So I am going to brew my first IPA in the next couple of weeks, and I am looking for a little advice. I don’t really know where to start with my recipe. I brew Extract with grains right now, I haven’t been able to get back to all grain yet.
My biggest hiccup is my specialty grains. I am going to go with 7 - 8 lbs of Light LME for my fermentable sugars, but I don’t know where to go with the grains. I am looking to be around 11 - 14 SRM.
I am also torn between single hopping or multiple hop additions through out the boil with different but similar in characteristic hops.
I was thinking 1 oz Amarillo @60 mins, 1 oz of Galena @30 mins, and 1oz of Cascade @5 mins…
I would steep no more than .5 lb of Crystal 60 and maybe add a half pound of sugar to make sure it drys out. I’d move the Galena to 60 minutes, and add 1 oz each of Amarillo and Cascade at 10 minutes, and then another oz of each at flame out. Dry hop with cascade or Amarillo or both.
I agree , very little crystal. I would not bitter with any of those hops and would use magnum or warrior. Drop the 30 minute addition and do most of the hopping at 20 to 0 (20, 10 and 0?) and do a whirlpool and/or a hop stand. Then dry hop to your liking. Another thing you may need to do depending on your water is add gypsum.
Okay, so if I am following what you all are saying, I should go with 8 lbs of LME, and .5 lbs of crystal 60.
For the hops, bitter with warrior or magnum, and use any of the hops I mentioned earlier from 20 minutes down to FO? Then dry hop the crap out of it?
I don’t have a whole lot of experience with many different hops, as I have had to stick with kind of Low hopped beers because my wife doesn’t like really hoppy beers. But this one is for me, and I want to make something that isn’t too complicated for my first attempt, but something that is going to have a bit of hoppy punch to it. I really like the citrus and piney flavors in my IPAs. Sorry to keep asking, but like I the title says, I am moving into making IPAs, so I need a little help.
[quote=“majorora”]Okay, So here is what I have come up with after the suggestions to this thread and reading up on some of the threads in the Hops section.
8 lbs Amber LME
.5 oz Crystal 60
1 oz Warrior @ 60 minutes
1oz @ 15min
1oz @ 10min
1 oz Mosaic @ 5 minutes
1oz @ flameout
2-3 oz Mosaic Dry hop
[quote=“majorora”]Okay dobe12, No problem adding more, but does the combination work?
Thanks for the feedback.[/quote]
Well that’s really personal preference. For the first 2 years I brewed I mixed and matched hops not really knowing what I was doing. Just shooting from the hip. Some worked, some not so much, but in the end I always made beer that I enjoyed. More recently, I’ve been moving to single hop Pale Ales and IPAs to really get a taste for specific hops. So… I like the idea of bittering wth Warrior (I’d use Magnum, but for bittering purposes there’s little difference) and going with one hop the rest of the way. It will really let you know if you enjoy Mosaic or not.
I just suggested that hoping schedule because that’s my SOP. For Pale Ales, I usually only add 1/2oz at 15, 10, 5, and 1oz at flame out and again to dry hop. For IPAs, I up the bitter addition and all the other additions some and will dry hop with 2-4oz’s depending on the hop.
I say it depends on the person, I taste BB when I did a highly mosaic hopped beer, but others didn’t taste it. It was for sure a fruity taste. Worse case is your wife will like it
I get more of a grapefruit / tropical fruit (mango maybe) from it. I am a fan of Mosaic but you can easily overdo it by itself. I would suggest maybe mixing some cascade in there as well to balance it out.
My suggestion would be the same schedule as dobe12 suggests but split each addition 50/50 between mosaic and cascade. I like Simcoe as well but it it’s rather similar to Mosaic so you might not get a discernible difference.
I appreciate all the feedback, I think I am going to go with my original thought on Bittering with Warrior, then using Chinook for the late additions and dry hopping. I don’t want to take any chances on getting the blueberry flavor from the Mosaic hop. Even though some say it is more Passion fruit and Citrus, mine would end up blueberry.
Please remember that a lot of what you hear in the way of flavor and aroma descriptors regarding hops comes from marketing people trying to give some hype to their product, and much of what they say is just nonsense. I used Mosaic hops recently in an IPA, and I’m detecting no blueberry character whatsoever. As far as your bittering hops are concerned, though, you should definitely go with a variety that has a good high AA level, in my opinion, but avoid those with overly rough characteristics. I used Warrior hops a couple of times in dark beers, and it definitely does give the requisite bitterness, but it takes quite a bit of time to mellow out, and it’s not one of those versatile hops that goes well with other varieties, in my experience. It’s very dominant, and I’d probably avoid it in a light colored ale. It’s a very good one for an IBA or a strong dark ale where a high hopping level is appropriate, but it’s too earthy for pale ales, in my opinion. I can definitely recommend a high AA hop that I used recently that made a great pale ale, and that’s Herkules. It’s a newish Hallertauer derivative with a potent, but pleasant character, and it gives a really smooth bitterness with a good foundation of German noble hop character. There are plenty of high AA hops out there to experiment with, but that’s one I can confidently recommend.
Chinook is an excellent hop for pale ales in general, and IPAs in particular. Mosaic hops are being marketed as a hop that gives support to other hops and helps blend the flavor of different varieties of hops together, hence the name. It’s not really recommended to be used as a stand-alone flavor or aroma hop, but it would probably be fine. What the hell- you could even be one of the first brewers to use Mosaic as the only hop in a single-hop beer, just to see how it turns out. That would be an experiment that other brewers would definitely take notice of.
[quote=“deliusism1”]
Chinook is an excellent hop for pale ales in general, and IPAs in particular. [/quote]
Yep, pretty much my go-to bittering hop. Makes an excellent single hop beer too.
It’s interesting everyones different take on one variety of hop versus another. How a given hop comes across is of course subjective however it will also be influenced by the water you are using. I have moderately hard water that will tend to bring forward the hops and if I am not careful will cause harshness. I therefore am one of those low cohumolone guys. For that reason, I almost always bitter with either Magnum or Warrior (I’m not the only one doing that; for instance Dogfish Head uses that strategy also) when using high alpha hops. In my mind, the difference between decent IPA’s and great ones is the relative lack of harsh bittering. Of course, if your water is soft you can get away with alot more than I can. I’m not really big on Chinook as in my opinion it is very “crude” tasting but Stone in California has alot of fans so what do I know? I have also messed around with Mosaic a little and although I don’t get blueberry it does have a very distinctive flavor; I’d describe it as a tropical fruit kind of deal which I really can’t describe. I personally don’t think it would do all that well by itself, I combined it with Amarillo and it was pretty nice, wierd but nice. Oh, and I used it to late and dry hop only. Anyhow take all that for what it’s worth, your milegae may vary as always.
1 oz Warrior @ 60
.25 each Simcoe and Centennial @20, 10, 5
.5 Citra @ 5
2 oz dry hop with Citra for 10 days.
The color is great, aroma is right where I was wanting it to be, lots of citrus smell, but the initial bitterness is a little lacking. It also needs a few more days to finish carbing.
With that, let me say that I ended up with an extra gallon of wort. I don’t know exactly how that happened, but I am guessing my math was off when I tried to calculated how much water (in inches) I needed to get to the 6.5 gallons for a full boil. That is the only thing that it could have been. As I know it had to of boiled off more than .5 gallon. Would this extra gallon affect the bitterness in a major way?
Here is a picture of it, please ignore the mess, the boys were complete little terrors last night.
Another thing you may need to do depending on your water is add gypsum.
Adjustments in RED