Double IPA Recipe Help

Your bittering hop adds almost nothing to flavor or aroma and should be selected for its bittering capabilities. If you like Chinook it’s a good choice. In my opinion if you don’t use some specialty grain it will be a pretty light/bland IIPA. Again just my opinion but a good IIPA has a very solid malty backbone to support the burst of hops. I just put Special Roast and C40 in my last IPA and I’m really enjoying the flavor.

I think you should brew the beer you want to brew. I was just expressing my opinion of what I think about when I think of a DIPA. I think of a more rich maltiness in addition to the extra hoppy IPA. My concern is if you make this too light it will taste very boozy at such a high ABV.

When you say light, are you referring just to color or to body as well?

Cascade to bitter? I’ve never heard of that or tried it. It’s a pretty low alpha hop so you wouldn’t get as much IBU out of it.

You need to get some sugar in there to lighten the body. It’s what distinguishes a DIPA from a BW.

How about a 90-120 minute mash @ 148 instead?

How about a 90-120 minute mash @ 148 instead?[/quote]

I doubt it would have the same effect. Maybe both.

[quote=“Duff34”]I plan on brewing a light double IPA this weekend but would like help/input on my recipe. I want it hopbursted so the hops shine and it’s fruitier vs the usual high IBU’s associated with double IPA’s. This is a recipe for a “1 gallon” experimental batch. I’m not sure on the best bittering hop to give me that piney/grapefruity aroma/flavor w/out being overly bitter. I haven’t included any specialty grain as i don’t won’t to take away from the hops but did include some carapils to give it more body. If you think there’s something I should add please let me know. Thank you

ABV: 9.29%
SRM: 5.28
IBU: 72

45 Minute Boil

Extract:
3.15lbs Extra Light Malt Extract
2oz American Carapils

Hops:

0.25oz (Chinook, Cascade, other?) @20mins

0.20 Citra/Simcoe/Galaxy @10mins
0.20 Citra/Simcoe/Galaxy @5mins
0.20 Citra/Simcoe/Galaxy @0mins/Whirlpool

0.20 Citra/Simcoe/Galaxy Dry Hop 7 daysin Secondary[/quote]

I’m seeing at least 3 things wrong with this recipe right off the bat.1) You have no bittering hop ( meaning a hop charge that’s boiled for at least 60 minutes) addition at all, so the finished beer will have very little of the bitterness that this style needs. Even if you’re aiming primarily at hop aroma instead of bitterness, this beer’s sweetness will be quite distracting and unpleasant, I think. 2)You’re not specifying if you’re using liquid or dry malt extract, but in either case, you’re using significantly more than you need to get this OG. Remember, the extract potential of either kind of malt extract is 100% since it’s already been mashed and it’s all going straight into the wort. 3) Your BU/OG ratio is way off for the style. For an IPA, especially one of imperial strength, where the hops will be fighting to make their presence known all the more because they have to stand up to all that malt sugar, the BU/OG ratio should be at least 0.9:1. At 72 IBUs to what I assume is an OG of around 1.094, the ratio is only about 0.77:1, which is too low. I don’t mean to sound too critical, but I’d hate for you to waste your time and hard-earned money on an experiment that yielded a beer that wasn’t even close to what you had in mind.

[quote=“deliusism1”]
I’m seeing at least 3 things wrong with this recipe right off the bat.1) You have no bittering hop ( meaning a hop charge that’s boiled for at least 60 minutes) addition at all, so the finished beer will have very little of the bitterness that this style needs. Even if you’re aiming primarily at hop aroma instead of bitterness, this beer’s sweetness will be quite distracting and unpleasant, I think. 2)You’re not specifying if you’re using liquid or dry malt extract, but in either case, you’re using significantly more than you need to get this OG. Remember, the extract potential of either kind of malt extract is 100% since it’s already been mashed and it’s all going straight into the wort. 3) Your BU/OG ratio is way off for the style. For an IPA, especially one of imperial strength, where the hops will be fighting to make their presence known all the more because they have to stand up to all that malt sugar, the BU/OG ratio should be at least 0.9:1. At 72 IBUs to what I assume is an OG of around 1.094, the ratio is only about 0.77:1, which is too low. I don’t mean to sound too critical, but I’d hate for you to waste your time and hard-earned money on an experiment that yielded a beer that wasn’t even close to what you had in mind.[/quote]

If you read his whole post he did say he was still deciding on the bittering hop, not that he wasn’t going to use one.

And I agree with Denny, if you don’t add some sugar in place of that extract, you’re going to end up with an undrinkably sweet hop-koolaid.

I have no experience formulating 1 gallon recipes so it is hard for me to give constructive criticism. I think your best bet would be to do a little research on DIPA recipes. Google will give you plenty of options to choose from although most will be for 5 gallon batches. then formulate a recipe that fits what you think you want to do and scale it down to the size you want.

Check out www.brewersfriend.com or download a trial version of BeerSmith2. This will allow you to inker with ingredients and see it’s effects on color, abv, ibus, etc. One thing to consider when adding sugar (sucrose, table sugar) is it’s 100% ferementable so it will dry out your beer. To give you an idea, I just brewed 5 gallons of 1.065 IPA and 2 lbs of that was sugar. I was going for a dry beer and that’s what I got. Before that beer I made a DIPA that was 1.081 with only a lb of sugar and the rest was Light DME and it’s pretty undrinkable cause it’s so sweet. I’m glad my wife likes it because I can’t stand more than a sip. You really need to add sugar to higher gravity extract beers to increase the fermentability

Since it’s LME, take out one lb. of extract and replace it with 3/4 lb. of table sugar. Be sure to keep the fermentation temp no higher than 65F. for the first week or so to avoid a harsh alcohol bite.

It will but keep in mind you will need about 10% more corn sugar than table sugar for the same gravity. In such a small batch it comes out to like 1.2 ounces so it’s not going to make much of a difference.

It’s generally believed (though I’ve still seen this debated on the interwebs) that the later you add your fermentables the more hop utilization you get, increasing the bittering of your hops. I do not know the formula for determining how much IBU increase to how much late extract additions but if you use BeerSmith it accommodates for that (when you add a fermentable, theres a checkbox for “add after boil”)

After quickly punching in some numbers in Beersmith, it looks like a 1 gallon 78IBU beer with 12 oz of sugar added at the beginning would become a 97IBU beer if added the sugar at end of the boil.

Again, not too sure the formula or how accurate Beersmith is for this so take it with a grain of salt.

I add it at the beginning of the boil to make sure I don’t forget it later!

It’s generally believed (though I’ve still seen this debated on the interwebs) that the later you add your fermentables the more hop utilization you get, increasing the bittering of your hops. I do not know the formula for determining how much IBU increase to how much late extract additions but if you use BeerSmith it accommodates for that (when you add a fermentable, theres a checkbox for “add after boil”)

After quickly punching in some numbers in Beersmith, it looks like a 1 gallon 78IBU beer with 12 oz of sugar added at the beginning would become a 97IBU beer if added the sugar at end of the boil.

Again, not too sure the formula or how accurate Beersmith is for this so take it with a grain of salt.[/quote]

I use Promash, which bases IBU on the gravity of the boil including all ingredients. By adding sugar at the beginning of the boil the wort is the gravity the software expects and I get the IBU I calculated.

[quote=“Denny”]
I use Promash, which bases IBU on the gravity of the boil including all ingredients. By adding sugar at the beginning of the boil the wort is the gravity the software expects and I get the IBU I calculated.[/quote]

I was just generally pointing out the effects of adding before or after the boil with an example. I wasn’t questioning anyone’s calculations and apologize if it came out that way.

On larger batches, adding extract after the boil can save you a couple bucks on hops since you can theoretically add less hops to achieve the same bittering.