I have brewed a Three Floyds ZD clone three times now. It has become a favorite of mine and many of my friends.
For ref, the original recipe is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/three-floyds-zombie-dust-clone-303478/#post3776118
My most frequent partner in crime when consuming this beer is my next door neighbor. He loves the stuff, but would like to get a bit more grapefruit into it. He also loves IIPA's, so I've decided to experiment.
The idea is to create a house IIPA recipe with a very similar hop flavor to ZD. I'm going for more alcohol and trying to amp up the grapefruit while staying true to the ZD roots.
I've got a recipe worked up, but find sometimes the details get distracting, so I'm gonna stick with general goals for this post.
I'm maxing out my mash tun with the current recipe, so I'm planning to leave the grain bill exactly as-is and add DME and Invert sugar to get the add'l gravity. I'm toying with adding these to the fermenters at high-krausen rather than adding to the boil. My thinking is to let the yeast chew through some of the sugar before overloading them.
For hops, I want to a gentle shift from the original recipe, not a big jump. I'm thinking of an Amarillo/Citra blend rather than just Citra. Because I want the shift to be subtle, and Amarillo has higher beta acid content, I'm thinking along the lines of 3:1 or even 4:1 Citra.
I'm also thinking about switching out the bittering hop for Magnum, pretty much "just cuz."
So, if you've stuck with me this far, what do you think?
For ref, the original recipe is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/three-floyds-zombie-dust-clone-303478/#post3776118
My most frequent partner in crime when consuming this beer is my next door neighbor. He loves the stuff, but would like to get a bit more grapefruit into it. He also loves IIPA's, so I've decided to experiment.
The idea is to create a house IIPA recipe with a very similar hop flavor to ZD. I'm going for more alcohol and trying to amp up the grapefruit while staying true to the ZD roots.
I've got a recipe worked up, but find sometimes the details get distracting, so I'm gonna stick with general goals for this post.
I'm maxing out my mash tun with the current recipe, so I'm planning to leave the grain bill exactly as-is and add DME and Invert sugar to get the add'l gravity. I'm toying with adding these to the fermenters at high-krausen rather than adding to the boil. My thinking is to let the yeast chew through some of the sugar before overloading them.
For hops, I want to a gentle shift from the original recipe, not a big jump. I'm thinking of an Amarillo/Citra blend rather than just Citra. Because I want the shift to be subtle, and Amarillo has higher beta acid content, I'm thinking along the lines of 3:1 or even 4:1 Citra.
I'm also thinking about switching out the bittering hop for Magnum, pretty much "just cuz."
So, if you've stuck with me this far, what do you think?