The IPA, an inquiry

[SkaBoneBenny]

I have to say, the IPA is hands down my favorite style. I love everything about it. So far I've made three IPAs, one from a recipe at my LHBS called "hophead" which was medium alcohol and rather citrusy in flavor, the second, a more englsh style IPA, darker, and with a drier taste, and a varient on the "hophead" with a lot more hops (the dogfish head hops).

I'm not really sure how to take my IPAs to the next level. I'm really happy witht he hoppiness but not so much the alcohol content. I've just started making my own recipes, so to speak, in terms of hops. Now I want to play with the alcohol and other factor. The IPAs I've done previously are all around 5% abv and use 7lbs of malt extract. Should I just toss in another can of malt extract. Somehow I feel that would be foolish. Can I use my standard 7 lbs of LME and then 2 more pounds of dry? Use more specialty grains? I want to try not so much a double IPA, although I look forward to that, but something aroun 6.5-8% alchohol. Like Brooklyn's East India Pale Ale or Smuttynose IPA or so. Any thoughts?

I feel as if IPA's are a world of their own and I really want to better understand this world.
-Ben

 

[the_bird]

Another way that you can experiment with taking your IPAs to the "next level," other than just boosting the ABV, is to play around with late hop additions. I've been listening to some podcasts that discuss the idea of adding relatively few hops at the traditional, 60-minute bittering mark, but instead adding oodles and oodles of hops at the 30 and/or 15 minute mark. You need more total hops because the utilization is a lot lower, but you'll end up with a LOT more hop flavor than the typical approach. If you buy in bulk from hopsdirect, shouldn't end up costing much more than the typical approach.

Mind you, I have not done this myself, but it sounds very interesting. I'm wondering if this is something that Stone does with the Ruination IPA, which is just absolutely overwhelming (in such a wonderful way) with the hop flavor. Bitter, sure, but the flavor is absolutely intense and gorgeous.

Personally, I usually prefer IPAs with a strong malt backbone, so for my next IPA recipe I'm looking at adding a couple pounds of Munich, in addition to the base 2-row.

 

[Evan!]

Yeah, a good way to boost the ABV is by adding extra light extract. Do you do partial mash, or just extract? You could "step it up" by going partial mash (if you're not already) and getting more specialty grains involved...like crystal and melanoidin. Also, you can try adding maltodextrin, an unfermentable carb, which will lend body.

 

[ryser2k]

Just remember that if you add more malt, you will have to add more hops to balance it out. Maybe you should just make a double IPA since that is a style that is clearly defined... that way you can see if it's too much, and then back off and find a compromise.

I have a double IPA partial mash recipe at home that I can post if you're interested. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out... and it's 113 IBU if I remember correctly.