First Orignal IPA Recipe - Thoughts?

[deadphish]

I've gone through changing this over and over again, some of you may have given me advice already, but brew day is tomorrow. I think this is what I'm going to do but I'd like your thoughts before I had to the homebrew store.

I wanted to go for a citrusy IPA/pale ale so I went with a combo of Centennial Cascade and Citra/Mosiac hops.

5 gallon batch

6 lbs gold LME
1 lbs gold DME
.5 lbs Caramel Crystal 40L (steeped)

Hops
1 oz Centennial 60 min
.5 oz Cascade 20 min
.5 oz Cascade 10 min
1 oz Cascade 0 min

I will then split the batch in 2 and dry hop 1/2 with 1 oz Citra and the other 1/2 with Mosiac.

I ran it through BrewToad and shows
OG 1.053
48 IBU
5.9% abv

What does everyone think? Should I be good to go? Havent hit the store yet so I can make some last minute changes if needed.

 

[JustLooking]

Not an IPA, but it'll be beer. Brew it!

 

[deadphish]

Not an IPA, but it'll be beer. Brew it!

What do you think, more of a Pale Ale?

 

[JustLooking]

Yeah, but if your looking for easy drinking it'll be fine.

 

[deadphish]

Excellent, thanks!

I edited the title for accuracy.

 

[aking]

Definitely a PA recipe. Looks good

 

[Owly055]

What do you think, more of a Pale Ale?

Not an American IPA perhaps................ but the IBUs are right in the range for a TRUE original British IPA......... citrus hops were NOT even available when the original IPAs were made. Hops similar to UK Goldings and Fuggles, and imports like Northern Brewer would have been the backbone for a true IPA. They also were really not "pale" as we know it, but actually more of a reddish color, much darker than modern American IPAs. They were pale compared to the dark sweet beers that were popular in the UK in the 1800s.

I don't think we can use what we know as IPA today as a valid benchmark of what an IPA is. The British troops in India might have enjoyed an American IPA, had one been available then, but would not have recognized it as being an IPA as they knew it.


H.W.

 

[chickypad]

Actually I think it's going to come out more like an american amber with all that amber extract. There's probably C-60 and maybe some munich in it. That's fine if it's what you want. If you want more control over the ingredients I would get light extract and add your own specialty malts in the amounts you want.

 

[deadphish]

Actually I think it's going to come out more like an american amber with all that amber extract. There's probably C-60 and maybe some munich in it. That's fine if it's what you want. If you want more control over the ingredients I would get light extract and add your own specialty malts in the amounts you want.

I'll probably do that in the future, but for now I trying to stay simple as its only by 4th real brew.

 

[Yooper]

It's got way to much amber malt extract, as that is going to be very heavy to crystal malt. The crystal for steeping is fine, and up to a pound is ok in a pale ale but the amber extract means doubling (or tripling) up on it and will mean a lot of residual sweetness and probably a high FG.

I'd use light or extra light extract, even for beers like a stout, and use specialty grains for color and flavor.

If you've already bought the amber extract, then leave out the crystal malt and just use the extract. That would help. If you haven't bought the extract yet, then buy the lightest you can find (light, pale, or extra light) and go ahead and use the crystal malt in the recipe.

 

[deadphish]

I havent bought anything yet, so I can get light.

Also, what is the difference between gold and amber lme? I may have confused the 2.

 

[chickypad]

Gold is usually base malt while amber has additional specialty malts. Always depends on the maltster, but for example NB gold is pale malt and a small amount carapils, Briess golden is 99% base malt and 1% carapils. Both their amber extracts contain crystal 60 and munich. So to Yooper's point you are already adding specialty malts with darker extracts and may be over shooting if you don't take that into account.

 

[deadphish]

Gotcha, so I should be adding gold malt, not amber