Merry Hop-Mas (new guy IPA ?)

[DoubleGator]

First off, thank you all for your wonderful database of brewing tips. I think I used the "search" function about 100 times before/during my first beer (a hefe that tastes great )

I'm about to brew an IPA, but have a few questions regarding hop utilization. Due to some miscommunication, my LHBS only sold me the right amount of hops for an extract full boil. Unfortunately, I will be using a partial boil (~3.75 gallons) and topping it off with cold water.

Luckily, I have access to hundreds of learned brewers to help me remedy this problem. My question is...with the partial boil, will my IBU's fall drastically, not giving me the proper balance between the heavy malting and high hops? Should I throw in a few cascades with the chinooks at the '60 to increase bittering and then buy some more hops to dry hop? If I just follow this recipe with my partial boil, will I still have a solid beer?


Here is my IPA recipe (stats calculated by LHBS brew program for a 5 gal. full boil)

Malts:

Extra Light LME 6.6lbs
Light DME 1lb

Steeping Grains:

20L Crystal Malt 1lb
40L Crystal Malt 8oz
CaraPils Malt 8oz

Hops:

Chinook 1.5 oz at '60
Cascade 1 oz at '15
Cascade 1 oz dry hop x 4 days

Yeast:

US-05

Stats (with a full boil)

OG: 1.058
FG 1.013
IBU 68
ABV 5.8%
SRM 9

Thanks for the help and with all your shadow help with my first brew (I'm addicted)

 

[mrk305]

Well, how hoppy do you want it, new guy? That looks like a good beer to me. Personally, I would split the 15 minute addition to half at 15 and the other half at 5, but that's just me. If you got two ounces of Chinook use all of them at 60. I mean, why not? What are you going to do with the other half?

 

[KevinW]

I did a quick calculation in Beersmith and what I came up with is if you do a ~3.5 gallon boil then you need to add ~.5 to .75 ounces more chinook @ 60 min to put you in the ballpark for the initial 68 ibu's or, adding 1.25 ounces of Cascade @ 60 minutes added to your OG recipe should put you at ~69 ibu's also!

This is what I got but you don't have to take my word for it. Either way you should have a pretty good beer when finished!

 

[DoubleGator]

Thanks for the quick responses. I think I'm going to add about 1 ounce of Cascades to the 60 minute boil (on top of the Chinooks) and then hold off on about half of the LME until the last 15 minutes of the boil. Is it possible to overbitter an IPA with a partial boil, or does that sound good?

 

[mrk305]

That should be real good.

 

[Yooper]

I like the hops- but two pounds of crystal is a LOT. Did the brewshop tell you to do that? I would use about 1 pound max- probably less- if it was my beer. I'd skip the carapils completely (you don't need it), and then use either the 40L or the 20L, not both, and probably 1/2 to 1 pound total.

 

[DoubleGator]

Happily bubbling away in the primary. Thanks for the help folks. I had a sanitation scare but RDWHAHB-ed. I'll let everyone know how it turned out soon!

 

[mrk305]

....not too soon, I hope. Just leave that sit in the primary four three or four weeks before you bottle it. Then leave it sit in the bottles three or four weeks 'til you drink it. In the mean time make a couple more batches.

 

[DoubleGator]

Four weeks in the primary. Racked onto 2 oz of fresh Cascades. About a week for the dry hopping, then going to crash cool and bottle. I'll heed the advice for 3-4 weeks in the bottle, already planning a brew day a week from today!

Thanks everyone