Will someone critique this recipe to help me get what im looking for.

[thebamaking]

this was the ipa recipe i was going to try...

Partial mash

7 lb. organic 2 row
1 lb. cara-pils
1 lb. crystal 20
3 lb. extra light dme

2 oz chinook at start of boil
1 oz amarillo at 30 min
1 oz centennial at 30 min
1 tsp. irish moss at 10 min
1 oz centenntial at 5 min
1 oz amarillo at 5 min

dry hop with 1 oz of amarillo and 1 oz centennial

white labs california ale yeast


i'm looking for an extremely dry, bitter hoppy ipa that has somewhat of a back bone. i like hop ottin ipa, but would prefer it to be hoppier with a little more body and less sweetness. Thank you very much for any critiques that will help.

 

[KevinW]

Sounds pretty good to me!
What is your mash temp and what yeast are you using?

 

[thebamaking]

i was gonna mash around 150 for about an hour do you think i should go a little lower or higher? i'll be using while labs california ale

 

[BendBrewer]

Looks like you'll get what you are looking for. I like to use Canadian Pilsner Malt in place of the 2-row as it just seems to be a little drier and/or cleaner but that could just be me.

 

[KevinW]

150° sounds like a good temp for a nice dry beer and the yeast should help get you down there too.

Without my beersmith software it is hard to compute but WLP001 attenuating about 75-80% in the upper 60's low 70's, I would go with the 150°. My thinking is if you dry your beer out too much that could make the hops a bit harsh, but then again, I am not the best source for that type of information

 

[maltMonkey]

I would get rid of a lot of that crystal if it were me. IPAs should be dry, and since that's what you're looking for I would change the 1 lb crystal 20 to 1/2 lb crystal 40 - you will get the same color. I would be tempted to cut the carapils in half too, but that's me.
Other than that it looks good.

 

[thebamaking]

i appreciate it man...i might cut the crystal all together because sweetness isn't a characteristic i desire too much. the cara pils, i might cut to 1/2 pound might leave it not sure yet i wish someone could calculate the ibu's and such...

 

[BendBrewer]

What is your boil volume bama?

 

[mojotele]

You'll get some Carapils in there from the extract. Generally, light and extra-light extract is made by mashing base malt and Carapils.

But, if you want a thicker mouthfeel than you generally get from extract, feel free to keep the Carapils in.

 

[BendBrewer]

And I wouldn't drop all of the Crystal. Use 1/2# instead but eliminating it is going to give you a very light colored ale.

 

[r_flagg]

Plugged it into Brew Pal and got the following:

1.056 pre-boil
1.072 post-boil
1.020 final
6.8% abv
124 IBUs!!!!!!!!!!
Balance 1.73 - balanced beer is at .5, so you're pretty much off the charts as far as bitterness (at least according to Brew Pal)

Also plugged into iBrewMaster and got closer to 145 IBUs. YooperBrew said somewhere that the human palette maxes out around 100 IBUs, so maybe a little overkill. Could be just me, but I'd save some for another batch.

 

[mojotele]

With 70% efficiency, Beer Smith calculates an OG of 1.071 with 141.3 IBUs. Of course, the IBUs depend on the alpha acid % of your hops. I just used the Beer Smith defaults.

I think the beer might be a tad unbalanced as well. Hops are good and all, but you do want to keep the appropriate balance or you'll just end up with very harsh hop juice. Judging by this graph:

You may want to try 60 IBUs or so.

EDIT: FYI, the Dogfish Head 120 minute has 120 IBUs and an OG of like 1.200. Yours has more IBUs with a much lower OG.

 

[mojotele]

This would give you 60 IBUs, which is probably as high as you'd want to go given your OG:

0.85 oz Chinook (AA 13%) @ 60 min
0.42 oz Centennial (AA 10%) @ 30 min
0.42 oz Amarillo (AA 8.5%) @ 30 min
0.42 oz Amarillo (AA 8.5%) @ 5 min
0.42 oz Centennial (AA 10%) @ 5 min

 

[ajf]

With 70% efficiency, Beer Smith calculates an OG of 1.071 with 141.3 IBUs. Of course, the IBUs depend on the alpha acid % of your hops. I just used the Beer Smith defaults.

I think the beer might be a tad unbalanced as well. Hops are good and all, but you do want to keep the appropriate balance or you'll just end up with very harsh hop juice. Judging by this graph:

You may want to try 60 IBUs or so.

EDIT: FYI, the Dogfish Head 120 minute has 120 IBUs and an OG of like 1.200. Yours has more IBUs with a much lower OG.

I've seen that chart several times, and I think is was developed by a lager drinker.
I disagree with the use of the word "balanced".
If you make a lager, then the chart may be fairly accurate. (Although I haven't checked it against the style guidelines.)
If you make a pale ale or bitter, then "balanced" should be moved several points to the right, and if you make an IPA, balanced should move even further to the right.
My special bitters (according to that chart) are described as extra hoppy, yet I have had many commercial special bitters that are much more bitter than what I usually brew, as well as some that are less bitter.
My IPA's are completely off the chart. In fact, I don't think that most IPA's would fit in the chart.

-a.

 

[mojotele]

I've seen that chart several times, and I think is was developed by a lager drinker.
I disagree with the use of the word "balanced".
If you make a lager, then the chart may be fairly accurate. (Although I haven't checked it against the style guidelines.)
If you make a pale ale or bitter, then "balanced" should be moved several points to the right, and if you make an IPA, balanced should move even further to the right.
My special bitters (according to that chart) are described as extra hoppy, yet I have had many commercial special bitters that are much more bitter than what I usually brew, as well as some that are less bitter.
My IPA's are completely off the chart. In fact, I don't think that most IPA's would fit in the chart.

-a.

Fair enough!

ajf has far more experience than myself, so I defer to his judgement.

 

[Yooper]

I'd probably just ditch those 30 minute hops additions. If you want hoppy, move those 30 minute additions to very late in the boil. I'd add centennial at 10 minutes and 1 minute, amarillo at 5 minutes and flame out, for example. Then the beer would not be so bitter, and would have great flavor! To me, the key of a great IPA is hops aroma and flavor, so you need more hops late in the boil.

 

[thebamaking]

Once again, i appreciate yall...from what i gather, my recipe is fine except i need to cut the crystal malts in half as well as the cara pils...thank yall once again...

 

[thebamaking]

haha i guess i'm gonna not add all the hops, but i want it to be off the charts as far as ibu's go, but wow 140 sounds kind of rediculous. im also gonna move the additions to later in the boil like yall suggested...thanks a lot!

 

[kshuler]

Still, if you run the recipes for something like Pliny the Elder through Beersmith you end up with IBUS around 200 (and with a similar OG of 1.071). The bitterness ratio calculated by Beersmith is 2.81. It is bitter, don't get me wrong, but from a number like that you would expect MAJOR pucker factor. Yet it is quite a drinkable beer. Granted, that is a DIPA, and you are going for an IPA, so maybe it is a bad comparison. I think hop utilization must drop off substantially when you use a lot of hops. The actual MEASURED IBUs in Pliny is around 100- a substantial drop from what would be calculated from the recipe.

Perhaps you should try your recipe as is, then take good notes and see what you did and didn't like about it, then change things next time around?

Klaus

 

[thebamaking]

that sounds like a good idea, because i've not to this day had a beer and said "that is way too hoppy". then again, i don't want to ruin a whole batch...i think i'm just going to switch to a lot later additions, and hope it's drinkable...

 

[mojotele]

I think hop utilization must drop off substantially when you use a lot of hops. The actual MEASURED IBUs in Pliny is around 100- a substantial drop from what would be calculated from the recipe.

I never thought of that, but it actually makes a lot of sense. It makes me wonder what the saturation point of bittering compounds like isomerized alpha acids is in wort. It probably depends on a number of factors, but, if it can be reasonably reached, there may be a ceiling on the amount of bitterness you can get in a particular beer without taking steps to supersaturate it. Once wort is saturated with isomerized alpha acids, for instance, any more isomerized alpha acids added will become precipitate.

Anyway, I don't want to take this thread too far off track. Thanks for opening up my mind a bit