Recipe Critique

[Fritobandito]

I'm planning on making a IIPA next week and this is my first attempt at making my own recipe. I threw it together in beersmith in about 10 minutes so any feedback would help.

Type: All Grain
Date: 4/11/2011
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
17.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 83.95 %
1.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 6.17 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 4.94 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 4.94 %
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 26.8 IBU
3.00 oz Citra [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (45 min) Hops 19.0 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (30 min) Hops 24.3 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [10.00 %] (15 min) Hops 12.1 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (10 min) Hops 11.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.3 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [10.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
Cali Ale Yeast with starter


Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.099 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.010 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.025 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 9.76 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.65 %
Bitterness: 100.0 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 9.9 SRM Color: Color

 

[Yooper]

An IIPA can be sort of "thick" and cloying because of all the malt, so I like a minimal amount of crystal malt, and some simple sugars like corn sugar to help keep the body light.

I'd definitely reduce some of the malt, and add corn sugar to keep the OG at 1.080-1.090ish ( I think 1.099 is a bit too high- you want an IIPA not a barleywine).

I'd reduce some of the crystal, too. 11% crystal malt is simply too much. I'd go with 5%.

I'd move the 45 minute hops to 5 minutes, for more hops flavor, and probably the 30 minute hops as well. I'd probably move some of those to 60 minutes, for more bitterness, and move the rest to 5 minutes. You want a nice firm bitterness, but lots of hops flavor for 10, 5, 0, additions too.

 

[MyNameIsPaul]

Dang Yoop...great critique.
My crowd pleaser and favorite beer is an IIPA, the malt can drown out the hops, so Yoops suggestions will help that. Good Luck!

 

[Fritobandito]

I'm gonna drop the carapils and crystal down to .5 lbs each so its around 5.6% crystal. I gotta mess around with the hop schedule more.

 

[phuzle]

It looks pretty good. I've never worked with cara-pils, but my guess is that you've got too much cara malt in there. I'd use about a pound total, tops. Maybe replace it with more Munich or something else if you want more interesting malts in there. If you want more body, just mash a few degrees higher.

As for the hops, it looks pretty standard for a IIPA. Can't go wrong with Amarillo and Cascade, and Citra is awesome too. Simcoe isn't my favorite, but seems to be pretty popular in IIPA. Only thing I'd suggest is maybe moving those 30 and 45 to the last 20 minutes. From what I understand, you won't really be getting and lasting flavor from those hops, and you're just using them inefficiently for bittering. Try a 90 minute boil (to get rid of DMS, also) with enough hops to get most of your IBUs. Then do all the rest of the hops, as much as you can justify buying, in the last 20 minutes (20, 15, 10, 5, flameout) if you want that kind of flavor.

Your recipe might be better than I give it credit for, and it does look good. I'm just not familiar with the cara-pils, not a huge fan of cara malts anyways, and prefer late addition hops in my ridiculous IPAs.

Edit: while I was typing this, Yooper said basically the same things!

 

[Fritobandito]

I think I'm gonna move the 45 and 30 minute additions down and add a little more at 60 minutes to get the ibus up.