Modern IPA grain bill

[FT-Peru]

Hi all, so with all these neipas going around, there is still love for a good american IPA. Any grain bill suggestions for a clean modern IPA?

 

[brewbama]

I’d keep it simple and clean with just 2-row to get to ~1.060 and .5# each of med and dark crystal for color and depth. There will be plenty of hops to counter the pound of sweetness.

 

[FT-Peru]

I’d keep it simple and clean with just 2-row to get to ~1.060 and .5# each of med and dark crystal for color and depth. There will be plenty of hops to counter the pound of sweetness.

You mean .5Lb or 5%? Being 5 Lb, thats like 7.6% caramel right?

 

[FT-Peru]

Usually i tend to do a mix of 91.5% 2 row / 5% munich and around 3.5-3.8% light crystal. But I have also done 2 Row whet and like 0.5% dark crystal. But Have people been doing 95% and 5% carapils? or maybe 92% 2 row / 4 % c pils/dextrin and 3.5ish% crystal? Just wanna know thoughts about people using just pale and little crystal or all pale and c pils

 

[FT-Peru]

Also, I was just visiting a lot of brewerys in san diego, correct me if Im wrong but seems now that more brewerys are going the route of going more 1.008 - 1.010 for FG in IPA rather than around 1.12. Any thoughts comments on this?

 

[ProblemChild]

my double IPA grain bill works nicely - I call it my lucky 7.

7 lbs 2-row,
7 lbs Golden Promise
0.7 lbs 40L

Straight-up IPA - no haze. Good malt support but only just. Allows big hops to come through. If youlike, add corn sugar to bump ABV and help dry it out a little

Chico - WY1272, Omega DIPA, all have been tried with this and it works well.

 

[FT-Peru]

my double IPA grain bill works nicely - I call it my lucky 7.

7 lbs 2-row,
7 lbs Golden Promise
0.7 lbs 40L

Straight-up IPA - no haze. Good malt support but only just. Allows big hops to come through. If youlike, add corn sugar to bump ABV and help dry it out a little

Chico - WY1972, Omega DIPA, all have been tried with this and it works well.

Whats your fg on that though? No dextrose?

 

[ProblemChild]

Whats your fg on that though? No dextrose?

FG depends on mash temp and yeast of course. I go for 75 min at 148. Fly sparge and no mash out. Wort is nice and fermentable. Will use corn sugar (believe that is dextrose) to bump OG and drop FG. I won't use more than a pound though. Personal preference there

 

[ProblemChild]

Whats your fg on that though? No dextrose?

Fg hits between 1.010 and 1.014

 

[thehaze]

I stopped using crystal/caramel malts in IPAs. Simple Pilsner/Pale/2-row or a combination of these will work well. Vienna works fine as 20-50% of the grain bill. Maris Otter is another option, but I don't quite like it in IPAs. No more than 25, maybe 30% of the total grainbill.

I usually go for 70% Pilsner or any other light malt ( under 2L ) and 30% Golden Promise/Halcyon/Vienna. I prefer IPAs that don't exceed 5 SRM in colour. 4 SRM is what i usually shoot for.

 

[brewbama]

You mean .5Lb or 5%? Being 5 Lb, thats like 7.6% caramel right?

2row to get to 1.060 then .5# each of med and dark crystal. On my system it would look like this:

 

[FT-Peru]

I stopped using crystal/caramel malts in IPAs. Simple Pilsner/Pale/2-row or a combination of these will work well. Vienna works fine as 20-50% of the grain bill. Maris Otter is another option, but I don't quite like it in IPAs. No more than 25, maybe 30% of the total grainbill.

I usually go for 70% Pilsner or any other light malt ( under 2L ) and 30% Golden Promise/Halcyon/Vienna. I prefer IPAs that don't exceed 5 SRM in colour. 4 SRM is what i usually shoot for.

Yeah, i know some use 100% pale grain bill or so, but sometimes i feel it can end up being a hop soup.

 

[FT-Peru]

2row to get to 1.060 then .5# each of med and dark crystal. On my system it would look like this:

Got you, but that still seems like a lot of caramel or maybe old school take for an ipa maybe. Or is that light cRamel a carapils/dextrin?

 

[brewbama]

Got you, but that still seems like a lot of caramel or maybe old school take for an ipa maybe. Or is that light cRamel a carapils/dextrin?

I dunno. I don’t consider 7% of a recipe too much crystal. Of course, to each his own. Cheers!

 

[thehaze]

Yeah, i know some use 100% pale grain bill or so, but sometimes i feel it can end up being a hop soup.

I never ended up with hop soup. I also do not brew or aim to brew NE/hazy beers and I also do not bother trying to get overly clear beer. Yeast choice, cold crashing, conditioning ( for the suitable styles ) will take care of these aspects. If I brew hop-forward beers, I want to taste the hops and not too much of the malt.

 

[ProblemChild]

I never ended up with hop soup. I also do not brew or aim to brew NE/hazy beers and I also do not bother trying to get overly clear beer. Yeast choice, cold crashing, conditioning ( for the suitable styles ) will take care of these aspects. If I brew hop-forward beers, I want to taste the hops and not too much of the malt.

I get though where people end up with a bit of hop burn. To echo your statements, a matter of processing. I have a zero crystal IPA on tap right now where there is roughly 9 oz of hops in the batch and overly hoppy is NOT what one would describe this beer as being.

 

[Jag75]

I've been brewing them with 2 row , munich light and a touch of crystal 10. It's been a slam dunk .

 

[couchsending]

2 Row
2-3% Carahell or Honey Malt
3-5% Dextrin Malt

“Modern” hoppy beers should be all about the hops. If you add a bunch of bittering hops I’d shoot for a higher FG through mashing/yeast over adding more crystal.