(D)IPA Extract Advice

So I am going to brew my first beer this weekend, and due to a family beerfest coming up in June, I've decided to go for broke and attempt a big IPA.

Anyways, here is the recipe I have compiled from a couple of Loose Cannon Clones I have come across on the forum (and ran by an experienced brewer, who said it looks ok):

Boil Size - 6.5 Gal
Batch Size - 5.5 Gal

DME - Light - 9 lb
Briess - Munich Malt 10L (Steeped) -1 lb
Caramel/Crystal Malt 20L (Steeped) - 1 lb
Cara-pils (Steeped) - 8 oz

Hop Schedule

Warrior (1 oz) - 60 min
Centennial (.5 oz) - 10 min
Simcoe (.5 oz) - 10 min
Palisade (.25 oz) - 5 min
Simcoe (.25 oz) - 5 min
Palisade (.25 oz) - 0 min

According to Brewtarget, this should get me 7.9 ABV, 52 IBUs, 1.081 OG, and 1.020 FG.

I would like to get a slightly higher OG, but when I add more DME, or just sugar, to Brewtarget it bumps my FG above 1.020, which seems high. Should I just add the sugar and not worry about my FG?

Here is my timeline:
Primary - 2 weeks
Secondary - 5 weeks (Dry hop at 4th week with Palisade (1 oz) and Centennial (1 oz))
Bottle - 3 weeks

Other than having lots of room for error, does anyone see any problems/want to offer any advice?

I get slightly different numbers when I enter that recipe into BrewSmith... Regardless, when I entered this recipe using Notty for the yeast and added a pound of Briess Dextrose (99% fermentable sugar), the est. ABV increased by 1.3% and the est. FG actually dropped one point. I'm no expert, but I would think that if you want to keep it on the drier side, check to make sure your yeast has high attenuation and can handle the expected ABV before dropping out and make sure the sugar you add to boost the ABV is highly fermentable.

I definitely would change up the grainbill- that will finish way too "heavy" and sweet. 1.5 pounds of cara/crystal malts is too much for an IIPA.

How about something more like this:

DME - Light -8 lb
1 pound corn sugar
1 pound Munich malt
.5 pound crystal malt (either the carapils or the crystal 20L, not both)

For hops, you've got a good start but you've got to double (at least) the late hops in order to make an IIPA.

Something more like this:
Warrior (1 oz) - 60 min (or .75 ounce, to get to about 45 IBUs with this addition only)
1 oz hops 15 minutes
1 oz hops 10 minutes
1 oz hops 5 minutes
1-2 oz hops flame out
Dryhop with 2 ounces hops for 5-7 days

As far as a timeline, this beer wouldn't need anything like 7 weeks in a fermenter! I rarely rack to a clearing vessel ("secondary") but you can if you want. A week or 10 days in the fermenter, and a week or two in the carboy (adding the dry hops for the last 5-7 days) would easily do it.

It's hard to predict FG with software. It just takes a % of the OG, without considering the ingredients. With the recipe's grainbill I posted, you should finish at 1.010-1.014ish.

Thanks for the help.

I am picking up some white labs (cal. ale) to make a starter tomorrow. I didn't even think about what type of sugar to use, I am guessing table sugar is not as easily as fermentable as the Briess Dextrose.

esr518 said:

Thanks for the help.

I am picking up some white labs (cal. ale) to make a starter tomorrow. I didn't even think about what type of sugar to use, I am guessing table sugar is not as easily as fermentable as the Briess Dextrose.

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Table sugar is fine! Dextrose is corn sugar, while table sugar tends to be beet sugar (or sometimes cane sugar). Either would work fine and give you the same results.

Bigger OG doesn't always mean better for a hoppy beer. Saying that you brewed a 10% IIPA is impressive, but you won't have optimal drinkability and refreshing hop character with all of that malt overload (and residual sweetness, which is notorious in extract beers). I think you get the best of both worlds if you shoot for somewhere around 1.070 OG and then dry it out as much as possible. The beer with still be very much about the hops, but you will have just enough support from the malt where it won't get in the way of refreshing the hop character and drinkability.

Munich is a base malt with diastatic power and residual starches. It should be mashed and therefore, not used in extract beers. Carapils is already inherent in DME, so adding more is redundant. And adding it on top of an already full-bodied extract IIPA will do more harm than good. Crystal 20 is fine here, but not at 9% of the grist. Cut that amount in half, get rid of the munich and carapils, and substitute a portion of your DME with 10% sucrose (sugar). I imagine 8 lbs. DME, 1 lb. sugar, and 1/2 lb. C20 should work. Just remember to add half of your DME and all of your sugar at flameout to avoid excessive darkening and to aid hop ulitilization. A full volume boil with no top off water is also key for this style of beer.

Hops need work. For an OG this high, you would be better off with not worrying about IBUs. Let the theoretical amount go well past 100. There comes a point when brewing an IIPA that counting overall IBUs becomes a useless feat. Wait for a full rolling boil before you add a ton of Warrior at 60 (like 2-3 oz). Add a 1 oz. addition around 30-20 or so. Then blast it late with Centennial, Simcoe, and Palisade. The closer to 0 min. and whirlpool the better. You'll need like 3-4 oz. for this slot. Follow this up with a 5 oz. dryhop for 7 days.

I would go ahead and make an appropriate sized yeast starter of WLP090. You need all of the help you can get to lower that FG, and this is one yeast that can get your extract IIPA below 1.015 if all other areas are met, i.e. sufficient pre-pitch oxygenation, accurate boil-off rate, adding a portion of simple sugars to the recipe, etc. Most extract IIPAs this big will indeed finish at 1.016-1.021 FG if such care to detail is not met. Lastly, I would do a 3 week primary and 1 week secondary. Hold at 64-66 F during active fermentation (first 7-10 days or so). A slight bit hotter than this (67-69 F) is okay for cleanup and the dryhop. Carbing at 72 F for 3 weeks is fine. Afterward, refrigerate the bottles for another week and then pop one open for a taste. Good luck!

Yea, I figured the 7 weeks was too much... I mostly just wanted to brew this weekend and it be ready in June. Say if I bottled much earlier, would it be okay to let them sit for a 6 weeks or so to drink, or would most of the hop flavor be gone by then?

+1 to everything bob said!

bob,

Thanks for the sage advice. I was hoping to get an ABV around 8%, so that's perfect. I will make sure to up the hops and wait until flameout to use half of my DME and sugar.

Yooper said:

...table sugar tends to be beet sugar (or sometimes cane sugar)...

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Depends on where you live. In Europe regular (table) sugar is mostly from beet. Pretty much everywhere else it is usually from cane.

It is both the exact same chemical compound, sucrose (also sometimes called saccharose).

That said, you could use regular (table) sugar from the 5# grocery store bags. The yeast won't know the difference and gobble it up like, well, candy.