• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

Specialty IPA: Red IPA India Red Ale

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Thinking of wet hopping this with my homegrown cascade hops....anyone tried doing that to this recipe before?
 
Yes, just be sure the hops are really ripe. I've done a bunch of wet hop beers.Some have been fabulous. Though now I prefer to dry my homegrown hops and use when just dried. For me I get better flavor-sometimes the wet hops can give a vegetal flavor if not really ripe. I'd add only at end of boil so you don't over extract the moisture in the hops.
 
Yes, just be sure the hops are really ripe. I've done a bunch of wet hop beers.Some have been fabulous. Though now I prefer to dry my homegrown hops and use when just dried. For me I get better flavor-sometimes the wet hops can give a vegetal flavor if not really ripe. I'd add only at end of boil so you don't over extract the moisture in the hops.

I did my first wet-hopped brew last year with my hops and it did have a little bit of that "veggie" flavor to it. I might still go for it on this one. Thanks for the response. :mug:
 
That sounds wonderful, will brew this next. Ever thought about using a Lager yeast for this one? Could reuse a yeast cake from a Pilsener I will bottle this weekend (saflager 34 70).

Don't have black patent, but a lot of chocolate malt flying around. Do you think it might be good for substitution?
 
Yes, I have done this as a lager. It was good, less hoppy overall but very smooth. Yes, chocolate malt works, I use it often.
 
FlaglerBC,

The recipe is a wandering beast for sure. I have not brewed this in a while, but my favorite version is:
7.5 Lbs pale (59%)
4 lbs light munich (32%)
.5 lbs C-40 (4%)
.5 lbs C-90 (4%)
1 oz black patent (1%)

1 OZ SIMCOE 60 MIN
1 OZ CASCADE 20 MIN
1 OZ AMARILLO 5 MIN

DRY HOP:
.75 OZ SIMCOE
1 OZ AMARILLO
.5 OZ CASCADE

I have been mashing at 150-152.
Using the Balanced Profile for brewing water from Brewer's Friend.
Yeast- usually American Ale strains ( WY1056 and 1272) on this one, but I have had great results with English strains as well: Wyeast 1098 in particular. I ferment my ales with a ramping schedule. I start low, around 62 f and ramp to about 67-68 by day 4. I find this lets the yeast stay clean and attenuate well. Then I usually begin dry hopping about day 7 if the beer is mostly clear (this happens with English yeast quickly) I dry hop in primary with pellets now in bags. I find they impart aroma quicker, and are just easier to deal with. Dry hops stay in for 4-5 days at room temp, then I rack to keg under CO2 chill, and carb. This beer gets better after a few more weeks, but is ready to drink in 2-3 weeks after brewing.

Regarding IRL, I really love the Mexican Lager strain. It does great in amber beers and is easy to use. Fermentation with this strain is mid 50's. The hops will be a bit muted compared to the ale strain, but the malt really shines. The only other strain I have used for an IRL is the Staro-Prague strain that was a special release. It's from Straropramen Brewery in Prague. That yeast is great too, but tough to find.

Let me know if there is any thing else I can help you with,

Cheers, Tim

I will use this version of the recipe as a base. I don't know which crystal malts I have flying around, but I guess I will need to swap them out for something I already have. I have Cara hell, which is very light and I think I also got a quite dark crystal here. Will use those, hopefully I will hit the right colour.

I will also slightly change the hops, as I am more into a piny hop aroma for this one. Will use simcoe and one or two other ones.

The yeast will be Nottingham or safale us 05, but I tend to try out Nottingham, as I never used it before.

Any comments on my ideas?
 
Brewed it yesterday, as a raw ale (wort not boiled, hops in a seperate hop "tea"). I used Admiral for bittering and green bullet and Simcoe as flavour additions @ 5min. I did no chill with the hop tea, so the hops spent quite some additional time above 80 degrees C in there. I did not have the 40L crystal malt, but the 90L. I had cara hell which has a colour of 10L, so I decided to up the amount of both a bit, I went with 5% each, I deducted the additional 1% for each from the base malts.

I pitched a rehydrated Nottingham package this morning and now I am very curious about how it will turn out :)
 
So I'm a big fan of Red IPA's but I haven't been able to come up with a recipe I truly love. I do have a pretty good clone of Sierra Nevada's Celebration but I want to try something new so I'm going to give this recipe a try.

I see where the original recipe calls for black patent but I also saw in reading through this thread that chocolate can be subbed in for it which is what I was thinking about trying. Has anyone subbed chocolate for black patent and have anything positive or negative to add about it?

Cheers! :mug:
 
So I'm a big fan of Red IPA's but I haven't been able to come up with a recipe I truly love. I do have a pretty good clone of Sierra Nevada's Celebration but I want to try something new so I'm going to give this recipe a try.

I see where the original recipe calls for black patent but I also saw in reading through this thread that chocolate can be subbed in for it which is what I was thinking about trying. Has anyone subbed chocolate for black patent and have anything positive or negative to add about it?

Cheers! :mug:

I have stopped using roasted malts in my red/ambers. I only use crystal malts and it has only been for the better, at least for my personal taste.

Chocolate or pale chocolate malt is definitely better, especially in a Red. Other higher roasted malts I feel they lend to much of a rost in the final beer.
 
So I'm a big fan of Red IPA's but I haven't been able to come up with a recipe I truly love. I do have a pretty good clone of Sierra Nevada's Celebration but I want to try something new so I'm going to give this recipe a try.



I see where the original recipe calls for black patent but I also saw in reading through this thread that chocolate can be subbed in for it which is what I was thinking about trying. Has anyone subbed chocolate for black patent and have anything positive or negative to add about it?



Cheers! :mug:



It’s a very small amount of dark roasted malt. I have used: black patent, chocolate, carafa and Midnight wheat and Black prinz. Of these, the Midnight Wheat is the smoothest. I prefer using a small amount of one of these malts for color instead of more cara/crystal as I prefer bit less perceived sweetness.
 
It’s a very small amount of dark roasted malt. I have used: black patent, chocolate, carafa and Midnight wheat and Black prinz. Of these, the Midnight Wheat is the smoothest. I prefer using a small amount of one of these malts for color instead of more cara/crystal as I prefer bit less perceived sweetness.
 
It’s a very small amount of dark roasted malt. I have used: black patent, chocolate, carafa and Midnight wheat and Black prinz. Of these, the Midnight Wheat is the smoothest. I prefer using a small amount of one of these malts for color instead of more cara/crystal as I prefer bit less perceived sweetness.

Thanks for the reply! I make a Black IPA that uses midnight wheat so I might go in that direction.
 
Put my second brewing of this recipe on tap last weekend, upped the hops a little this time. Buddy of mine came over to try some brews. Warned him it wasn't ready, was hardly carbed, not ready for serving, but let him try it anyways. He didn't want to leave, and kept saying how good it was, as he filled his glass a few times, lol.
 
So I just dry hopped a version of this recipe last night and took a sample. It's already the best Red IPA I've made before adding the 4.5 oz of equal parts Simcoe, Amarillo and Cascade. This is even better than my Celebration clone I brew! I'm planning on bottling this bad boy this weekend. Can't wait until it's conditioned!!! :cask:
 
I'll be making this on Sunday! I'm going to try using a bit of Kveik (Granvin strain) as my yeast. I can't wait to try it out!
 
Brewed it yesterday, as a raw ale (wort not boiled, hops in a seperate hop "tea"). I used Admiral for bittering and green bullet and Simcoe as flavour additions @ 5min. I did no chill with the hop tea, so the hops spent quite some additional time above 80 degrees C in there. I did not have the 40L crystal malt, but the 90L. I had cara hell which has a colour of 10L, so I decided to up the amount of both a bit, I went with 5% each, I deducted the additional 1% for each from the base malts.

I pitched a rehydrated Nottingham package this morning and now I am very curious about how it will turn out :)

Caught a wild brett infection on this one, transferred it to a glass fermenter, added a bit of Pilsener wort to give the yeast something to help to get rid of the oxygen I might have introduced during transfer and filled the airlock with vodka.

Tasted it when transferring, tasted slightly funky in a good way. It has been standing in my closet since then, being a happily aging wild brett brew.

I think I might take a first reading and another taste test end of this month.

I'll keep you updated.
 
Caught a wild brett infection on this one, transferred it to a glass fermenter, added a bit of Pilsener wort to give the yeast something to help to get rid of the oxygen I might have introduced during transfer and filled the airlock with vodka.

Tasted it when transferring, tasted slightly funky in a good way. It has been standing in my closet since then, being a happily aging wild brett brew.

I think I might take a first reading and another taste test end of this month.

I'll keep you updated.

A Brett version would be a first. To quote Bob Ross “ no mistakes, only happy accidents”. I hope it’s not beyond recovery
 
Is this beer considered an Imperial? Also anyone have any pics?

IMG_5326.jpg


It’s 6.5% ~1.065 as designed but if you want to “ imperialize” it increase the base malt to around 1.076+
 
Thanks Tim! I’m going to try your IRA first. I am thinking of brewing this for St. Patrick’s Day. Which version of this do you prefer ?
 
Thanks Tim! I’m going to try your IRA first. I am thinking of brewing this for St. Patrick’s Day. Which version of this do you prefer ?

Do the original but double the dry hops. Or-

If you want to change it up...

You can decrease the crystal a bit if you want less maltiness. I have been using Midnight wheat in place of black patent lately, but that is probably splitting hairs at less than 1% of the grist.

Again if you want a lighter mouthfeel, Decrease the Munich to 3.5 lbs and 2-row to 8 lbs.

My last batch was simcoe, centennial and Mosaic and it was lovely.
 
Brewing a 2.5 gallon version of this in the am. How does this look? Would 1 oz of each hop at boil be too much for this small 2.5 gal batch? I have .5 oz shown below but now I’m thinking more!

I’m looking to do an imperial version.

IMG_1523651927.133580.jpg
 
Last edited:
Back
Top