Thoughts on my IPA recipe.

I made this up or at least I think I did. I did not reference any other recipe. I am trying to develop my recipe building skills.

Batch size 6 gallons

10 lb pale 2 row
1.75 lb munich
1.75 vienna
.5 lb Crystal 20
.5 lb crystal 40

1.0 oz Columbus 15.20% 60 min
.5 oz Columbus 15.20% 30 min
1.0 oz Centennial 8.7% 10 min
1.0 oz Centennial 8.7% 0 min

Wyeast American Ale 1056

Beersmith says 1.060 64.1 IBU 8.0 SRM 6.2 ABV


That is the recipe as I have it now. I batch sparge and want enough volume to counter the loss from trub and all the hop gunk.

I have thought about dry hopping but I am not sure the best way to go about it? Do I rack to secondary just add them without any bagging or do I add a hop back with weights and a string? Or is it even necessary. I have only ever bought pellets.



Please give me thoughts on this as I would like to brew in about a week.

Looks pretty good. As for the dry hopping you can add them in secondary, or some people add hem to primary. I've done both. My last IIPA, I dry hopped in primary after active fermentation had subsided and a bit of time lapsed for clean up.

I use hop pellets and pour them into a hop sack weighted down with sanitized marbles.

In my opinion that is borderline for 6 gallons as far as grain size. Now as far as dry hopping, i have only done it in my cider so far. I just put them in the carboy first, then siphoned into it. Let is sit for 7 - 10 days, then bottled it.

Does the marble idea work with carboys and their narrow neck?

jflongo said:

In my opinion that is borderline for 6 gallons as far as grain size. Now as far as dry hopping, i have only done it in my cider so far. I just put them in the carboy first, then siphoned into it. Let is sit for 7 - 10 days, then bottled it.

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what do you mean by borderline?

PastorofMuppets said:

Does the marble idea work with carboys and their narrow neck?

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Yes it does. They are easy to get into the carboy. Getting the sack out is a bit difficult because the hops are saturated. I used two this last time, but found that it didn't keep them fully submerged. After a few days it floated back to the top. Next time I'll use four in the sack. I didn't use a glass carboy, but used BB. They have a wider neck opening than glass. I think it would just be a bit more work getting them out of a glass carboy. BTW, I wait until the beer is racked off before removing the sack.

PastorofMuppets said:

what do you mean by borderline?

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I generally do around 12-13 lb for 5 gallons. So not sure if 14 is enough for that recipe or not. It "may" be.

jflongo said:

I generally do around 12-13 lb for 5 gallons. So not sure if 14 is enough for that recipe or not. It "may" be.

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Well im shooting for 1.060 ish. and beer smith says i get there.
I have been getting lower than expected efficiencies lately so i might get another pound of the base malts to up it a bit.

Personally I would think about dropping some of the crystal, maybe go with 0.5# total. I like my IPA's dry, crisp and not too sweet. If you like yours on the sweet side then 1# will be fine. What's your plan for the mash? I like to go 148 for most of my IPA's.

Yeah the amount of malt added compared to your OG is just a matter of your efficiency. If one brewer gets 60% efficiency, they're going to need a lot more malt than someone that gets 85% efficiency. The recipe looks good though! Columbus and Centennial work well together in my experience, and dry hopping with 1oz. of each would be a good thing

To dry hop, I add them straight to primary as soon as the krausen has fallen. After final gravity is reached (should only be 3-5 days after krausen falls) I rack it into my kegs / bottling bucket. If you're looking to contain them you can add them in a hop bag with 2-3 marbles which will help to keep most of the material out of the finished product.

Let us know how it goes. Cheers!

Also, for dry hopping I usually rack to secondary and just toss the pellets in with no hop sack. If you have the ability to cold crash you should have no issues getting the hops to settle to the bottom.

BryceL said:

Also, for dry hopping I usually rack to secondary and just toss the pellets in with no hop sack. If you have the ability to cold crash you should have no issues getting the hops to settle to the bottom.

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I have done the same. I toss the pellets in, then siphon into them. When siphoning out when it's done, i put a nylon bag over my siphon just to help with filtering a little, when I put it in the carboy.