Help with a recipe

[lnhoskins]

I'm getting ready to brew my first original recipe, but I'm wanting some help with my hop schedule. The recipe is similar to DFH 90 minute, and it says they add hops every 7.5 minutes, but I've heard you don't get a lot out of hopping in the middle of a boil, so I was considering adding more at the start and finish, basically eliminating all hop additions from 70 min's to 15 min's. I'm also doing a late malt addition, adding 3 lbs dme at the beginning and 6 at 15 minutes. Any thoughts or pointers?

 

[HopLife]

I generally add hops at the start of the boil for the bittering contribution. Most brewers will use hops with a slightly higher AA for the purposes of bittering. Then I use Hops at either 20 minutes or 15 minutes. This will be a good time to add hop flavor, but still add some IBU, also these additions tend to have a mellower perception compared to a later addition. Around 5 minutes to flameout I will do another hop addition for more flavor and a real true hop taste, this is normally called the aroma addition. Personally, if making a really hoppy beer, most of the aroma comes even later by adding dry hops.

To start, decide on a beer style. We can guide you on how to build a recipe to fit the style. I am really only good with Pale ale, IPA and Porter. Check out the beer guidlines or download one of the beer softwares. That will help alot too.

Post what you got written down for a recipe so far.

 

[lnhoskins]

It's defiantly going to be an imperial IPA. Here's what I have...

9 lbs breis golden light dme
2 lbs Carmel 20l
3 oz chinook pellets (11.1 aa)
1 oz warrior pellets (13.4 aa)
1 oz German magnum pellets (14.1 aa)
2 oz chinook leaf (dry hop)
2 oz crystal leaf (dry hop)
Safeale US-05 dry yeast.

I'm steeping the Carmel at 150-155 for 40 min's. I'll add 3 lbs dme to start my 90 min boil and the other 6 at 15 minutes. In the DFH 90 minute recipe the divide the pellets into 12 equal portions and add every 7.5 minutes. What I was thinking is instead of that, add half at the 90 min mark, to add a few ibu's and break the other half into a 15 min and a 5 min addition to get more of the flavor. I'm sure I'll get some good aroma with 4 oz in the dry, just wondering what everyone thinks of the recipe in general and the hopping schedule. I'm pretty new so all advice is welcome.

 

[hercher]

It sounds good to me, though I don't know why you are breaking up your malt extract like that. I would put it all in at the beginning -- one less step to worry about.

Your hop schedule looks fine. My only thing is that you have a lot of different varieties in there. For such an intense beer, I probably would stick with one or two varieties. in general, my personal preference is for simpler recipes, rather than more complex.

 

[Calder]

I estimate about 1.087 OG. 2 lbs of crystal is a lot, and will add some what to your FG. I would not be surprised to find this ending at 1.025 (or higher) which is quite sweet.

I am not familiar with DFH 90.

If it were me, I would reduce the crystal, and replace at least 1 lb of DME with table sugar. Subbing in a pound of sugar should get you down to around 1.020.

 

[lnhoskins]

So if I'm understanding this right, the Carmel contains a lot of ufermentables? Which in turn could result in a sweeter beer with a lower abv? What would happen if I cut it in half and only used a pound? As for the late extract additions, I've read that it wil prevent any burning or caramelization of the malt, and make for better hop utilization... I haven't tried it yet, but I was going to expirament with it.

 

[hercher]

So if I'm understanding this right, the Carmel contains a lot of ufermentables? Which in turn could result in a sweeter beer with a lower abv? What would happen if I cut it in half and only used a pound? As for the late extract additions, I've read that it wil prevent any burning or caramelization of the malt, and make for better hop utilization... I haven't tried it yet, but I was going to expirament with it.

You are correct about the caramel. If you are looking for the color that 2 lbs of Caramel 20 gives you, cutting it in half, and using Caramel 40 should do the trick.

I don't agree at all with substituting a lb of extract with table sugar. All table sugar really does is create more alcohol, and thin your beer out.

 

[Yooper]

You are correct about the caramel. If you are looking for the color that 2 lbs of Caramel 20 gives you, cutting it in half, and using Caramel 40 should do the trick.

I don't agree at all with substituting a lb of extract with table sugar. All table sugar really does is create more alcohol, and thin your beer out.

I'd definitely reduce the crystal to no more than 1 pound, and preferably less. If you want a quaffable beer, adding sugar instead of extract (a pound or so) makes perfect sense, and is very commonly done in IIPAs. Otherwise, that much malt gets too "thick" and sweet in the finished beer, more like a barley wine rather than an IIPA.

Using the bulk of the extract late is exactly the right thing to do, especially in this beer.

 

[lnhoskins]

All really great pointers. I guess I should specify what I'm looking for too, lol. I'm wanting a high abv (8-9%), high ibu (>90), full mouthfeel, highly aromatic, with a hoppy finish beer. Color is irrelevant, but I want just enough mat for balance. So how would I raise the abv, without thinning it out to much?

 

[BMBeer]

FWIW Dogfish 60,90, and I believe even the 120 are all continually hopped. Early on (like when they were the smallest brewery in the country) DFH did this by mounting an old electronic football game above the boil kettle and letting the vibration slowly drops hops into the boil. feds shut them down once durring an inspection for safety reasons and they have a much more scientific approach now but they claim the continual additions affect hop utilization and thus flavor. So if you are looking to mimic that you might want to take that into consideration.

My first recipe i tried to do something similar, a big IPA. Full boil, all extract added up front....my recipe was

1lb crystal 20L
8oz munich 10L

2.5 lbs extra liight dme
8lbs Amber LME
1lb dextrose

i added hops every 10 minutes, cant remember the exact schedule (written down at home) but i used 5 varieties, a total of 5 oz, and will add an additional 2oz dry hop. OG came in at 1.086 and its been going strong in primary since sunday.

No idea how its going to turn out, I'm assuming it will need some tweaks beacuse it tasted so sugary. I'll taste it again when the foam drops and i check where its at but i think it might end up being something only i drink, no way i'm dumping the $50 worth of ingredients.

 

[lnhoskins]

Sounds good! I understand about the price thing, I dropped 50 on this one as well. Where do you think the sugary taste came from? What hops did you mix?

 

[BMBeer]

hop schedule was

1oz chinook (60)
1oz Centennial (50)
1 oz warrrior (40)
.5 oz centennial (30)
.5 oz Mt. hood (20)
.5 oz cascade (10)
.5 oz cascade(1)
2 oz cascade (dry)

with a high abv i was thinking i could away with higher ibu to offset all the sugar. the early additions are all high AA so the IBUS are kicked up to nearly 120 or something like that. Going to try something might as well go big right? Like I said, this was already an experiment being my first recipe so i went all out.

I think the super sugar taste was the corn sugar. I thought that it was highly fermentable thus most of that will go away, add alchohol, and maybe dry it out a bit? Could be way off there though.

 

[Yooper]

1lb crystal 20L
8oz munich 10L

2.5 lbs extra liight dme
8lbs Amber LME
1lb dextrose

No idea how its going to turn out, I'm assuming it will need some tweaks beacuse it tasted so sugary. I'll taste it again when the foam drops and i check where its at but i think it might end up being something only i drink, no way i'm dumping the $50 worth of ingredients.

The problem with amber LME is that it has crystal malt in it already, so by adding more crystal malt you've doubled up on the crystal so it might be a bit "thick" and sweet in the finish. The basic recipe is solid, just swap the amber LME for pale LME.

 

[BMBeer]

The problem with amber LME is that it has crystal malt in it already, so by adding more crystal malt you've doubled up on the crystal so it might be a bit "thick" and sweet in the finish. The basic recipe is solid, just swap the amber LME for pale LME.

Thank you, little bits of knowledge that will go a long way!

 

[HopLife]

The basic recipe is solid, just swap the amber LME for pale LME.

I would suggst this for most recipes. If it calls for Amber LME adjust the recipe by using Pale LME with some crystal 20-40 and achieve a similar SRM with fresh ingredients. It is more fun and should result in a better flavor.

I personally think that fresh ingredients are one of the advantages homebrewers can exploit to get a better and fresher beer experience. Luckily for extract brewers, the manufactuers are pretty darn good at what they do. Nevertheless, always use hops that are as fresh and ideally local as you can find. Inspect the packaging, tight vacuum sealed and hidden from light is ideal. If they are fresh hops, make sure they were properly dried, or are right off the vine if they are not dried yet. Use a reputable supplier for grains that turns over the inventory quickly. Also make sure that the Extract you are getting isn't super old. After a certain amount of time if seems to lose something.

 

[hopheaded]

i dont know if it will help you at all, as it seems like youve already gotten tons of advice, but heres a great recipe for and IPA that uses the same hopping technique you were talking about.

 

[Calder]

I think the super sugar taste was the corn sugar. I thought that it was highly fermentable thus most of that will go away, add alchohol, and maybe dry it out a bit? Could be way off there though.

Corn sugar and cane sugar ferment out 100% and leave no residual sweetness. As Yopper noted, the sweet taste you have is probably from the 8 lbs of AMBER LME in addition to your normal Crystal addition.