Please critique my ipa recipe

[jrich007]

For hops I have 4 oz of each, citra,chinook,bravo and cascade. Trying to make a new house recipe. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1420207990.956563.jpg

 

[alane1]

Looks good, the only thing is when doing equal parts with citra in the boil I've found it to be the more dominant hop. The Cascade might get lost in the mix.

 

[jrich007]

Thanks for the input. Maybe I'll use the citra as a whirlpool/dry hop

 

[BigPerm]

For hops I have 4 oz of each, citra,chinook,bravo and cascade. Trying to make a new house recipe. View attachment 246128

That looks like a nice recipe. I'd make sure you mash 150-151. You'll get some sweetness from the munich so you'll want a nice fermentable wort to be sure you end up under 1.012 (the sugar will help with that). Assuming you are shooting for a fairly standard issue IPA, I would consider increasing your dry hops by 2-3 fold. I usually dry hop mine with 4oz in 2 stages, but I want punch-you-in-the-face hop aroma, so that's obviously up to you. As it is, you'll have a nice, solid IPA.

 

[Weezy]

I like the malt bill. i strongly agree on the low mash temp..148-150.

I'm not sure the value of sub 15 min boil hops if you let them sit in a hopstand/whirlpool for a half hour or so. If you're not doing a hopstand, that's different.

I'd recommend 60 and 30 min additions, to get the flavor effects of those cooked hops, then the big flameout additions.

 

[BreezyBrew]

I usually dry hop mine with 4oz in 2 stages, but I want punch-you-in-the-face hop aroma, so that's obviously up to you. As it is, you'll have a nice, solid IPA.

Beat me to the punch. That would be my suggestion. Not sure how you package, but keg dry hop is one of the best techniques I've come across.

 

[jammin]

i think it's gonna be incredibly dry and thin with a whole pound of sugar in that low of an OG.

don't get me wrong, i LOVE dry ipa's.

with that OG, id replace the sugar for base malt and mash at 149

as others have said - up your dry hop. 4oz makes for a really nice flavor and noticeable aroma. my suggestion would be 2oz each of Citra and cascade. Cascade is soft and fruity while Citra and bold and citrusy

 

[BigPerm]

I like the malt bill. i strongly agree on the low mash temp..148-150.

I'd recommend 60 and 30 min additions, to get the flavor effects of those cooked hops, then the big flameout additions.

I don't see much value in the 30 minute addition. If you are aggressively late/dry hopping, anything you add at that point will be lost, flavor-wise.

keg dry hop is one of the best techniques I've come across.

No doubt.

i think it's gonna be incredibly dry and thin with a whole pound of sugar in that low of an OG.

with that OG, id replace the sugar for base malt and mash at 149

as others have said - up your dry hop. 4oz makes for a really nice flavor and noticeable aroma. my suggestion would be 2oz each of Citra and cascade. Cascade is soft and fruity while Citra and bold and citrusy

That's a pretty good suggestion, or at least cut back a little. I use a full pound in a DIPA, but you could easily get away with a half-pound or none at all if you mash low enough. That's up to you though. I made an american IPA with a 1.008 FG which was fantastic.

 

[Weezy]

I don't see much value in the 30 minute addition. If you are aggressively late/dry hopping, anything you add at that point will be lost, flavor-wise.

It depends. There is a lot of flavor compounds created only from the active boiling/cooking of hops. 30 minute additions add a lot of flavor that you won't get out of flameout additions, unless you hopstand hot for a fair bit of time. The pros have migrated to flameout hops because it takes them a long time to knock out. 30-45 minutes in a sub-boiling whirlpool creates a lot of flavor. As homebrewers, we have more flexibility since we can control our small volume wort temps much better. We can do prolonged, sub-isomerization temp, hopstands that the pros could only dream about. A big hopback is as close as they can get.

Point is, if you're going to do a hot hopstand, take that near boiling temperature into account when you factor in flavor (and bitterness) contributions from the hops. If you're not going to do a long, hot hopstand, 30 minute additions are a solid choice, as are later additions before flameout. If you are going to do a long, hot, hopstand, a 30 minute addition might add too much bitterness or you could eliminate the 60 minute bitterness addition and use a 30 min addition. Lots of options. jrich007 mentioned whirlpool hops but didn't give details, which is why I brought it up. How do you whirlpool? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? 45 minutes? At what temp, sub-boiling or sub-170F? It matters.

 

[BigPerm]

It depends. There is a lot of flavor compounds created only from the active boiling/cooking of hops. 30 minute additions add a lot of flavor that you won't get out of flameout additions, unless you hopstand hot for a fair bit of time. The pros have migrated to flameout hops because it takes them a long time to knock out. 30-45 minutes in a sub-boiling whirlpool creates a lot of flavor. As homebrewers, we have more flexibility since we can control our small volume wort temps much better. We can do prolonged, sub-isomerization temp, hopstands that the pros could only dream about. A big hopback is as close as they can get.

Point is, if you're going to do a hot hopstand, take that near boiling temperature into account when you factor in flavor (and bitterness) contributions from the hops. If you're not going to do a long, hot hopstand, 30 minute additions are a solid choice, as are later additions before flameout. If you are going to do a long, hot, hopstand, a 30 minute addition might add too much bitterness or you could eliminate the 60 minute bitterness addition and use a 30 min addition. Lots of options. jrich007 mentioned whirlpool hops but didn't give details, which is why I brought it up. How do you whirlpool? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? 45 minutes? At what temp, sub-boiling or sub-170F? It matters.

Solid points, especially given the lack of details on the method of late-hopping. I do find value in the 30 minute addition from a flavor perspective, but not necessarily in the setting of an IPA. When I make porter, for example, I think mid-boil additions add complexity. When I make IPAs (these days) I keep by total IBU's under 40 and let the hop flavor take the lead. I think any subtle flavor contributions that are attained there will be overshadowed by the flavor. I will say though that I do a hopstand between 170-180 for 15-30 minutes, so anything i add at 30 will likely contribute more to bitterness than flavor. My method (these days) is similar to what many pros use (small boil addition, loads of hops with 10 minutes or less remaining in the boil). This gives me a balancing, but clean and soft bitterness while allowing the hop flavors to shine through. I'm not saying the mid-boil additions wouldn't make a contribution; I just think in this setting you aren't going to get anything appreciable from them.

Everyone's method is different. Mine works for me, may not for you. Would be a worthwhile experiment, though, to see how an identical recipe would change with the addition of a single, mid-boil addition. I imagine in a less hop-forward beer, the difference would be much more noticable than in a hop-assertive IPA.

 

[jrich007]

The reason I was adding the corn sugar is I've been having trouble hitting my FG. I normally whirlpool for 15 minutes. Thank you all for the input , I'm not gonna brew till Tuesday night so still have some time to work on the recipe.

 

[jrich007]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1420720271.525359.jpg
Ended up switching recipe . This is what I ended up doing

 

[Lyger10]

Any take away's from the final recipe?

How did it turn out?