IPA recipe from my odds and ends - suggestions to tweak?

[stansoid]

Hello everyone,

When I make a beer I tend to order grain bills for each batch I make, but I seem to always end up with a bit of grain or a pack of hops left over. I took an inventory of my grain stock/hops acquired since last Christmas and consolidated everything. From that I put together the IPA recipe below.

Any suggestions on if something in it should be omitted or cut down are appreciated.. Also the yeast I am using (Yeast bay Vermont ale) attenuates between 75% to 82%. I want to stay on the lower side of that. I plan to mash at 66.6 C (152f) to compensate for that. Any mash temp suggestions also appreciated.


I tried to keep you hops to the citrusey variety (again based on what I have). I may or may may dry hop it. My thought process (given what I have in my house) is to make a fairly malty base for it and to look at good head retention.

The bones of the grain bill are very loosely based on the zombie dust clone.

Grain bill:

3 kg (6.6 lb of 50.7%) 2-row

2kg (4.4 lb or 30.8%) Maris Otter

200 g (7 oz or 3.38%) Carafoam

300g (10oz or 5.25%) Crystal 60

200 g (7oz or 3.38%) Melanodian

40 g (1.4oz or 0.68%) Aromatic

160 g (5.6oz or 2.7%) Victory

84.6% base grains and 15.4% specialty grains.



Hop schedule:

24 g (1 oz) pacific jade 60 min

14 g (.5 oz) Centennial 10 min

15g (.5 oz) Cascade 5 min

14 – 24g (0.5 to 1 oz) Citra 0 min (essentially all the citra I have leftover from a zombie dust.. I didn't weight out the total hops)


Yeast - repitch of yeast bay Vermont ale yeast currently fermenting a batch of centennial blonde.

Expected results:

Batch size: 19L (5 gal or 1 full keg of goodness)
SG: 1.069
Target FG 1.018
Target ABV: 6.49%
IBU: 45.4
ECB: 19

Thoughts?

 

[stansoid]

Also useful here is the grain I have available. My apologies the pictures appear to be sideways and also entirely in metric.


http://imgur.com/LJ2W1e3

http://imgur.com/J4AN65Y

 

[IanCompetent]

It sounds like a good recipe. The Maris/2-Row combo makes for a nice base that's clean with some complexity and you have a hop bill that can't miss.

The only suggestions that I would have would be to take out the C60 (caramel flavours with citrus-y type hops never worked for me) and to get that SG and FG down. I have a preference for dry beers, so I mash low (142-144 F) and shoot for FGs between 1.008-1.010.

If you are keeping the SG/FG numbers you have, you could just add a bit more base malt to up your SG. The melanoidin will provide enough malt balance on its own and you should still end up with a nice colour.

I have to admit that I'm not familiar with the yeast strain that you are using. Is it the Alchemist/Heady Topper yeast?? If it is, that's a great attenuator. You'd have no issues at all with

You other option is to just tell me to shove it and follow what you have. Either way, let us know how it turns out and good luck!!

 

[NedStackey]

Hi. I would dry hop if you have enough. Personally I've been getting away from using crystal malt in my IPAs, I think maybe the crystal and melanodian malt may make this a pretty sweet IPA. Just my 2 cents.

 

[stansoid]

I am not too worried about those making it sweet. I have used a very similar mix of crystal 60 and melanodian in the zombie dust clone and it turned out well on that front.

Regarding the dry hops - I could hold back all the citra and dry hop with it. It is not part of the bittering factor.

 

[brewprint]

I would surely dry hop. An IPA turns into something else if not dry hopped IMHO.

If that's all the hops you have I would buy more

 

[stansoid]

Definitely a possibility, unfortunately it's all mail order in my town, which is a pain. I think you are right thou.. I think that hop bill for bittering plus something interesting to dry hop with if I get a chance when I am doing my out of town Christmas visits. Any suggestion for a dry hop? More citra? Something else?

 

[brewprint]

I love Citra but I believe cascade or centennial are awesome as well.

 

[stansoid]

So I made this and I left the grain bill alone. I made an error in beersmith while doing the calculations. My target post boil volume was 19L but I set it for 21.something L total in beersmith. As a result it is now an imperial IPA. It ended up at an SG of 1.075.

I dropped the last hop addition from the plan and picked up 3 oz of fresh citra to dry hop it with while I was in Toronto Christmas shopping last weekend.

Due to the recipe being based on leftovers and my minor ****up on the gravity, I have named it the Imperial Ineffective Planning Ale (being an ipa and such).

IanComoetent - it is the heddy topper yeast. I am repitching it from a batch of centennial blonde I made. This yeast takes off fast when you follow the manufacturers temp schedule. Pitched last night at 6:30pm, by 11pm it was going full blast.

I'm going to enter this in our regional contest in January if its any good.

 

[m00ps]

good call on picking up all the extra hops. ~3oz for a 5gal IPA isn't really going to be a IPA. A higher abv pale ale maybe. But certainly not a IIPA

 

[stansoid]

I am interested in entering it in competition so I would like to get the category correct.

I think you are right in that it will not qualify as an imperial or double IPA. At 55 IBU it is not bitter enough by about 5 points. At 7.5% abv its really on the fence between IPA and IIPA.

That said it should fall pretty squarely in the bjcp definition of an American IPA if the abv stays at or below 7.5.

Beer smith estimates it is at 55 IBU and the 3 oz of citra is what I use as a dry hop in the zombie dust clone to successfully impart aroma.

Bjcp guidelines for 14B is

Vital Statistics:
OG: 1.056 – 1.075
IBUs: 40 – 70
FG: 1.010 – 1.018
SRM: 6 – 15
ABV: 5.5 – 7.5%

It's looking to land in the middle of all of those, save gravity and abv which are on the extreme ends of that.

 

[m00ps]

Well the advantage you have is that no judge can determine the abv or ibus regardless of their palate. I'd just enter it as an ipa and say it's 7 percent or below

 

[stansoid]

That is a really really good point

 

[stansoid]

Update on this. It fermented down to 1.016. Dry hopped it with 3 oz citra just now. I'll crash and fine it on Tuesday

 

[stansoid]

It turned out well. Very tastey.

View attachment 1452353665373.jpg

 

[m00ps]

nice. do you always pair your IPAs with antiperspirant deodorant? I would think the aromas would clash

 

[stansoid]

nice. do you always pair your IPAs with antiperspirant deodorant? I would think the aromas would clash

Of course! Also the door off the hinges and the wallpapering kit behind it really bring out the hop aroma