Trying my first recipe, what do you think

[Spot29er]

My first shot at an IPA. What do you think?


2 pounds light DME
6.5 pounds amber LME
1 pound caramel crystal 40L
1 pound caravienne
1 oz. warrior hops boiled 70 minutes
1 oz. amarllo boiled 30 minutes
1 oz cascade Yakima boiled 10 minutes
1 oz cascade Yakima dry hopped
wyeast 1272

Thanks

 

[Bob]

I think it'll make a fine beer! Let me point out one area of concern: Caramel/crystal malt.

A good rule of thumb for how much caramel/crystal malt is too much is 10% of the grist (that's all the extract and grain). IPAs, however, can take a bit more, depending on how insane you want your bitterness levels.

You've got 2 lbs plus out of 10.5 lbs of grist. That's around 20%, which is, IMO, borderline; the beer has the potential to be cloyingly crystally regardless of bitterness levels.

Moreover, Amber and darker extracts are usually mashed with pale and Crystal malts. Just like steeping in an extract beer, malt-extract manufacturers use specialty grains to make Amber extracts, well, Amber. Trouble is, you don't know how much crystal malt they used. So your carefully-calculated caramel/crystal amounts are really just guesses.

But that's okay! You can still brew excellent beer. Just be thoughtful about how much crystal you steep.

Cheers!

Bob

 

[Shawn Hargreaves]

I'd drop the amber extract. That is normally a mix of pale malt with some proportion of crystal and/or munich, but you already have plenty of caramel as actual grain, so you don't need that in the extract.

I'd swap your amber LME for light, or just go light DME for the whole thing (I generally prefer dry extract as it doesn't go off so quickly with age, and produces a paler beer).

Apart from that it looks good. It'll be pretty sweet with all that crystal, but you can always tweak that in a followup batch if you need to. That's the great thing about making your own recipes: you can brew a similar thing several times in a row, and adjust details until you get it exactly right.

I helped a friend do his first ever brew yesterday. He made an IPA with 7 lb of DME and 1 lb crystal 40. Came out really well, nice color and just the right (subtle) amount of malt body for my taste.

 

[Spot29er]

Thanks, I was thinking of lowering the crystal, and I like the idea of the lighter extract. We will see. i will let you know how it turns out.

 

[Spot29er]

after some advice I made some modifications, since I haven't started the brew yet.

6 pounds light DME
2.5 pounds amber LME
.5 pound caramel crystal 40L
.5 pound caravienne
1 oz. warrior hops boiled 70 minutes
1 oz. amarllo boiled 30 minutes
1 oz cascade Yakima boiled 10 minutes
1 oz cascade Yakima dry hopped
wyeast 1272

 

[Shawn Hargreaves]

That looks tasty to me.

Do you have a brewing software program like Beer Smith? If so, it would be good to enter your recipe in there and see what IBU and OG it predicts for you, to make sure those are in line with the style and with your personal taste.

Make sure you set the size of your boil correctly, and if you're going to do any late extract addition, describe that in the software too, as this will make a huge difference to your final IBU.

 

[mmb]

Is this a partial boil or do you do full boils? That's going to make a big difference in hop utilization.

According to BeerSmith, a 2.5 gallon partial boil comes up to 1.071 OG with 62 IBU. A full boil gives you 86 IBU. At 62 IBU it should be pretty good. At 86 IBU it may be pushing unless you really like hop bombs.

 

[Spot29er]

I do use beer smith, and i was planning a full boil. A friend suggested that to me already, and I have tasted a couple of his brews, so I thought it was good advice.