IPA recipe help...

[Nefariis]

I'm about to start my fourth batch of beer - the previous 3 were an IPA, a Stout, and a Red - so far everything has turned out fantastic and without any hiccups. However, they were all from posted recipes. Now I want to do my own recipe with a few of the hops that I've liked the best so far.

I would like to know what you guys think of the recipe (keeping in mind that Im trying to keep it super simple) before I go out and get the ingredients. Im going for a dry west coast style IPA.

7 lbs 2 row
3 lbs maris otter
(Or maybe just 10lbs of 2 row)
(Possibly add .5lb of crystal?)

2oz Chinook at 60 mins
1oz Chinook/1oz Centennial at 30 mins
.5oz Chinook/.5oz Centennial at 5 mins
.5oz Chinook/.5oz Centennial Dry Hop

US West Coast Yeast

Ferment 7 Days then Bottle 10 Days

What do you guys think?

 

[slym2none]

Nothing wrong with the grain bill as I see it, as it stands. Forget the crystal, maybe add sugar to dry it out & make the hops pop.

Chinook is a little too piney for my tastes, but I am not about to tell anyone else their tastes. Sounds like a good combo otherwise. FTR, I'd go Simcoe & Centennial, but that's just me. I'd also use a neutral bittering hop at 60, but IDK if you just have this laying around and/or just want to use the Chinook.

 

[Nefariis]

How much sugar and when?

And I love the taste of pine! : )

I know that the hops Im using are pretty powerful, I kind of want to go over board on this batch and then tone it down/add other flavors in in future batches. Use this as a base and then maybe add citra and/or cascade in the next one.

 

[slym2none]

Up to a pound of sugar for a 5-6G batch, but even half a pound won't hurt.

You can add it at any time in the boil, really. Or even at flameout - that's what I do.

 

[chickypad]

This is a 5 gal batch, right? Have you plugged this into software? Depending on efficiency I'm getting about 1.055-1.057, so kinda low for an IPA, and a whopping 174 IBU's depending on your exact AA's. I think you need to move a lot more hops to late, I'd go with 1 oz of chinook at 60 and move the other oz plus the entire 30 min additon to late. You could do all 3 oz at flameout. I'm a fan of chinook so I think the hop combo is fine. It does give a fairly assertive bitterness at 60, which I happen to like but is off-putting for some, and 2 oz for bittering I think would be over the top even for me. A half lb to a lb of sugar would get you more in IPA range as mentioned.

 

[Redlantern]

Huge Chinook fan here. Saying that, That much Chinook is a bit much. An ounce or less at 60 will do. Prefer Columbus or Magnum myself.

Go heavier at the end of boil, flameout and whirlpool additions. Much better flavor.

As much as I love Chinook (current IPA has 3.5 oz), that much that early will be like chewing on a pine tree.

As far as grain bill, Either is fine, but I would bump to min of 12 lbs or more to carry all those powerful hops. Bitterness ratio will improve.

For myself, I prefer to add <5% of 40L I perceive lighter crystal sweeter tasting and darker crystal to caramelly. Adds head retention, body, and color - and any sweetness at that volume will get buried by that much Chinook.

 

[m00ps]

Definitely do 1oz at 60min unless you love that jaw clenching bitterness that sits on your palate. And up the late additions

 

[Nefariis]

No to the software, I didnt even know such a thing existed. Whats the name of the program?

So taking all the suggestions into account, does this look better?

7 lbs 2 row
3 lbs maris otter
1 lb sugar

1oz Chinook at 60 mins
1.5oz (or 2.5oz?) Chinook/1.5oz Centennial at 5 mins
.5oz Chinook/.5oz Centennial Dry Hop

US West Coast Yeast

that jaw clenching bitterness

made me chuckle

 

[chickypad]

Yeah that looks better. If I were brewing it I'd put a couple oz of your 5 min hops as a flame out or hopstand addition, but we're starting to split hairs now. I'd also up the dry hop at least an oz. I think a little crystal is fine if you still want to use it, especially if you mash low and as you have some sugar in there now. Like Redlantern I'd keep it under 5% for an IPA. If you google brewing calculators you'll see lots of options. I use Beersmith but I find Brewer's friend to be an easy free option, and I actually still use it for my water calculations.

 

[Queequeg]

I personally would not bitter with chinook, as it tends to have a nasty bitterness to it. I would replace with a clean a high AA bittering addition, Magnum, northern brewer, horizon, warrior, apollo, simcoe are all good options.


A 5 min addition isn't really worth much imo. Unless hopbursting, the main times for an IPA are imo 60 min, 15min (or there abouts), flameout/hopstand and dry hop.

Even then the purpose of late kettle additions are debatable.

Keeping things simple I would move your 5 min additions to knockout.

Your dry hop needs to be bigger 3oz is a good starting point for an IPA.

Centennial and Chinook will work well in a 1:1 ratio.

Malt bill is ok, but personally I would go for the palest malt possible as the base, then add a small amount of specialty malt that does do not add much sweetness. I would keep away from Munich and such malts because they have a quite notable aroma which you don't want in a IPA. Instead biscuit, victory, rye, abbey are all good choices.

Rye will promote dryness, add body and make the hops pop, especially C hops. You can use around 7-10% without crystal. Chuck in some husks to avoid a stuck sparge though.

You don't need the sugar imo, just mash low. You still want some residue sweetness to balance the beer, FG in the 1.012 area. Any lower than that will make the beer too bitter and thin imo and risk fusels too.

 

[Nefariis]

Sorry to resurrect this but I had another question come up.

I was playing around with BeerSmith last night and and I put in this schedule of hops:

1oz Chinook at 60 mins
1oz Chinook / 1oz Centenial at flame out 15 mins
2oz chinook / 2 oz Centenial Dry Hop 7 days

and the IBU's came out to 33.9, the bitterness ratio (IBU/SG) is .545, and an OG of 1.046

I was looking online and these numbers seem really low. Most IPA's appear to have a bitterness ratio at or above 1.0

Now if I adjust the recipe to

1oz Chinook / 1oz Centennial at 60 mins boil
1oz Chinook / 1oz Centennial at 15 mins boil
2oz chinook / 2 oz Centennial Dry Hop 7 days

It changes the IBU's to 62.4 and the bitterness ratio is 1.003

Am I using the BeerSmith tool right, or do these number appear completely off?

Thanks again.

 

[chickypad]

Beersmith takes some setting up, you need to really make sure the volumes and losses are set properly. Eyeballing your numbers I'm not sure they look right - that second recipe I would expect more than 62 IBU. The OG also looks low, unless you are expecting pretty low efficency. I would expect an oz of chinook at 60 to give you about 40 IBU depending on AA's.

Edit: I just plugged that second recipe in to brewer's friend - I find it very close to Beersmith generally. With 10 lb of malt and 1 lb of sugar at 70% efficiency (which is pretty conserative) I get 1.061 for 5 gal batch, and 110 IBU's (guessing at chinook AA of 13 and centennial of 8). I think you need to check all our settings - batch size, losses, efficiency, etc.

 

[Queequeg]

Also still better to bitter with centennial.

 

[Nefariis]

I took a screen shot and attached it.

I'm going for 3 gallon mash/5 gallon fermentation, I have chinook Alpha at 13% and Centennial at 10% and I keep the lid partially on to help with boiling. What should the efficiency be?

@Queequeg - I really really like the taste of chinook (and really everything pine tree like), so I want to try my first batch with this. If it ends up being too much, then Ill do why second batch with something a little milder : )

Thanks again for everyone's help.

 

[chickypad]

I'm not sure what's going on with your settings but I'm getting the same thing with BS as I did with Brewer's friend - over 100 IBU if I match your OG/efficiency. What is your boil volume, do you have it set to top off with a lot of water or something? Did you mess with the default settings at all for bitterness calculations?

 

[Redlantern]

Mash setting are different. That can be confusing for sure.....

 

[Redlantern]

Pres boil volumes are different as well

 

[Nefariis]

I believe I want to use the Pot (3g/11L) as the batch (5g), boil (3g), and bottling (4.75g) volumes are inline with my current setup.

After looking at the Beersmith's definitions of "Mash Settings," I believe I want Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out?

And the fermentation is just single stage.

Does that setup sound right?

 

[Redlantern]

For an IPA, I have heard plenty of times in here and also prefer myself to choohe light body and dry the IPA out

 

[Chadzilla]

152 degree mash and should add the sugar right when the boil starts to be the nice rumble, then throw it in because it'll bring the boil down. Once it starts again then you are good to start the 60min timer, that is just my method when using sugar. Another suggestion I would add is a touch of wheat or munich or both to give the beer a good head frothy head retention. Munich is honestly one of my favorites for head retention and also has a nice taste addition to the beer (biscuit.)

7days is kind of short for fermentation to, maybe do a sample to taste for traces of diacytal. If you get slipperiness to the bitterness sliding on the back of the tounge then let it condition for a while longer and dry hop .5oz-1oz of a hop, I use simcoe for my DH. cheers

 

[chickypad]

I believe I want to use the Pot (3g/11L) as the batch (5g), boil (3g), and bottling (4.75g) volumes are inline with my current setup.

So you're trying to brew a 5 gal all grain batch with a 3 gal pot? This isn't going to work very well. You'll only be able to boil about 2.5 gals, probably end with about 2 gals, and then top off with 3 gals of water. There's your calculation issue, when you top off like that you dilute your IBU's.

But more importantly you'll have very little mash + sparge water - you're going to be leaving a lot of sugars behind. Most folks have a kettle at least a couple gals bigger than their batch size for all grain. I do sometimes brew 5 gal batches in my 5 gal pot, topping off with 2 gals at the end, but I only can do it with medium gravity beers. I would never do it with an IPA due to maxing out the IBU's either. I think you need a bigger pot or aim for smaller batches.

 

[Nefariis]

Well the pot is bigger (5g) - I just use 3g of water for the initial boil. On BeerSmith, this setting (3g pot) just happens to have the same boil, fermentation, and bottling amounts as I normally do. After the 3g wort cools, I add 2g of water to make 5g, add the yeast/hops, seal it up, and throw it downstairs.

My primary concern is if other people are getting the same IBU's as I did above (60-62) and that my first batch doesnt end up 120+ - that would be a ridiculous blunder.

To be honest, Im starting not to have much faith BeerSmith (at least with my current settings). I've been looking at quite a few IPA recipe's today (including one of my favorite beers) ... and I think I am using entirely way to much hops - but in no combination of settings can I replicate where the IBU's should probably be.

 

[chickypad]

The issue with the calculations I'm almost positive is due to topping off with water - you're diluting IBU's so the calculations usually look different than boiling the 6-6.5 gals to get 5 finished. Check the recipes you're looking at, I'm sure they are all full boils.

I assume you are mashing in a cooler not BIAB, as this grainbill won't fit in your 5 gal pot. That's why I max out when doing my 5 gal batches, I usually stick to 3 gal BIAB batches in my 5 gal pot. You probably need to adjust your efficiency down. You're essentially brewing a 3 gal 1.104 beer then diluting it to 5 gals. With that big a grainbill you're going to have very little sparge so efficiency can take a hit. Have you done any all grain batches yet to have an estimate of your efficiency?

 

[Redlantern]

It took me a bit to understand the Beersmith settings. Once I was set up properly, the worked great. Have patience and get a 10 gallon boil kettle

 

[Nefariis]

Im brewing in a bag and I do have a 10g kettel that I use for soups, it just seemed like over kill.

So the previous 3 recipes that I did all started with 3-3.5g of water at starting boil and then had a top off of 2g .... Which to me would seem like the same thing as starting with 6-6.5g at boil and not topping off - it still ends up with 10lbs of Malt boiled for 60 mins at the same temperature, the water wont be over saturated with this amount of sugar/hops, and either way you are left with 5 gallons of wort.

But as it turns out, Beersmith doesnt agree, I just made two different Pots - One that goes from 6.5g to 5g and another that goes from 3.5g to 5g and the IBU's were vastly different (each had 20% evaporation rate). So I guess whether or not, it is the same, BeerSmith isn't treating it as the same.

With the "New Equipment" it says

.5oz chinook/.5oz Centennial at 60 mins
.5oz chinook/.5oz Centennial at 15 mins
1oz chinook/1oz Centennial Dry Hop

To reach 66 IBU's, which seems more on par with the other recipes that I have been reading.

 

[chickypad]

Im brewing in a bag and I do have a 10g kettel that I use for soups, it just seemed like over kill.

So the previous 3 recipes that I did all started with 3-3.5g of water at starting boil and then had a top off of 2g .... Which to me would seem like the same thing as starting with 6-6.5g at boil and not topping off - it still ends up with 10lbs of Malt boiled for 60 mins at the same temperature, the water wont be over saturated with this amount of sugar/hops, and either way you are left with 5 gallons of wort.

10 gal is not at all overkill for 5 gal BIAB batches, it's actually quite standard. You could do a full volume mash on most beers.

Re: boil size, it's not the same topping off with water vs. full boil with all grain. You're losing about 3 gals or in the neighborhood of 2/3 of your sparge water doing the tiny batch and topping off with water. My batch sparge runnings I know can often be in the 1.020 range, 3 gals of that would be 60 gravity pts, so losing 1.012 or so on the whole batch. If you have been brewing all grain batches this way and getting reasonable efficiency then I'm not going to argue but as I said you're leaving a lot of sugars behind.

 

[Redlantern]

I like the newest numbers

 

[Queequeg]

The 60 min addition will not add flavour just bitterness. Chinook doesn't have nice tasting bitterness. The flameout addition will give you the most flavour.

 

[slym2none]

*EDIT* Thanks, mods.