Single hop IPA

Yakima 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
UglySister

UglySister

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
159
Reaction score
19
I want to design my own beers, but first I have to learn what flavor comes from what ingredients. To start this I'm thinking of doing a single hop IPA. I like citrusy IPA's, so I'm thinking of doing one with cascades.
Any input is welcome.
Thanks!
 
I would recommend cascade for sure or one of my favourites is Citra. What are you looking at for the grain bill? It wasn't a single Hop IPA but one of the first recipes I ever made was 2/3 two row and 1/3 Maris otter, then Citra and nugget. Turned out amazing.
 
That sounds good. To give you an idea of the type of IPA I would like, have you tried the Sierra Nevada 2017 Beer Camp IPA? I don't like fruit in my beers but I love the natural citrus flavor.
I would like to shoot for something like that but also something simple that focuses on specific flavors so I can begin to identify what flavors different ingredients have.
The Beer Camp IPA uses experimental hops. I heard there is some place I can order experimental hops. I'd like to look into that also. I think there are some new, very citrusy ones.
 
The best IPA I've brewed so far is a one-hop IPA using only Columbus hops - not really citrusy but I love the bite and body. Cheers, and keep us posted on your findings!
 
Paps said:
Make S.M.A.S.H. beers.
Lots of them.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more with this! I made a SMaSH last year with Pilsner and Simcoe. I found that I really like Simcoe hops so I ended up buying it in bulk (1lbs).

I am brewing a SMaSH with Maris Otter and Opal. I plan on doing another SMaSH with the Sonnet hops I have too, just not sure what malt I will use. I received those two hops from the last Niko Brew grab bag sale. This way I can get a good understanding of the hop profile, since I have never used them before. SMaSH beers are great to get a good handle on both the hops and the malt used. Brew on! :mug:
 
Most of the online retailers will have a short blurb about the flavor / arome of the hops on the purchase page - and I know there are a couple other things online about them that give more info. I just don't have those sites bookmarked on this computer.
But making a single hop beer is not a bad idea - you can do it one of a few ways - complete SMASH - just use a single type of malt and a single type of hops through the whole thing. You can use one hop for bittering and your target one for aroma and flavor, of course if you do a bunch use the same type and amount of bitterring. Or use a slightly more complex grain bill.
Mix and match to your tastes. IN any case, whatever method, just change the type of hop you want to test, keep al else the same (if you want, calculate out the IBUs of the addition and keep that the same [i.e. if you have an ounce of 10AA hops, and switch to a 5AA hop, use 2 oz of that one.])
 
Amarillo and Mosaic hops are also very good if your looking for tropical or citrusy flavour. I agree with everyone else saying try some SMASH brews. They have helped me discover my favourite malts and hops. I have an IPA fermenting right now that's Maris otter and 2 row with mostly cascade and a bit of Mt hood.
 
Drinking a Galaxy SMaSH as I type this. Single hop beers are a great way to learn about what flavors hops have.
 
Smash or single hop beers are one way, but there are too many hops out there. I usually take a short and find out what commercial beers out there are single hop and buy one of those. As Knightmare1 mentioned, a good example of this is Bells 2 Hearted. Buy one of those and its just like making your own one hop IPA with Centennial. Depends on your time and how much beer you can drink. You can at least narrow it down.
 
I just bought 6 one gallon carboys for just this purpose. After brewing a load of 1 gallon smash beers I can say that I am more familiar with nuance of each hop I picked but to be honest it didn't help me as much as I would have hoped with recipe formulation.

The combinations really bring so much more
 
When you decide to move to something besides IPAs you can do similarly for malts as people are suggesting with hops. So instead of Single Malt and Single Hop you can do Double Malt and Single Hop.
For example you could try a recipe like the following:
90-95% base malt (2-row for example)
5-10% a specialty malt (roast barley, chocolate malt, crystal etc.)
single bittering hop addition

Also, split batches with different yeasts are fun. I made a stout a little while back which I fermented one half with S-04 and the other half with BRY-97. Ended up with two tasty and very different beers.
Also, you could consider splitting batches again and dry hopping with different hops.

So many fun options for experimentation!
 
It can be overwhelming. I think that's why I'm so hooked. I'm excited to try a smash. I won't have time to brew this weekend unfortunately. But it will be the first week I've missed in a few months as of I can't complain.
I'm going to make up an idea recipe and post it for feedback in the meantime.
Thanks for all the great input!
 
Keep the grain bill simple. 2 grains max. Cap specialty (crystal) malts at 10% or less. No roast.

Use multiple additions... 60, 30, 15, 10, 5, 0 and dry if you like. Maybe go with 3.

I made a cascade pilsner once that was fantastic.
 
schematix said:
Keep the grain bill simple. 2 grains max. Cap specialty (crystal) malts at 10% or less. No roast.

Use multiple additions... 60, 30, 15, 10, 5, 0 and dry if you like. Maybe go with 3.

I made a cascade pilsner once that was fantastic.
Click to expand...

^
I find for the most part that I never do 30 minute hop addition. I add what I need at 60 for bitterness and then wait until 15 and less to get my aroma and flavour but that's just personal preference.
 
Russian River 2 Hill Row 56 uses Simcoe all the way... and its tasty as hell.
 
Single hop beers teach you a lot, just never make a southern cross single hop IPA... Ever.....
 
I've done citra two times with varying the yeast. Simcoe 2x, again with varying the yeast each time and have Nelson Sauvin in the queue. Great way to track/learn incremental changes to beer. The grain bill remains constant.
 
Knightmare1 said:
centennial. Bells two hearted clone can be found in recipes forum
Click to expand...

I can't agree more strongly with this! Centennial and cascade are quintessential American style hop varieties and make for a fantastic IPA. I have this beer fermenting as we speak!

I like the sMasH beer recommendation for other combinations, if for nothing else than to learn your ingredients character.
 
brisboy said:
When you decide to move to something besides IPAs you can do similarly for malts as people are suggesting with hops. So instead of Single Malt and Single Hop you can do Double Malt and Single Hop.
For example you could try a recipe like the following:
90-95% base malt (2-row for example)
5-10% a specialty malt (roast barley, chocolate malt, crystal etc.)
single bittering hop addition

Also, split batches with different yeasts are fun. I made a stout a little while back which I fermented one half with S-04 and the other half with BRY-97. Ended up with two tasty and very different beers.
Also, you could consider splitting batches again and dry hopping with different hops.

So many fun options for experimentation!
Click to expand...

This, this, this! I did the smash thing for a few brews but found they were just so one dimensional so I started doing 2 malts and 1 hop then later 2 malts and 2 hops. I have my favorite go-to's for the 2 malts which are 2row and rye and 2row and munich. Currently, my favorite 3 malt IPA is 2row, munich, and vienna. I used these malts with cascade and chinook and they played very well with those 3 malts. I brewed it again as my Funky Base IPA and used all the above but dry-hopped in the keg with Amarillo and it's my new favorite. (2row, munich, vienna, with chinook/cascade in the boil/WP/DH, then DH in the keg with Chinook/Amarillo)

I'm going to start to do the same thing with darker beers because so far I've only been doing this with IPA's and APA's.

Quick edit to add on about the split batch experimentation... The Centennial blonde on here is a great beer to experiment with. I've made it into an IPA, IIPA, Belgian blonde, dry hopped blonde, 6% Blonde version.
 
I like the idea of splitting the wort. I don't think I'd want 50 bottles of a combination that turns out nasty. You could even split it after boil and try different dry hop amounts in different fermenters. See how much nose comes through with .5oz, 1oz, etc.
 
Yakima Valley Hops sent me an advertisement this morning, they're selling 16oz of Amarillo hops for 18 bucks. Buying bulk hops from these dudes will save you a grip.
 
By the way, have any of you guys ever made a SMASH beer with Warrior hops? I've got 2 pounds of it since Yakima was selling it for 5 bucks a pound recently!
 
Jim311 said:
By the way, have any of you guys ever made a SMASH beer with Warrior hops? I've got 2 pounds of it since Yakima was selling it for 5 bucks a pound recently!
Click to expand...

I haven't done it, but I could see it working. For a dry hop experiment I added a couple of pellets of a bunch of different hops at bottling. For the warrior bottle, I got a pleasant mint with light pine and even a little vanilla.
 
I have 60 lb bag of 2 row just sitting here so that will be my malt, I also have lots of cascade (some store bought, some local). I bought a dry ale yeast.
So now for portions.
I want to try and stay under 5% abv. Somewhere around 10 lbs of 2 row I'm guessing. Then maybe three 1 oz hop additions. 1 at start then 15 and 3 min additions also.
Am I close?
 
UglySister said:
Am I close?
Click to expand...

Yes.
If your efficiency is decent you can use a little less malt (say 8 LBS) but i personally like to use 10-lbs per 5-gallons. I'll often hit 6 or 7 % ABV which i like myself. I also mash everything at 150-F (you should pick a temp and do all batches at it, at least the SMASHes to keep the X factors minimal) so i tend to get dryer beers. 154-f would probably get a 10-lb grain bill right around 5% for you.
:ban::ban:
 
I am in the same situation as you, but honestly I've been playing with brewing single hop beers for a year now and it took me some months to learn that it really helps to try to dial a standard hop schedule and then modify it if you need it depending on the hop. Also started to do over 90% of late/dry hop additions in all of them to really squeeze the hop flavor.
 

Similar threads

rodwha
Single Hop Pale Ales
Replies
11
Views
813
refect
refect
H
Spectrum hops
Replies
4
Views
658
HT Shen
H
MMP126
Homebrewers Hop Quality
Replies
10
Views
979
ncbrewer
N
nobadays
Cough Medicine Taste
Replies
3
Views
401
lumpher
lumpher
rodwha
Hops for Honey Wheat
Replies
9
Views
459
rodwha
rodwha
wps-hbt2

Latest posts

Back
Top