I create my recipes and order my supplies using Brewtoad. Having received my hops I found them all a bit lower in AA’s. When creating IPA recipes I shoot for 100+ IBU’s as the ones I’ve made just don’t seem as flavorful as most commercial varieties. Maybe this is in part due to a miscalculation of the effects of top off water.
Does using LME at flameout, and therefor a part of my “top off”, does this impact my IBU’s as plain water does?
I’ve read a bit about a whirlpool and intend on trying it this time. How critical is it to get the wort temp to 180*? And what temp does it need to be held above, and how critical is that?
My IBU’s had been estimated to be 99 but would have dropped into the mid 80’s so I decided to move my 7 min hop addition to 14 mins and not do a proper aroma addition as the whirlpool and dry hop, which brings the estimated IBU’s to 104!
Here’s my 5.5 gal partial mash/partial boil recipe. I start with 5.5 gals of treated strike water that I’ll use to mash (~1.5 qts/lb) and sparge (~2 gals) with and use the remainder to dunk my BIAB grain bag in prior to sparging. I don’t really account for grain absorption and my boil off is ball park (15%). I also account my pint glass of rehydrating yeast as top off too. Once wort is poured into the fermenting bucket that is marked (MoreBeer’s) I usually have ~4.8-5 gals) after I’ve added the LME too (~1 qt for 3-4 lbs?).
4 lbs ultralight LME (FO)
3.75 lbs 2-row
1 lb crystal 90
1 lb flaked barley
0.5 lb midnight wheat
2 oz Briess chocolate
0.5 oz Columbus (14.3%) @ 70 mins
0.5 oz Columbus & 2 oz Centennial (9%) @ 21/14 mins/WP
2 oz Centennial for 7 day dry hop
US-05
1.056/1.011
5.9% ABV
104 IBU’s
29 SRM
I have very large tea baskets that I’ll be using for whirlpooling and dry hopping. They are awesome for the task! They look to hold about a coffee cup’s worth of stuff, and they work well for “dry peppering” with sliced jalapeños too!
Has anyone done a similar hop schedule? I’ve never foregone the aroma addition so as to get a fuller impact in the flavor department, which to me seems like a good idea as some aroma will certainly come through from the WP and dry hop.
I do have a small stash of hops and had considered using some Cascade, Centennial, or Columbus, but my idea of moving the aroma to a flavor addition just seemed better and 10 0z of hops seemed plenty.
I’ll need to go back through and reread all that’s been said about whirlpooling, but if I recall properly it needs to be done for 20-30 mins. Do I want to swirl the hop basket or stir the wort? Is it more about just keeping the basket moving or does swirling really make the difference?
As a side note I’ve decided to treat my water more like I was brewing a dark amber beer and not a dark beer as I’m unsure that Midnight Wheat really adds enough have it considered a dark beer.
I’ve been directed to Brewer’s Friend’s advanced water calculator. I’m not sure what RO/distilled water looks like and so I left the input empty. It shows a pH of 8 this way. This is what I intend to do:
20% dilution of filtered tap water, which begins with Ca 38, Mg 21, SO 25, Na 22, Cl 37, HC) 192. I’m adding 4.5g gypsum, 0.7g epsom, and 1.8g salt to get:
Ca 81
Mg 20
Na 52
Cl 82
SO 154
HCO 58
alk 127
pH 5.44
Does any of this sound off?
