Newbie 90 Min IPA recipe questions:

EddieTheBrewerLADET · Feb 24, 2015

8 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
(If I want to replace with liquid for cost, what do you recommend?)
1 3/4 lb German Pilsner Malt
(What do I order on Northern Brewer?)
1 3/4 lb Brown (amber) Malt 35 L
(What do I order on Northern Brewer?)
2 oz Amarillo Hops 16 HBUs
3/4 oz Simcoe Hops 8 HBUs
1/2 oz Warrior Hops 8 HBUs
1 oz Amarillo Hops -Dry Hop
1/2 oz Simcoe Hops -Dry Hop
1/2 oz Warrior Hops -Dry Hop
Wyeast British Ale Yeast
(Can I replace this with Safale US-05 or something with a wider temp range?)

For Bottling: 1 1/4 cup Dry Malt Extract Or 3/4 cup Corn sugar

Partial Mash:
Add the cracked, Pilsner Malt and Brown Malt to 1 gal of 170º water. This combination of grain and hot water (mash) will drop in temperature to 150º. Let the mash sit for 1 hour at 150º. Sparge (rinse) the grain with 2 1/2 gals of 170º water and collect run off into the boil kettle.
(Is this just the same as steeping specialty grains or a different process all together?)

Boil:
Add to the boil kettle, 8 lbs. of Dry Light Malt Extract and bring to a boil. Watch out for boil overs. In a separate bowl, mix together 2 oz. Amarillo hops, 3/4 oz. Simcoe hops, and 1/2 oz. Warrior hops. For the next 90 minutes, boil the wort while adding 1/4 ounce of the hop mixture every 8 minutes. Sparge the hops with cold water into the fermenter. Add the wort to the fermenter with cold water to make 5 gals. Add yeast when the temp reaches 70º. Ferment at 70º for 7 days or until fermentation slows. Rack to a secondary fermenter.

Dry Hopping:
Add the dry hop combination into the secondary fermenter using a hop sack. Let it age 1 weeks in secondary then bottle or keg

(Such a short amount of time in primary and secondary, is this correct? If Im doing all in primary, what would you adjust to?)

If you keg your beer, add the dry hops into keg instead of the secondary.

For bottling, use 1 1/4 cup of dry malt extract or 3/4 cup of corn sugar boiled with 2 cups of water added in the bottling bucket.
(What will be different?)

Thanks a bunch!
Edward

Teromous · Feb 24, 2015

If I want to replace with liquid for cost, what do you recommend?You will need to convert the gravity/weight from DME to LME, so you're looking at about 9lbs 9oz instead. Use your recipe builder to double check or calculate it out by hand. If you're buying from Northern Brewer their Maillard Malts are great.

1 3/4 lb German Pilsner Malt - What do I order on Northern Brewer?
That one is easy...they have German Pilsner Malt.

1 3/4 lb Brown (amber) Malt 35 L - What do I order on Northern Brewer?
I found Crisp Amber and Northern Brewer lists it as 27 but it's more of a range. Weyermann lists it on their own website as 23-31. Really that is because it's not a perfect science and many of the grains will change color unevenly when they are kilned. If you take a look at the grains you will often notice a few that are darker than others and sometimes they taste a little different as well.

Is this just the same as steeping specialty grains or a different process all together?
Basically yes, but you're taking it one step farther and you are starting to convert starches to sugars. The key here is you have a good grain to water ratio you are using 1 gallon of water which is equal to 4 quarts, and you have 3.5lbs of grain so you have about 1.14:1 ratio of water to grain which is a pretty thick mash but it's not a big deal. The bulk of your sugar is coming from liquid extract so efficiency isn't a huge factor...but it gets you used to how things work if you decide to go the route of all-grain.

Such a short amount of time in primary and secondary, is this correct? If Im doing all in primary, what would you adjust to?
If you re-read your own post you'll notice it says "or until fermentation slows." If it takes longer than 7 days then it takes longer. In my experience a healthy fermentation is done very quickly in most cases, but I leave it in the primary for an extended period to allow additional yeast to clean up any byproducts and flocculate. If you are only using a primary, I would just wait until the bulk of the fermentation has completed and dry hop as you would in a secondary. The amount of time it spends fermenting and dry hopping in a primary will not hurt the beer...I do it all the time in the primary.

If you keg your beer, add the dry hops into keg instead of the secondary. For bottling, use 1 1/4 cup of dry malt extract or 3/4 cup of corn sugar boiled with 2 cups of water added in the bottling bucket.
What will be different?

If you dry hop in a keg, you will have a lot more hop aroma when you pour from the tap. You don't have that luxury with bottles...it's a bit hard to describe but basically think of that hop aroma like gas in a car. Once you put beer into bottles it starts to..run out..and you're racing against the clock. The longer you leave it in there, the more the aroma will start to fade. In a keg it is...being replenished with more hop aroma. Now I don't want to make it sound like bottling is bad...I've had some beers that have better hop character in the bottle simply because a keg was vented too often, or stored bad, etc. Once you seal that bottle cap on a bottle you lock it in there...and if you carb the bottle up and immediately move it to cold storage it can last quite a while.

I hope I helped some. I will now make the mandatory statement that I take no responsibility for the recipe you choose to make haha. :cross:

Teromous · Feb 24, 2015

Can I replace this with Safale US-05 or something with a wider temp range?
I forgot the yeast question. Yeast can play a huge factor on the overall flavor, but many people like US-05 because they say it's a clean fermenting yeast, etc. I've used it quite a bit and it will make a good beer...but Wyeast British Ale Yeast is a specific yeast strain. The question you have to ask is whether you want to make this exact recipe/clone/whatever or if you just want to make good beer. US-05 will make good beer but it's not the same. If the issue is getting the yeast, you can use WLP007. Mr. Malty has an AWESOME yeast chart that I use all the time to cross-check yeast strains when I can't get Wyeast.

snow16 · Feb 25, 2015

Wow, phenomenal advice from Teromous. I'll just add my two cents on yeast selection -

If you have control over your fermentation temperature, I'd say go with what the recipe calls for or at least another British ale yeast if you can get your hands on one. I love British strains in American IPAs (Wyeast 1968). But if you don't have control over the temperature and are worried about big night/day swings, I'd go with US-05. It won't flocc out if it gets too cold, and it won't throw out off flavors (generally) if it gets a little too warm.

EddieTheBrewerLADET · Feb 25, 2015

Teromous said:
Can I replace this with Safale US-05 or something with a wider temp range?
I forgot the yeast question. Yeast can play a huge factor on the overall flavor, but many people like US-05 because they say it's a clean fermenting yeast, etc. I've used it quite a bit and it will make a good beer...but Wyeast British Ale Yeast is a specific yeast strain. The question you have to ask is whether you want to make this exact recipe/clone/whatever or if you just want to make good beer. US-05 will make good beer but it's not the same. If the issue is getting the yeast, you can use WLP007. Mr. Malty has an AWESOME yeast chart that I use all the time to cross-check yeast strains when I can't get Wyeast.

Thank you so much for your insight man! Really helpful. A few more quick questions:

1. DO you feel this recipe will accurately get me within a close range of what the 90 min tastes like?

2. The 90 min is supposed to be close to a 10% beer but this appears to top out at around 8.75....Should I add a pound or so of sugar to bump it up?

3. How much do you think the specific Yeast strain is going to effect the end result flavor of this beer?

snow16 · Feb 25, 2015

I'll let someone who's recently tasted 90 Minute IPA to comment on the first question, but as to the rest -

Personally I wouldn't add any more sugar to that recipe. If anything, I'd substitute some table sugar for DME to get more fermentable sugars. That beings said, most Dogfish Head beers seem to be pretty full-bodied, so it may be closer to the original if you just leave it alone.

As to the last question, I think you would be very surprised at how much impact a particular yeast has on a beer's flavor profile.