Help my IPA!

[mrphillips]

Well its my first IPA, and I sorta free-balled my OG. I thought I'd come out with something close to 1.065, but ended up at 1.050. The below recipe is for a 3 GALLON batch. My IBU's seem to end up around 75, but without a solid malt backbone, I'm concerned that the bitterness will be too much - of course, there might not be anything wrong, and I'm being a nervous Nelly for no reason.

*NOTE* any advise you give, please RATE YOURSELF ON A 1 - 10 HOP-HEAD scale...1 being a "what's hops?" and 10 being "West Coast IPA Fanatic"


GRAINS

3 lbs. Extra Light DME
1 lb. Vienna
.25 lb. victory
.25 lb. crystal 40

HOPS (all mixed together)

.5 oz. Chinook
.75 oz. Kent Golding
.5 oz. Centinnial
.25 oz. Cascade
1 oz. Citra


HOP SCHEDULE

14 grams @ 60 min.
14 grams @ 20 min.
14 grams @ 10 min.
18 grams @ 5 min.

I was considering mashing another .75 pounds of Crystal Malt in 2 gallons of water and adding 1 pound of corn sugar to that same mash...and then adding all of that to my primary to restart fermentation (bringing the whole batch up to 5 gallons.)

Is this a lot of work for nothing, or worth the changes?

 

[benco]

I'm about a 7. It looks like you have plenty of hops. As everyone says you don't want to overdue the crystal. The key here to me is what you mashed at? Is it all grain?

 

[benco]

I see you have some lme. Drunk!

 

[mrphillips]

I mashed a little lower than I usually do - 148 to 152 degrees for 60 min. - and it's a partial mash. I added the DME at 20 min. Like Benco said, I was concerned about it being too sweet (something I can't stand in beers), but I fear that I may have gone the other way and not added enough. Again, it's only a 3 gallon batch.

I am also at a 7...maybe 7.5 after the other night

 

[max384]

I'm far from an expert, and maybe others will disagree, but to me the Kent Goldings seems out of place in this recipe. What made you decide to use this hop?


I'd say I'm about an 8/10 hop head... Maybe. I dunno.

 

[mrphillips]

About the KG...I was cleaning out my Hops before moving, and that was just part of the mix. It's mellow and pleasant, so I think it'll be a nice combination with the victory malt. At any rate, I'm more worried about a bitter astringency than what the hop profile will be. I figure that one affects the other, and there's no point in worrying about both at the same time.

 

[Coupleathree]

Well, you have 3 oz. of hops on your post that you wanted to use, and when you convert the grams into ounces it only equals a little over 2 oz. And you mixed them all up to begin with? Who knows what is going on....

 

[mrphillips]

Sorry for the confusion. My measurements were a little short for each of my hop types (either my own off measurements or the LHBS...but probably me). I never changed my hop amounts from my original recipe before posting.

The hop schedule is the one with the correct amount of total hops. I'm not sure which types of my hops where under-weight. At any rate, the average AA of the 5 types of hops comes out to between 10-11 AA's. I wish I'd weighed out each hop before mixing them together, but I dropped the ball on it.

As far as why I mixed them all together, I saw an old clone for a Dogfish Head 60 min. IPA that did the same thing - bare in mind that I was NOT trying to clone their 60 min. IPA, I just thought it was a neat idea to mix all the hops together.

 

[chossy]

Looks good for amount but lots of different hops up in there!!! I'm a 10 sometimes I turn the dial up to eleven

You should whack a bunch of Saaz as a dry hop later on lovely smell I have some dry hopping a beer at the moment and the smell is glorious!!!

 

[adamshershner]

I'm an 11/10 that said I just did an IPA with 5 lbs crystal 60l in a 5 gal. batch with 2 oz bittering, 6 oz @ flameout, and about 8 dry hopping in phases over a month or so. I've finally found a brew that fits my taste :rockin:I think you're fine, that recipe sounds pretty good to me...

 

[mrphillips]

Thanks for all the input. I'm still a lil' concerned that my lack of Crystal will make it WAY out of balance...even for an IPA...but I'm just gunna leave it and see what happens.

If it's CRAZY CRAZY bitter, then I might add .5 - 1 pounds of sugar to restart fermentation and boost my ABV.

 

[mrphillips]

I don't think anyone is still following this thread, but I bottled today and I was pleasantly surprised. Still a little on the bitter side, and the hop flavors blur together a little more than I'd like, but since I thought it would be a disaster, I'm happy.