7th Hoppin' IPA - 12 oz hops, none in the boil

[ianmatth]

Due to some recent recommendations by bobbrews in the Heady Topper thread and also based on my own experience, I decided to change my 7th Hoppin' IPA recipe so it includes no hops in the boil.

I didn't use any acidulated malt so my pH was way too high at first and I had to adjust it during the mash. This also probably caused my efficiency to be lower than usual. pH was ultimately 5.6 at room temp which is really the upper limit of what I think is acceptable, 5.4 is much more ideal. I'm sure this will be a great IPA, but I think the next one will be better as I plan to go with ~2% acidulated malt in the future.

In other bad news the Conan yeast that I harvested from a can of Heady Topper got infected after a bit over a year so I'm now using the Giga Yeast version. Hopefully the efficiency matches up because I had a damn good strain.

5.5 Gallons:
10 lbs Pearl Malt
1/2 lbs Caramalt
4 tsp Gypsum
Mash at 147* for 10 minutes in 5 gallons water
pH was way too high so I added 2 gallons 170* slightly acidic water
Mash at 152* for 60 minutes
Sparge at 168*
10 ml IBU injector @ 90 minutes,
1.5 oz Simcoe, 3/4 oz CTZ, 3/4 oz Comet, 1/4 oz Apollo, 1/4 oz Centennial, 1/4 oz Citra, 1/4 oz El Dorado @ 180* Aroma steep for 30 minutes

1.047 OG
Pitched 200 billion cells of Conan

1st dry hop on day 8:
3/4 oz Simcoe, 1/2 oz CTZ, 1/2 oz Comet, 1/4 oz Apollo, 1/4 oz Centennial, 1/4 oz Citra, 1/4 oz El Dorado

Plan to add same dry hop on day 13 and 2.5 oz of mainly leaf dry hop on day 18 for a grand triple dry hopping total of 8 oz.

 

[m00ps]

I've used the gigayeats Conan extensively and it works great. Attenuation seems to get better with each successive generation.

As for the recipe, I think it looks great. I love adding most of my hops post-boil. With a hopstand added, it really gives a great punch of hop flavor with no bitter bite at the end, my mom will even drink my IPAs. That being said, why are you doing 1/4oz additions of all the hops? Do you only have 1/2oz of each of those? I'd just double all the 1/4oz additions so the recipe calls for an even oz of each of those hops. I used a total of 15oz in my last IPA and it was still as drinkable as cool-aid. I've found it almost impossible to go overboard with post-boil hops

 

[ianmatth]

I'm going for a particular percentage of dank to fruity hops and using those particular 7 hops, so with some hops only 1/4 oz is needed.

 

[ianmatth]

Added 2nd dry hop.

 

[ianmatth]

Added final dry hop: 1 oz Citra leaf, 1/2 oz Simcoe leaf, 1/4 oz Apollo leaf, 1/4 oz CTZ leaf, 1/4 oz Centennial leaf, 1/4 oz Comet for 2.5 oz total 3rd dry hop and 8 oz of total dry hops.

 

[olotti]

I look forward to seeing how this turns out as I'm intrigued by the no boil hop approach.

 

[ddicker60]

Acidulated malt really helped my last double IPA. It was only that, base malt and sugar. What a great base for Nelson and mosaic in a double IPA!!

 

[ianmatth]

Bottled everything. Final gravity was 1.009.

 

[ianmatth]

Overall the beer was very good, but the beers where I had a lower pH were better.

I did the recipe again and added 3 oz acidulated malt. I mashed at 148* for 60 minutes in 5.5 gallons of water, did a step mash at 156* by adding 2.75 gallons of 190 water, and didn't do a sparge because I collected 7.5 gallons in my kettle from that. I didn't measure pH in the initial mash, but I imagine it was around 5.3. The 2.75 gallons of water was highly alkaline and there was no Gypsum in it so my kettle pH was 5.55. I'm going to use slightly acidic water in the future for my step mash and sparge water.

Ended up with 5.5 gallons at 1.043 OG so I'm not happy with the efficiency. Next time I'll use less water in my mashes and do a sparge. A higher OG could help pH as well. I also think the double-milled malt I get from Farmhouse Brewing gets better efficiency than the single-milled malt from MoreBeer, but Farmhouse doesn't have a 10 pound special on Pearl Malt so it is much less expensive to get it from MoreBeer, especially with the free shipping.

 

[ianmatth]

Added first dry hop: 1/2 oz Simcoe, 1/4 oz CTZ, 1/4 oz Comet, 1/4 oz Apollo, 1/4 oz Centennial, 1/4 oz Citra, 1/4 oz El Dorado

Gravity was down to 1.013.

 

[m00ps]

how did the 4 tsp of gypsum turn out? I've only used like 1-1.5 tsp in my IPAs. I worry about overdoing it

 

[ianmatth]

A lot of this is based on the Heady Topper clone. They did some tests on the actual Heady Topper and someone even tested their clone, (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=481031, page 5).

He used 22g gypsum in 4.77 gallons strike water which is over 4 tsp. His sulfate was a little higher, but his calcium was a little lower. I only use 2 tsp gypsum for stouts, but for IPAs I would definitely say 4 tsp is the way go. Ultimately it does depend on your source water, but I seriously doubt anyone has source water with extremely high levels of sulfate.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Wow that recipe looks great!!

I have found that targeting ~450ppm sulfate, 150ppm chloride and 270ppm calcium in my mash with no other additions makes for a nice IPA or IIPA. It brings my mash ph down to about 5.3-5.4 with no messing around.

The salt additions look super high but after a little sparge it works out nicely. I also mash 1.5qt/# for og less than 1.070 and 1.6qt/# for og above 1.070.

 

[ianmatth]

I added the 2nd and final dry hop a few days ago, 2 oz of whole leaf hops: 1/2 oz Simcoe leaf, 1/4 oz CTZ leaf, 1/4 oz Apollo leaf, 1/4 oz Centennial leaf, 3/4 oz Citra leaf

 

[ianmatth]

Bottled the most recent batch. Gravity was down to 1.006. Tastes pretty good. Will see how it turns out after carbonating.

 

[ianmatth]

The last run with the acidulated malt turned out really good. If there was a Heady Topper Light this could be it. My complaints would be that it is a little too light and too dry and a little too bitter for the level of body. If one was trying to make a great IPA at this OG I would suggest using less hop extract and mashing at a higher temperature and using wheat or oat in the mash bill so it will have more body and won't be as dry.

At this point I think I'm done with continuing beers in this thread. The no hops in the boil approach with high hardness and proper pH is definitely the way to go for IPAs. I know what I need to do to get my mash pH right now and I have a good idea of how to get my boil pH a little lower next time as well. I'm probably going to do a quadruple-hopped DIPA using 1 lbs of hops for my next DIPA, and I expect that one to be better than the real Heady Topper.

 

[m00ps]

Ive got an IPA fermenting now that I upped to 21oz of hops (or will by the time its done). Im so paranoid about it getting oxygenated and loosing that precious hop aroma before I keg it that it keeps me up at night. I dont even let people look at it

Ive found you really cant overdue post-flameout additions. The bitterness never reaches the levels youd expect but the hop character sure does