Back to Shopping at NorthernBrewer.com

Help w/ Recipe?

Beer Recipe Design
#1

Bonjour Northern Brewfolk… been brewing beer almost 2 years now and am finally making the leap to putting together my first recipe. I’m trying to go for a supper resiny, hoppy, but light & clean brew. Bitter but not TOO bitter. Help would be greatly appreciated… any suggestions on hop combos or grains chosen would be great.

Bittering -

1 oz Cascade
1 oz Chinook
1 oz Amarillo
.75 oz Columbus
.25 oz Citra Hop

Finishing -

.75 oz Citra Hop
1 oz Cascade
1 oz Amarillo
1.25 Columbus

Dry -

2 oz Simcoe
1 oz Citra

ME -

3.15 lbs Organic Light MS

Grains -

1 lb Pale Ale
1 lb Organic Caraspils
1 lb Ashburne Mild

cheers!

#2

That looks like an awful lot to me. Is this 5 gallons? I assumed you meant bittering as a 60 minute addition since you didn’t specify and I plugged it into beersmith along with your grains and with just those first three hops listed came away with 112IBU so I’m gonna say it is a bit much as currently constructed.

#3

+1. Seems like a LOT of hops in terms of types and amounts.

First think about what type of taste you want. Look up the descriptions of all those hops and decide what would sound good together. Personally, I love Cascade, Amarillo & Citra together. Columbus and Chinook are higher AA hops and would be good for the bittering addition. The others would be better for the later aroma and flavor additions.

Simcoe is kinda in a place all by itself. To me there’s nothing else like it. I do like Simcoe (not as much as most people), but I don’t really like it mixed with the American C hops. I don’t like the piney flavor mixed with the citrusy flavor of the C hops. But maybe you do.

What I would do would be bitter with Chinook or Columbus… maybe 1 to 1.5oz.
Then add several additions between 20min and 1min. I’d use some combination of Cascade, Amarillo and Citra. I’d also dry hop with Citra and Cascade. But this is just reflecting my tastes.

#4

Thanks … I was aiming high, I realize. Some of the IPA recipes I read, double and triples, called for 8 to 12 oz of at least 3 varieties. If I wanted to do a high gravity brew like these, should I use more grains & malts to compensate or should I just tone down the amount of hops I’m using?

#5

Either way, depending on your goal.

#6

Now obviously you don’t need to follow this advice because homebrewing is all about exploring what works for you but, if this is first recipe I would keep it on the simple side rather than making a IIPA with tons of grains and a bunch of different hop varieties. The simpler the recipe the easier it will be to pinpoint what you enjoy about your beer, what you dislike about it and what changes you would make. The more stuff the more confusing it gets so I would suggest doing a smaller IPA, tone the hops way down and keep it simple. Maybe do a bittering at 60 with some flavor/aroma at 15, 10 and 5 or whatever you want.

My main advice if you want to start designing recipes would be to do what I did which is what a lot of people on here suggested I do: get some kind of software to help you make sure your recipe is in style (I love Beersmith which is totally worth the money) and then get a book for research (Ray Daniels Designing Great Beers is a bit boring but super informative with breakdowns of what traditionally has worked in terms of hops, malt and yeast for most beer styles).

Let us know what changes you come up with.

#7

Here’s my toned down recipe… lemme know what you think. thanks for the help beerons

Bittering -

1 oz Chinook
1 oz Columbus

Finishing -

1 oz Citra
1 oz Cascade
1 oz Amarillo

Dry -

1 oz Cascade
1 oz Citra

ME -

3.15 lbs Organic Light MS

Grains -

1 lb Pale Ale
1 lb Organic Caraspils
1 lb Ashburne Mild

#8

[color=#000000]Far too bitter, not enough fermentables as-is one 3.15# LME to a 5 gallon batch will equal 1.022(ish) for almost the same money you could use one 3.0# DME to a 5 gallon batch to see 1.026(ish) Just to give you comparison between LME / DME as the dry gives more points per gallon. But one 3# package of either is far too low of SG.

Both types of light DME/LME(Pilsen & Extra light) use carapils when they are made so there is no need for it as a steeping grain, if your making a monster IBU IPA or IIPA then an additional pound in a steep may be warranted but with mid level PA or IPA IBUs you dont really want any more at this time. The 1# pale and mild ale malts are base malts and need conversion(mashing) to contribute any sugar to the mix and used as steeping grain will extract only starch and fatty acids that not only do you no good they are detrimental to the overall recipe in the end.[/color]

Here is what I would suggest:

[quote=“weirbrewing”]Here’s my toned down recipe… lemme know what you think. thanks for the help beerons

Bittering -

1 oz Chinook at 60 = 49 IBU / .50 oz at 60 = 25 IBU
DEPENDING ON YOUR GOAL USE EITHER OR>>>>one oz of both will hit around 100 IBU alone. I would suggest actually half ounce of either only, I have attached some estimated numbers using average A/A percentage to give you a better idea.
1 oz Columbus at 60 = 56 IBU / .50 oz at 60 = 28 IBU

So lets say you used .50 oz of Columbus at 60 for 28 IBU>>>Then:
Finishing -
I would actually drop these in at different order as follows.
1 oz Cascade at 10 min
1 oz Amarillo at 5 min
1 oz Citra at 0 min
Resulting total IBU should reside around 43 IBU

Dry -

1 oz Cascade
1 oz Citra

ME -
[color=#FF8000]Increase this to one 6# LME to hit just over 1.040
Increase this to one 3.15# LME and one 3# DME to hit just under 1.050
Increase this to two 3# DME to hit just over 1.050[/color]
3.15 lbs Organic Light MS OR Pilsen

Grains -
Cut all of these and use 1# caramel 40L as a steeping grain.
1 lb Pale Ale
1 lb Organic Caraspils
1 lb Ashburne Mild[/quote]

I think this would make a really good pale ale right around 5% ABV and mild IBU of 40> that would make a dank drinker. Now in the future a quick look at any of NB recipe PDF’s will give you ballpark ideas about what kind of combos will work similarly to what I showed you above.

Back to Shopping at NorthernBrewer.com