Rain day = Brew Day! First IPA

[Bradzukie]

Today is the perfect day to brew a batch of beer! This is my first IPA attempt and my first attempt at creating a recipe. I have the brewr app for my android phone and I created the recipe using that. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Batch size 5 gallons

Est. Starting Gravity: 1.071
Est. Final Gravity : 1.018
Est. ABV 7.0%

IBU: 51.0

Color: 7.6

Grain Bill:

10.5lb american 2-row 81.8%
1.5lb crystal 10L 11.5%
1.0lb crystal 20L 7.7%

Hops Schedule:

1.0 oz Centennial pellets 8.1aa 60min 26.8ibu
1.0 oz Cascade whole leaf 9.1aa 20min 18.2ibu
1.0 oz Cascade whole leaf 9.1aa 5min 6.0ibu
2.0 oz Cascade whole leaf 9.1aa dry hop 7 days after primary fermentation

Yeast 1 packet Nottingham Dry Yeast

Irish Moss as a fining

Mash 3.5 gallons at 153 for 60 minutes and sparge with 168 to attain 6.5 gallon volume. Boil down to 5 gallons. Cool to 68 degrees and transfer to fermentation bucket. Pitch yeast and ferment for 10 days. Dry hop in secondary for 7 days.

I'm sure I have a step missing or two. I'll get it right when I get started. I have two wild boys and a new puppy distracting me right now! Let me know what you think. Thanks!

 

[ajf]

That's an awful lot of crystal for an IPA. I'd cut it down to about 8 oz total, and add a bit more 2-row to make up the gravity. The beer will come out a bit lighter, but you could adjust that if you want to by using crystal 40 instead of 10 - 20, or add a very small amount of chocolate or black malt.

-a.

 

[JimTheHick]

That's an awful lot of crystal for an IPA. I'd cut it down to about 8 oz total, and add a bit more 2-row to make up the gravity. The beer will come out a bit lighter, but you could adjust that if you want to by using crystal 40 instead of 10 - 20, or add a very small amount of chocolate or black malt.

-a.

Agree. This will be quite sweet. Ive gotten by using a pound of crystal total but that was a beer with 100 IBUs.

 

[Darwin18]

I'd cut the crystal 10L and replace with munich malt. I love that bready taste!

 

[poislb]

i'd cut the crystal 10l and replace with munich malt. I love that bready taste!

+1

 

[wheels4]

+1

+1

 

[RM-MN]

With the OG that high you might be better to use 2 packages of Nottingham. If you plan to bottle you might also want to be putting 5.25 gallons or a bit more into the fermeter so you get a full 2 cases.

 

[user 22118]

You might look into two things. I don't like more than 10% tops crystal, more often like 5%. Next is you are really trying to make a big IPA with the gravity that high, almost IIPA. Try to start out closer to like 1.060 for your first try. That is more IPA territory. Then your hop bill would fit closer to balance.

Last thing is that to me IPA is dry hopped, which you have. That is what makes an IPA that we on the west coast like, hop smelling gloriousness!

Good luck

 

[Bradzukie]

You might look into two things. I don't like more than 10% tops crystal, more often like 5%. Next is you are really trying to make a big IPA with the gravity that high, almost IIPA. Try to start out closer to like 1.060 for your first try. That is more IPA territory. Then your hop bill would fit closer to balance.

Last thing is that to me IPA is dry hopped, which you have. That is what makes an IPA that we on the west coast like, hop smelling gloriousness!

Good luck

Thank all of you for the advice. Unfortunately I had the grain milled at my hbs (which is 2 hours away). So I just rolled with it. The wort was very sweet as expected with all you were telling me. My digital thermometer broke while bringing my sparge water to temperature so I had to take a swag (scientific wild ass guess ) at the sparge temp. I am now going to brew with 2 thermometers on hand. I missed my gravity. It ended up at 1.062. But I did have a good time and I got to hang out with my little brother and we drank some homebrew.

Next time I will seek advice before I purchase grain, Ill have 2 thermometers handy, and I'll rethink my use of crystal.

Thank you again for all the advice!

 

[RM-MN]

You probably made a good choice going ahead without the thermometer. While the temperature of the mash is critical, sparge temperature is much less so. The hotter the sparge water the easier it will be to extract the sugars but with cooler water and lots of stirring you still get most of them out.

 

[Bradzukie]

Update* transferred to secondary today and it smells wonderful. Dry hopping with 2 ounces of cascade hops!