Heated Hops

[manortc]

I recently judged a Chili beer in a homebrew contest and am looking to turn it into an IPA. One of the few problems was the lack of the hoppy bitterness and the malt sweetness. Therefore, I'm shooting for an Imperial IPA recipe, with the thoughts that it will turn out tasting more like an American IPA with a good Serrano pepper flavor.


8 lbs Pale LME 67%
1.5 lbs Caramel 10L 12.5%
1.5 lbs Caramel 40L 12.5%
1 lb Carapils 8%

1.5 oz Chinook (13.00%) at 60
1.5 oz Centennial (10.00%) at 60
.5oz Cascade (5.50%) at 5
.5oz Williamette (5.50%) at 5
.5oz Cascade (5.50%) dry-hop
.5oz Williamette (5.50%) dry-hop

I will be adding 4 large Serrano peppers for about 5 days in the secondary. I'm stealing this step from another brewer who got just the right amount of heat this way. I'm fairly new to creating recipes, so any input and advise is very welcome. I'm a week or two out from brewing this, but very excited to give it a try.

 

[jbrookeiv]

That's a heck of a lot of Caramel/Crystal malt. Sounds pretty tasty otherwise, interested to see how this turns out.

 

[dcp27]

way too much crystal, especially for an IPA. Ditch the carapils, its unnecessary when using extract (already in it) or when using other crystal (does same thing). If you want some sweetness to battle the heat, then 1.5lbs is the max I'd use, otherwise I'd cut it closer to 0.5lb total crystal. you may prefer to use some munich to give some malty sweetness instead of caramel sweetness

 

[manortc]

Thanks for the advice. Ditched the carapils and going to drop it to 12 oz each of Caramel 10L and Caramel 40L and add 2 lbs of Munich. I'm trying to keep my OG around 1.070-1.080 (using beersmith). If that is too much, how much do you recommend for 5 gallons?

 

[smagee]

I've never used more than 1lb of Munich on an IIPA, but that may very well be my own preference. I know you're shooting for a fair bit of sweetness to balance the heat, but you might want to consider at least a pound of something like brown sugar or honey to keep the OG up but still dry it out a little. Otherwise I think it'll end up muting the hops.

 

[manortc]

1 lb of munich it is then. I thought about brown sugar and honey but wanted to make sure there was enough of a malt backbone to the beer to balance out the hops and sweet and hotness of the peppers. Still up in the air about the sugars but will probably ad them to raise the OG and dry it out a bit. Plus, I'm thinking about a pint or two of this beer will be enough for one sitting, so a higher ABV is fine with me. Thanks for the help guys, and if anyone is local, I'd love to have taste opinions once it's done.