How long to boil hops for this ale/IPA?

[SamFen]

Hi all,

I went to my LHBS the other day to get ingredients for my second beer. I told him that I was looking for something in the style of a Victory Hop Devil, which I find to have a lot of really good hops taste, and yet not super bitter like some IPAs.

Here are the ingredients I walked out of the store with:

6lb 6oz Pale Liquid Extract
1lb Victory Malt
1lb American Crystal

1.0 oz Cascade (bittering)
1.0 oz Cascade (flavor)
1.0 oz Centennial (flavor)
0.5 oz Tettnang (aroma)

1 packet Safale US-05 Dry Yeast

So I went and plugged this in to hopville, and it told be that if I boil my bittering hops for 60 minutes, flavor hops for 10 minutes, and aroma hops for 5 minutes, I'd only end up with an IBU of 28.8, where-as an IPA is supposed to be over 40.

Now, like I said before, I don't mind if this is not as bitter as an IPA, indeed I was wanting something that would have a lot of hops flavor yet not be too bitter. But will this have much bitterness at all?

Can anyone think of a good hop schedule that will make this really flavorful? I was also thinking something like

1.0 oz Cascade (60 min)
1.0 oz Cascade (20 min)
1.0 oz Centennial (15 min)
0.5 oz Tettnang (5 min)

... but really I'm just playing with numbers, because I don't have the experience to know if something like that would end up tasting good.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[tamoore]

I think you're in the ballpark with your hop schedule. Maybe move the second Cascade hopping up to 30 minutes, but I think it's fine where it is. Either way, it looks to be a darn tasty IPA!

You gonna dry hop this one for extra aroma?

 

[nealf]

What are the AA percentages on your hops? You might need to move the Centennial to the 60 minute addition to get the bitterness required for an IPA.

If so, I might do:
1oz Cent (60)
1oz Cascade (15)
1oz Cascade (5)
.5oz Tett (0)

Any chance you could pick up another ounce of Centennial or Cascade for dry hopping?

 

[SamFen]

Well, I hadn't even considered dry hopping, but since you both mentioned it I guess I should!

I think it may be hard to pick up more hops for my brew tomorrow, but how much later can it be added? (I've never dry hopped before.) Can I add it in after I rack to secondary? And so you think another ounce of Centennial or Cascade would be good with this?

Oh, and I meant to ask: how long should I steep my grains for to get a nice IPA-style taste? I was assuming 30-40 minutes, but my last beer was a stout so maybe it's different for ales.

 

[Sean]

What are the AA percentages on your hops? You might need to move the Centennial to the 60 minute addition to get the bitterness required for an IPA.

If so, I might do:
1oz Cent (60)
1oz Cascade (15)
1oz Cascade (5)
.5oz Tett (0)

Any chance you could pick up another ounce of Centennial or Cascade for dry hopping?

^^ agree w. centennial early and cascade later.

 

[marubozo]

Well, I hadn't even considered dry hopping, but since you both mentioned it I guess I should!

I think it may be hard to pick up more hops for my brew tomorrow, but how much later can it be added? (I've never dry hopped before.) Can I add it in after I rack to secondary? And so you think another ounce of Centennial or Cascade would be good with this?

You usually dry hop in secondary, so no worries if you can't get the hops right away. An ounce would be fine in terms of the amount and should give you a nice aroma. Cascade or Centennial would both be candidates for dry hopping in this recipe so I say go with which ever you like most. Personally, I love a good Cascade hop nose.

The only thing is you are using half an ounce of Tett for some aroma, so if you dry hop with an ounce something else the tett aroma may get a bit lost.

 

[ToddO]

1/2 hour or so will be fine for your steep. You definitely want to dry hop for the flavor you are looking for. 1 oz at least preferably two. With the amount of extract that you are using here you are really not in the IPA range but more in the APA territory. I also think 3/4 oz at boil time will be enough to bitter this this bad boy. I like to do 3/4 at boil and the additional 1/4 at 45 minutes.

 

[SamFen]

So, when I took the hops out of the fridge yesterday, after everything was ready and my grains were simmering away, I suddenly discovered that I (and the guy at the store) had made things a little difficult for myself: the 1oz centennial and 0.5oz tett were in the same baggie! (I bought the ingredients a couple weeks ago and had forgotten.)

I figured that the tett would probably be wasted if I added them to the boil(?), so this meant that I couldn't use the centennial as the bittering hops like you all suggested above. So I had to do some re-thinking.

The following hop schedule is what I ended up doing. It probably looks silly to experienced brewers, but I was interested in the idea of slowly adding hops over a period of time -- I had read an article about how Dog Fish Head does this with their 60 minute IPAs. I thought maybe it would make an interesting mix of hop bitterness and hop flavors. Feel free to suggest how it should have been improved!

1oz Cascade (60)
1oz Cascade (25-15, in small increments)
1oz Centennial + 0.5oz Tettnang (10-0, in small increments)

So... only time will tell if this will be good, but the one thing remaining that I can still control is the dry hopping. With the hops schedules people posted above, with Cascade and Tett as the aroma hops, I was planning on doing some Cascade. But now I don't know if I should stick to Centennial or Tett, since those were the hops I used for aroma.