Formulating an IPA recipe and soliciting advice on hopping it.

Here's my grain bill (10 gals AG) :

23# Pale ale malt
1# Caramunich malt
1# Munich malt
1# Crystal 60L
.5# Maltodextrin

Hops in inventory
Amarillo - 4 oz pellet
Cascade - 4 oz pellet
Cascade - 2 oz leaf
Centennial - 4 oz pellet
Simcoe - 4 oz pellet
Chinook - 4 oz pellet
Columbus - 4 oz pellet
Santium - 4 oz pellet
E Kent Goldings - 2 oz pellet

Considering Amarillo for bittering and aroma, and Centennial, Cascade or Simcoe for aroma and/or flavor? Dry hop with Simcoe?

Thoughts?

well i just had my first pint of my black IPA i did a couple weeks back, man i think it is my best IPA yet. excellent hop flavor, exactly how i was hoping it turned out.

5 gal. batch:

2 oz cascade @ 60 min (1 oz was 7.8%, 1 was 5%)
1 oz columbus @ 60 min 14.2%
1 oz centennial @ 15 min 6%
1 oz cascade @ 5 min 5%
1 oz willamette dry hop. 4%

Also, if you don't know yet, bookmark www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com and look no further for hops. as low as $.50/oz. (actually willamette was $.40/oz last week.)
I've gotten about 4 lb's of hops from them over the last month, and after shipping, i average about $.90/oz. they sell in 4 oz. bags.

[This message has been edited by 62strat (edited 12/6/2010 1:01p).]

That's where I got all these hops...

hah well then

i went a bit nuts myself. got 4 oz of:
centennial, chinook, nugget, santium, apollo, glacier, golding, northern brewer, summit, fuggle, pearle, sterling, and 8 oz of willamette, cascade and columbus.

4 lbs for about $50. compared to austinhomebrew or defalco's, $2.99 an ounce. hah what a joke. 4x the cost.

How long will it (the hops) store? I assume you have it refrigerated?

[This message has been edited by RogueAg (edited 12/6/2010 2:32p).]

i put them in foodsaver bags, suck the air out, and freeze it. they def. don't last forever.. but i think vacuum sealed, and frozen, i'd imagine they'd they easily last 6 months to a year.

brew smith has an estimator to find out how much alpha acid % they lose. it's not much. 5% original, frozen, vacuum sealed at 8 months says 4.61%.

[This message has been edited by 62strat (edited 12/6/2010 3:18p).]

62 strat Post your grain bill for the black IPA

Also interested in the black IPA...

Centennial and Cascade go great together. I would do 4 oz Centennial for 60, 2 oz Cascade at 15, 2 oz Cascade at flameout, and 2 oz Cascade leafs dry hopping.

Keep it simple.

Poppi IPA
American IPA


Type: All Grain
Date: 12/6/2010
Batch Size: 10.00 gal
Brewer:AggieChemist
Boil Size: 12.84 gal Asst Brewer: Poppi
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Keggle and Coleman Xtreme Cooler
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
23 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 86.79 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3.77 %
1 lbs Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 3.77 %
1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 3.77 %
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 1.89 %
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
4.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (60 min) Hops 64.1 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 8.7 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops -



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.071 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.018
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.89 %
Bitterness: 72.8 IBU
Est Color: 11.4 SRM

PS, my recipe has a ratio of 1.027 IBU/SG, which is really nicely balanced. You have a big beer, you need a big hop backbone. The recipe I posted will have a nice bitter hop backbone with tons of great floral/citrusy finishing, ESPECIALLY if you have leaf cascades to dry hop with.

Leave the simcoe cat piss in your fridge.

hah i actually had the grain bill then said eh i'll just put the hops..

5 gal batch:
11 lbs 2-row
10 oz crystal 80
3.5 oz carafa II (412 srm)
3.5 oz chocolate (450 srm)
white labs wlp001
OG: 1.065
FG: 1.015 (6.5% abv)
IBU: 100
est color: 21.6


i actually had planned to dry hop with 2 oz willamette, well when that day came, i forgot and only did 1 oz.. it does slightly lack a bit of aroma, so next time i'd do 2 oz dry hop for sure. maybe 3. i love to have that big aroma with my hoppy ales.

Also if it were judged, it may be just not dark enough. it's dark, but not a solid black. maybe up the carafa or chocolate an ounce or two.

also again, it's not quite as strong as i like it.. i'd add maybe another pound of 2-row or a pound of dme. I actually only hit ~1.056

[This message has been edited by 62strat (edited 12/6/2010 8:26p).]

I'm probably gonna go with Chinook for bittering, Centennial/Simcoe for flavor aroma, dry-hopping with Cascade leaf.

funny, i bought all these hops, now it gives me an excuse to brew! can't let em just sit in the freezer

this weekend I'll do an abita SOS clone for the wife. Then weekend after I plan to do a Pliny Clone, then weekend before xmas another wheat clone for wife, maybe franz or wiehenstephaner.

that will fill my newly acquired 5 keg pipeline. Got 4 of em for $110!

OK, how does this sound?

USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 1.0 Columbus pellet 15.4
boil 60 mins 2.0 Chinook pellet 13.0
boil 30 mins 2.0 Amarillo pellet 7.0
boil 5 mins 2.0 Simcoe pellet 13.0
boil 1 min 1.0 Cascade leaf 5.5
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Cascade leaf 5.5

86.3 IBU

that's a lot more than 83 ibu's eh? assuming 12-13 gallon boil, i'm getting well over 100 with that.

That was just from Beer Calculus online. Need to plug it into Promash at home.

I'm sick of Promash. Need to invest in Beersmith I guess.

You won't regret it.

i've only used beersmith, so can't compare, but it does everything I need and is easy to use..

I'm ditching the simcoe, hearing bad things about it - cat piss odor, etc.

Well I brewed yesterday.

Initial boil size 12.2 gals, boiled down to 11g

Grain bill
23# American Two-row Pale malt
1# Munich malt
1# Crystal 60L
1# Caramunich malt 20L
8oz Maltodextrin

Hops
.5oz Columbus pellet 90 min
.5oz Chinook pellet 90 min
1oz Columbus pellet 60 min
1oz Chinook pellet 60 min
1oz Amarillo pellet 30 min
1oz Cascade leaf 10 min
1oz Cascade pellet 5 min
1oz Centennial pellet 1 min

Dryhopped fermenter 1 with 3/4 oz Centennial and 3/4 Cascade pellets. Dryhopped the second fermenter with 3/4 oz Simcoe and 3/4 oz Amarillo pellets

OG 1.064
FG 1.012
Yeast White Labs East Coast Ale 008

Michelob Ultra drinkers need not apply.



[This message has been edited by WC87 (edited 1/13/2011 3:25p).]

i did two batches yesterday! a first.
a big hefeweizen (~7%) and a classic american pale.

took 7 hours, a great day.

Here's my Black IPA (named HOPoppotomaus after my rottie-mix):

10# 2-row
1# 4oz Vienna
1# Crystal 40L
8oz Carafa-II (I started w/ 12 oz, but it gave me too much roast flavor)

1/2 oz Columbus @ 60
1/2 oz Columbus @ 45
1 oz Cascade @ 30
1 oz Cascade @ 15
1 oz Cascade @ 5

Mash @ 154F for 60 min, mash out @ 160F, batch sparge. My efficiency on the new system is still pretty low (~60%) giving me an OG of 1.066 and FG of 1.017 after 2 weeks of fermentation. Also, this rated at 90 IBUs for the 5 gal batch. I think you need to seriously up your IBUs for Black IPAs to balance with the added roast flavor.

_____________________________
"Guns don't kill people, I kill people."

Update:

As I had 11 gals of wort I split this into 2 primary fermenters. As of this past Sunday I was terminal FG (1.012) in one fermenter. However, the other fermenter read 1.03. Houston we have a problem. I swirled the yeast gently and raised my fermentation temp 2 degrees a day for the next few days, and am happy to report fermentation has re-started and I was reading 1.018 as of Wednesday evening. I went ahead and dryhopped fermenter 1 with 3/4 oz Centennial and 3/4 Cascade pellets. Will keg this on Monday, as well as dry-hop the second fermenter, most probably with 3/4 oz Simcoe and 3/4 oz Amarillo pellets, assuming FG 1.012 is reached.

I'm not trying to hijack you're thread, but I thought you might enjoy this from my garden this year. This summer was not the best for gardens this year and my hops suffered as a consequence. Starting from right to left the hop plants are Centennial, Willamette, and Cascade. The cascades were the only ones that produced this year and that's the bottom photo. I got a little less than 3/4 lb. Cheers.

That's great, where are you located?

Thanks, I'm in Washington.

Man, wish I could grow some hops. Nice job.

Had the first pint yesterday, and boy it's hoppy....probably still needs a week or so to further condition, but hey, 10 gals baby.

Not to toot my own horn, but damn, this beer is amazing. Any homebrewers out there that love IPAs ought to try this recipe out. WOW. The only thing I may do differently is use a lighter Crystal malt. Right now the Crystal 60 lends a good orange-ish color similar to Hop Devil. Crystal 40 or even 20 would get me a more golden color.

Dryhopping each fermenter with different hops was also a win - it's like 2 different beers. I can't decide which dryhop schedule I like best.

wish you would have posted this 2 hours ago! i just went to LHBS at lunch to pick up some grains.. i had nothing in mind, so I decided to play with a previous pale ale recipe.. i would have done this instead..

anyway, here's what's on board for me this weekend.
First go-round was a BJ's Piranha Pale clone.. I brought the keg on a new years eve trip with 8 of my friends, it was a hit. this batch i just changed a few small things:

5 gal:
9 lbs. 2-row
1 lb. white wheat malt
.5 lb C-10
.5 lb C-25 honey malt
1 oz. roasted unmalted barley

1 oz. columbus 14.2% 60 min
1 oz. cascade 5% 30 min
1 oz. willamette 4% 10 min
1 oz. wilamette 4% 5 min
1 oz. cascade dry hop (might throw another oz. in there day of.. not sure yet)
re-pitching the same yeast, WLP001

OG: 1.061
IBU 68
~ABV 6.25%

That looks pretty good as well.

Well I had to TTT this thread to brag a bit. My modified IPA recipe below just snagged a Silver Medal this past weekend at the Louisiana Beer Fest Cajun Classic, a homebrew contest held in conjunction with the festival. Recipe below:

Grain bill
23# American Two-row Pale malt
1# Munich malt
1# Crystal 40L
1# Caramunich malt 20L
8oz Maltodextrin

Hops
.5oz Columbus pellet 90 min
.5oz Chinook pellet 90 min
1oz Columbus pellet 60 min
1oz Chinook pellet 60 min
1oz Amarillo pellet 30 min
1oz Cascade leaf 10 min
1oz Cascade pellet 5 min
1oz Centennial pellet 1 min

Dryhopped both fermenters with 1 oz Simcoe and 1 oz Amarillo pellets

OG 1.064
FG 1.010
Yeast White Labs Chico WLP001

Now, I know some of you have probably won brewing contests before, but hey, this was only the second competition I entered, so I was pretty damn pumped to get the news today.