman had listed.

 

[KilgoreT]

How necessary is it to add sugar if im using 7 lbs of DME? Table sugar is ok?

 

[chickypad]

How necessary is it to add sugar if im using 7 lbs of DME? Table sugar is ok?

It's not necessary, but if you only use 7 lb DME and no sugar it's going to drop your OG down around 1.059-1.062 for 5-5.25 gal. You were saying you wanted more like 7%. You need about 8 lbs DME/sugar for that range.

 

[KilgoreT]

Should i add in a half pound of sugar?
I was thinking about doing 3 lbs of DME for the boil then adding the other 4 lbs at the end. Does that sound okay?

Edit: turns out I dont have any sugar at home... >.<

 

[KilgoreT]

Hmm, I have a spare pound of Breiss Sparking Amber DME. Would it make sense to use that for an 8th pound of DME?

 

[chickypad]

Hmm, I have a spare pound of Breiss Sparking Amber DME. Would it make sense to use that for an 8th pound of DME?

You can. I'm generally not a fan of using colored extracts as you don't know what you're adding, though at just a lb it may not be a big deal. You may want to drop down your steeping crystal in that case, the amber likely has some C-60 and munich in it.

 

[KilgoreT]

Im not too worried about having a lower gravity. If i can have the beer around 5.5% with just the 7 lbs of dme ill do that

 

[beergolf]

Should i add in a half pound of sugar?
I was thinking about doing 3 lbs of DME for the boil then adding the other 4 lbs at the end. Does that sound okay?

Edit: turns out I dont have any sugar at home... >.<

I see these guys got it pretty well figured out for you while I was gone. I like their hop additions with a lot of late additions. Great mind think alike.

The 7 lbs will get you just over 6% like I mentioned earlier. If you do want to up it I would not use the amber DME. You can always add the sugar later even after a few days in the fermenter after fermentation slows. Just boil it up with a little water, cool to fermenting temp and then add it. This way you have a couple of days to geet the sugar, no rush.

Adding 3 lbs DME at the beginning and 4 lbs at the end is a good idea.

Good luck with your brew.

 

[KilgoreT]

Great! thank you all so much for your help! Ive just started the boil now. Ill keep this updated!

 

[chickypad]

Yup, what beergolf said. Let us know how it turns out for you.

 

[KilgoreT]

Finished cooling it and pitching the yeast about an hour ago. She's all sealed up and put in closet now. Thanks again for the help ya'll! I'll post an update when the time comes.

 

[beergolf]

Be sure to step away from the fermenter and let the yeast do it's work.

Give us an update in a few weeks when you bottle.

 

[Queequeg]

Don't use Burton yeast unless you really have good control of ferm temps and are patient enough to wait for it to flocculate which is a long time.

 

[brewprint]

What was the final recipe?

 

[KilgoreT]

Final Recipe was:

8 oz crystal 40 grain
3 lbs light DME to start
1 oz warrior hops for bittering
1 oz simcoe at 15 min
2 oz simcoe at 5 min
2 oz simcoe, 1 oz cascade, 1 oz mosaic at 0 min
4 lbs light DME at 0 min
on Friday I'm adding 1 oz Simcoe, 1 oz cascade, and 1 oz mosaic for dry hop

So far she smells fantastic and is bubbling well! Started fermenting almost exactly 24 hours after pitch.

 

[TheLongArm]

Looks like a solid recipe! Post pics if you can when all is said and done. Would love to see the finished product.

 

[brewprint]

Final Recipe was:

8 oz crystal 40 grain
3 lbs light DME to start
1 oz warrior hops for bittering
1 oz simcoe at 15 min
2 oz simcoe at 5 min
2 oz simcoe, 1 oz cascade, 1 oz mosaic at 0 min
4 lbs light DME at 0 min
on Friday I'm adding 1 oz Simcoe, 1 oz cascade, and 1 oz mosaic for dry hop

So far she smells fantastic and is bubbling well! Started fermenting almost exactly 24 hours after pitch.

Looks like a good recipe. Although if you just pitched 2 days ago and plan to dry hop in less than a week I wouldn't advise that. Some may be of a different opinion but I go at least 2 weeks before I dry hop.

 

[KilgoreT]

Okay Brewprint, thanks for the heads up. I'll read into it more.

 

[brewprint]

Okay Brewprint, thanks for the heads up. I'll read into it more.

It's up to you. If you do it that early make sure that hydrometer readings are stable for at least a couple days.