Will you look over this hop schedule?

[rcsarver]

Method: Extract
Style: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 3.75 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 3 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.074 (recipe based estimate)
Efficiency: 35% (steeping grains only)
Original Gravity: 1.059
Final Gravity: 1.014
ABV (standard): 6%
IBU (tinseth): 60.66
SRM (morey): 11.92

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
5.14 lb Dry Malt Extract - Extra Light 42 2.5 90.1%
5.14 lb Total

Steeping Grains
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
9 oz Belgian - Special B 34 115 9.9%

Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
0.2 oz Chinook Pellet 12 Boil 60 min 9.79
0.2 oz Chinook Pellet 12 Boil 55 min 9.57
0.2 oz Chinook Pellet 12 Boil 50 min 9.31
0.2 oz Chinook Pellet 12 Boil 45 min 8.98
0.2 oz Chinook Pellet 12 Boil 40 min 8.59
0.1 oz Columbus Pellet 15 Boil 25 min 4.25
0.1 oz Columbus Pellet 15 Boil 20 min 3.7
0.1 oz Columbus Pellet 15 Boil 15 min 3.03
0.1 oz Columbus Pellet 15 Boil 10 min 2.22
0.1 oz Columbus Pellet 15 Boil 5 min 1.22
0.5 oz Columbus Pellet 15 Aroma 0 min

Yeast
Danstar - Nottingham Ale Yeast
Attenuation (avg): 77%
Flocculation: High
Optimum Temp: 57 - 70 °F
Starter:No
Fermentation Temp: 70 °F

 

[tagz]

I guess it depends on what you are going for. That schedule will mostly get you bitterness and bite. If you want dank, resinous hop character that might be the way to go. If you want more orange character out of the Columbus and more grapefruit out of the chinook, you could do a small bittering charge and use the rest as a hopstand after flameout. In either case, i don't know if your going to get to IPA levels of hop character with 2 ounces, even in a 3.75 gallon batch.

 

[RonPopeil]

Spreading out your bittering additions over the first 30 minutes isn't really necessary. For clean bitterness add at 60 minutes or try a first wort hop. If you'd like a bit of your bittering hop character in the finished product and plan on finishing this within 3-4 weeks then you could try a 45 minute addition. This will give you some bite from your bittering hops but will quickly fade with maturation.

 

[motorneuron]

Yeah, echoing what has been said already--there is very little reason to make additions between 60 (or whenever your boil starts, could be 90 or 120 sometimes) and 30 minutes. You're basically going to boil off the aromatics and kill most of the character for additions before 30 minutes, so you're more or less just getting less effective bittering (since your utilization won't be as high). That's why most hop schedules these days have a bittering addition (and sometimes a first wort hop, which is a separate thing for flavor--don't ask me how it works, since nobody seems to know), and then flavor additions at 20 or 30, and then a ton of aroma additions at five minutes or less (including flameout, whirlpool, and dry hop).

For similar reasons, there is not much point as a general matter in having additions at 25, 20, and 15--a single combined addition at 20 is much simpler to manage and does basically the same thing.

In sum, damn dogfish head for ever popularizing the continuous hop schedule.

Quite apart from the schedule, the amount of the additions is very low for an American IPA. For a 5-gallon batch, I'd say 4 oz is the absolute minimum, and these days, 6 or 10 or even more is standard.

I also tend to think that Special B is going to give you flavors that are too dark and will clash with or overshadow your hops. Not a disaster, but in my experience, it doesn't work out that well. I would rather layer in something a bit lighter and toasted, but not crystal--e.g. biscuit, aromatic, or victory, for steeping, or perhaps vienna or munich extract.

 

[rcsarver]

Yes, this definitely was a DFH 60 minute subbing different hops and special b.

 

[RonPopeil]

if that's your thing then do as you like but the commonly accepted method is 60/15/10/5/0.

as stated before, special b is out of place. generall people stick with 60 degrees or lighter for cara malts in hoppy beer. i believe special b is the darkest all caramalts.

 

[rcsarver]

The dogfish head thing was only the original idea and with everyone here saying it's pointless I'm happy to abandon that.

Can anyone show me what a more reasonable hop schedule would look like? What would you do if you used chinook for bittering only. and challenger for the rest, both with unlimited quantities?

 

[RonPopeil]

well first i would want to switch those two around and taste the chinook.

as far as your question goes: it depends on your preference on bitterness and how dry the beer is expected to finish. i try to dry my IPA's out. a good finish is around 1.014 to 1.016. since there's not much residual sugar bitterness is going to stand out pretty well so for these drier beers i don't bitter as aggressively as i would, say, an amber that finishes around 1.018 to 1.022 from the same OG.

on quantifying bitterness: i feel that, when it comes to finishing hops it's better to estimate flavor by the amount used rather than the IBU's gained. i feel that some hops are more pungent than others and alpha acid is unrelated to this pungency.

i adjust bitterness per beer even with IPA's. if it's a fruity hop situation I do a 60 minute addition that's .7- to .80 BU:GU. if i'm using more herbal or spicy hops like chinook or simcoe then i will go as far as 1.0 BU:GU. i like how bitterness plays with piney flavors. basically i only count bitterness from the bittering addition.

here's a basic IPA grain bill. most IPA's will contain at least this much or some variation of this.

12.5# two row
1# C40
.5# dextrin
.5# dextrose

this nets an OG of 1.073 (74%)

Straight ahead way of hopping an IPA this assumes 12% AA for chinook.

2oz Chinook @ 60 63IBU (nearly 1:1 BU:GU)
1.0 Chinook @ 15
1.0oz Chinook @ 10
1.0oz Chinook @ 5
1.0oz Chinook @0

IBU: 99

so four ounces total in the 15-0 time frame. this is the aroma and flavor wheelhouse. by spreading the additions over these points in equal amounts you get a pretty balanced flavor.


Hop Blasting philosophy:

2oz Chinook @ 60 63IBU (nearly 1:1 BU:GU)
0.5oz Chinook @ 15
1.0oz Chinook @ 10
1.5oz Chinook @ 5
2.0oz Chinook @0

IBU: 95

again, a total of 4oz in the finish which is typical for an IPA of this gravity. this is called hop blasting because as you get closer to the end of the boil you increase the amount of hops being added. this results is less flavor being cooked off in the kettle and a more intense flavor and aroma in the finished beer.

Crossing the streams:

so lets say we want to combine flavors from hops. maybe we want something fruity and piney.

this assumes 12% AA for chinook again and 7% AA for cascade.

2oz Chinook @ 60 63IBU (nearly 1:1 BU:GU)
0.25oz Chinook @ 15
0.5oz Cascade @ 15
0.25oz Chinook @ 10
1.0oz Cascade @ 10
0.25oz Chinook @ 5
1.5oz Cascade @ 5
0.25oz Chinook @0
2.0oz Cascade @ 0

IBU: 91

we could lay down a balanced pine flavor with chinook and then hop blast a fruity hop to make it the more intense flavor. in my opinion this leads to a more complex flavor than using your background flavor at 15 and then blasting with fruity stuff later or doing greater additions of fruity hops at you.

in this example i intentionally used a significant amount of cascade because, from experience, cascade is much more laid back in flavor than chinook and some others so i ramped up the volume to make it stand out more. so this example uses 6 ounces of late hops but you could do a similar setup with the 4 ounce template we'd been using. centennial would be a good candidate.

so, basically, it depends on your hops and how dry you want to get. play around with different ideas and recipes and figure out what you like or what's missing and go from there. i've been brewing hoppy beers for over a year now, nearly exclusively, to figure out how different hops work and how different grains play with them. this is some of what i've learned from this place and from brewing.

 

[JordanKnudson]

I personally really like the concept of continuous hopping, but I agree with the general consensus that doing it right from the start of the boil all the way through the end is unnecessary. I'd make first bittering addition (actually, I am very fond of first wort hops as opposed to 60 minutes, but that's strictly an individual preference, and for an IPA you might not get quite the quality that you are looking for). Then I would move all of my continuous hopping into the last 20 minutes or less, and bump up the quantities to adjust your IBUs.

As for hop choices, if you picked those because you are hoping to achieve a specific goal, then by all means keep them. I personally hate Chinook about 90% of the time, even just for bittering (I'm very much in the minority, I realize), so I wouldn't use it, but that's the point. If you think this hop combo will get you what you want, give it a try.

 

[rcsarver]

Thanks for the information, everyone, but especially RonPopeil. That was really informative comparing 3 approaches. I don't want to do 90 IBU but I can scale down and look at more than IBU. 60m additions and the rest <20m.

 

[RonPopeil]

Thanks for the information, everyone, but especially RonPopeil. That was really informative comparing 3 approaches. I don't want to do 90 IBU but I can scale down and look at more than IBU. 60m additions and the rest <20m.

part of what i was trying to say was, don't get caught up on the IBU number for IPA's and bitter styles. count your bittering IBU's but disregard your late addition IBU numbers. this is a theory i devised after brewing beers with only late addition hops. the result, was a hop soda of sorts. great flavor but no real bitterness. then i shifted to the method i described. hit your target bitterness with the bittering addition and just use late additions like a seasoning to flavor the beer.