Please comment/criticise this recipe I came up with for Monday!

[jwic]

This is my very first recipe from scratch ever. I did all of the calculations all by hand and using a combo of "Designing Great Beers" and "How to Brew."

Please, do not be afraid to critique or constructively criticise this recipe. I want to know what looks weird and what looks okay. I did this a few weeks ago so I don't quite remember all of the thoughts going through my own head while I was doing this but, I can say that I vaguely remember figuring out that it doesn't quite fit the specs of a usual IPA. I'm not concerned with that as I am not entering it in competition. I just want to brew it Monday and need to know if anything looks like won't work/jive. Cheers!

IPA
OG = 1.064 - 1.068
FG = 1.010 - 1.014
IBUs = 120-130

2.6 lbs Pale Malt
1.6 lbs. Crystal 60
.8 lbs. CaraPils
5.5 lbs. DME

1 oz. Cascade (60 min.)
1 oz. Chinook (45 min.)
1 oz. Simcoe (20 min.)
1 oz. Amarillo (10 min.)
1 oz. Horizon (0 min.)
2 oz. Willamette (dry hop)

I have some Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale which I saved from a batch of Amber Ale and I'll make a starter with that tomorrow for Monday's brew day (just to see if I washed it correctly and have enough).

 

[LexusChris]

I'm assuming a 5 gallon batch.

Are you intending to mini-mash this? The 2.6# of Pale Malt would make sense for a mini-mash, but I don't see any other grains that need to be mashed. e.g. You could drop the Pale Malt, increase your DME and then just steep the crystal.

There is a lot of crystal in recipe... maybe too much. Looks like 22% of the total grist... And I think some DME's may already have some crystal in them... so you may have even more than that. For my 1st recipe, I would try 8%-10% total.

Hop schedules are a matter of preference. Your total IBU's are pretty high for the SG. If you like that level of bitterness, then you should be good. Perhaps others might have some suggestions on that...

Yeast should a good choice.

Hope it goes well! Let us know what you end up with!
--LexusChris

 

[samc]

1 oz. Cascade (60 min.)
1 oz. Chinook (45 min.)
1 oz. Simcoe (20 min.)
1 oz. Amarillo (10 min.)
1 oz. Horizon (0 min.)
2 oz. Willamette (dry hop)

This is more a personal preference thing but the hop schedule is very different than I would do. I'd bitter with Horizon, I'd skip using Willamette in this beer (save for an ESB perhaps) and skip the 45 minute time as well. So I would be playing with Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook & Cascade for 20/10/0/dry additions, the order of which can be anything IMO.

But however you arrange them nothing screams out don't do it.

 

[HexKrak]

I'm going to assume you've had beers with >100 IBU and not go into the "wow that's a bitter beer" chatter. But, I would recommend saving the simcoe for dry hopping. It'd be a shame to waste all that amazingly complex aromatics on anything longer than a 5 minute addition (anything longer than 10 minutes and you're boiling off virtually all aromatics). Also a general rule of thumb is to avoid adding more than 1lb of crystal malt to a 5 gallon batch, but for that many IBU's you'll probably be happy to have the sweetness to help balance it out.

 

[jwic]

Thanks for all the replies!

My LHBS didn't have everything I wanted; so I substituted some on the hops. Now that I'm writing my own recipes (or, rather, TRYING to write my own recipes) I might start shopping online and buying in bulk.

I will take everything into account and do some recalculating tonight. I will indeed let you know how it turns out!

Cheers,
JWiC

 

[dcp27]

ditch the carapils, its already in the extract. id cut the crystal to 1lb max, and maybe use some biscuit or munich or the like instead if you want the extra maltiness.

+1 to samc's hop schedule