My first All-Grain English IPA

[atreid]

Hello everyone!

I'm new here and would like inputs on my second all-grain batch.

I'm planning to brew an English IPA. Here are the details of my recipe.
Made it from scratch using information found here and there about the different ingredients I chose:

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Name: Shambolic IPA
Boil Size: 39.50 l (10.43 gal)
Post Boil Volume: 30.98 l (8.18 gal)
Batch Size (fermenter): 26.00 l (6.87 gal)
Bottling Volume: 24.00 l (6.34 gal)
Estimated OG: 1.066 SG
Estimated Color: 18.5 EBC (9.4 SRM)
Estimated IBU: 60.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 74.5 %
Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Single infusion mash at 2.5 l/kg water/grain ratio (1.2 qt/lb)

Grains:
7.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Bairds) (15 lbs 6.9 oz)
1.00 kg Munich 20L (Briess) (2 lbs 3.3 oz)
0.50 kg Biscuit (Dingemans) (1 lbs 1.6 oz)

Hops: (all Pellets except Leaf for Dry Hop)
50.00 g Target [10.00 %] - Boil 75.0 min (1.76 oz)
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 45.0 (0.88 oz)
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 14.0 min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 3.0 min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 1.0 min
56.00 g Fuggles [3.90 %] - Dry Hop 10.0 Days (1.98 oz)

Misc:
0.75 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 7.0 mins)

Yeast:
Burton Ale (White Labs #WLP023) (With an appropriate starter calculated using Mr.Malty)

Water:
I plan to copy the Burton on Trent water profile from Beersmith using salts and 49 liters of Montreal water based on Montreal's 2010 water profile.
In order of Ca, Mg, Na, SO4, Cl, HCO3 (ppm):
Montreal 2010 : 30.7 , 7.9 , 12.0 , 24.2 , 23.5 , 106.0
Burton on Trent : 295.0 , 45.0 , 55.0 , 725.0 , 25.0 , 300.0

To reach Burton, I need to add: 47g of Gypsum, 20.7g of Epsom salt, 8.6g of Baking soda, 5.4g of Chalk.
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Don't over analyze my Efficiency and Boil time, as I'll modify the recipe hops addition live depending on the efficiency of the mash I'll be getting. My first all-grain mash only got me to 65% but I did no mash out and had trouble with my sparge temperature and barely sparged at 65-70 degrees Celcius (149 - 158 F). I'm hoping my nice CPVC manifold will give me more with decent mashout and sparge temperature. So I'll try to reach a decent gravity and ajust the boil time to reach my target batch volume.

My main points are:

If I was to boil for 120 minutes... Is there a reason I shouldn't? What's the longest time I should boil? Do I risk caramelizing my wort?

Is the Irish Moss addition right? I read 15 minutes before the end of the boil was actually too much... Quantity ok?

Is the Burton on Trent water profile the right one for an English IPA? I read the high HCO3 was going to make the hops sharper.

I read I should mash at 65.5 Celcius (150 F) for 90 minutes to get more fermentables and let me have a more attenuating wort.

What about the grains? (Too bad no UK Munich grain at my LHBS but the rest is pretty UK )

Feel free to comment on my recipe, I really appreciate it. Can't wait to brew this...!

Thanks and

 

[bierhaus15]

Don't use the Briess 20L Munich malt! In large amounts it has a very sickly-sweet flavor that overpowers most other grains and is definitely the wrong flavor for an English IPA. I don't know how they get away calling it a Munich malt, the stuff is so vile. I would drop all of it in place of some English crystal malt, 40 or 60L at no more than 8% of the grain bill.

Also, you really don't need that high calcium and sulfate in IPA. Unless you like extremely minerally tasting beer, I'd cut those numbers by 2/3. Something like Ca 150, 350 SO4, and 35 Cl would be much more pleasing tasting than what is often listed for (750 SO4) Burton IPA.

 

[atreid]

Thank you very much for your input!

I was thinking of removing the whole 1.00 kg Munich 20L (Briess) (2 lbs 3.3 oz)
and using instead 0.50 kg Caramel Malt 70/80 (Hugh Bairds) (1 lbs 1.6 oz).
This way it's only 6.25% of the grain bill.

I could also remove the Munich 20L and double the Biscuit from 0.5 kg to 1 kg...? That would make Biscuit 12.5%; maybe too much I'm guessing, especially combined with the Maris Otter...

You might also be right about the water profile. It would be my first time messing with my tap water so I do lack experience. I came up with new water corrections:
Burton: Ca 295, Mg 45, Na 55, SO4 725, Cl 25, HCO3 300
Corrected: Ca 143, Mg 30, Na 31, SO4 299, Cl 33, HCO3 198

Actually, I just read, in "How to Brew", that 0-50 ppm HCO3 is best for pale ale beers. I don't really want to dilute my water, but I could let my HCO3 at 100 ppm and now I wonder why I read that Burton water is a good water profile for English IPA with its 300 ppm HCO3... So I could brew with this newly corrected water profile?:
Ca 135, Mg 17, Na 21, SO4 302, Cl 38, HCO3 109

Or maybe the first HCO3 198 corrected profile was good? I'm not sure anymore... ;-)

Thanks again!

 

[ajf]

I agree with Bierhaus. I once used some Briess Munich. Never again. Perhaps I'll try Munich again from a different maltster.
I also agree about the crystal. The Bairds you suggested looks fine.
With the MO and the crystal, I don't see any need for biscuit.
I also agree with him about the water (almost). About 18g gypsum, split between the mash and the boil should give you something close to 150 ppm Ca, 30 ppm Cl, and 350 ppm SO4 and according to EZ_water_calculator 3.0, your mash pH should be right in the middle of the range.
This is exactly what Terry foster recommends in Pale Ales for an "original" IPA, and I have found his recommendations to be very good.
The Burton water profile can use high HCO3 values because of the excessive SO4 values (and the two cancel each other out when thinking about pH adjustments).
I wouldn't bother adjusting the Mg, as (according to George Fix, and several others) malt contains sufficient Mg for fermentation purposes.
I like the 150F mash for 90 minutes (it's what I use for all my English beers), and don't see anything wrong with the Irish moss if you feel the need to use it. I quite often forget to add it completely, and I'm not sure that I can detect any difference.
I like the hops (except the dry hopping with fuggles, I'd use EKG), but Promash (using Tinseth) estimates > 100 IBU's. I see nothing wrong with that. In fact I like it.

[EDIT] And WLP023 is my favorite yeast for an English IPA. [/EDIT]

Looks like a good solid recipe. Let me know if you need help drinking it.

-a.

 

[atreid]

Thank you ajf for your input.

I might remove the 0.5 kg of Biscuit, only let the 0.5 kg of Caramel 70/80, and use 8 kg of Maris instead of 7 kg, while upping the target Batch from 26 liters to 27 liters. With all this, Beersmith says I have OG 1.064 with 6.5% ABV. This leaves me room if I do get a better efficiency than 65%, which might probably be the case. I reach 7.0% ABV at 70% efficiency and 7.5% at 75% (odd numbers eh) ;-)

Your Promash estimates though, can't trust them... I read a lot of comments about Promash over-over-estimating... Actually, so far Beersmith has been over-evaluating my IBUs. My partial mash American IPA has 64 on file but it barely feels as a flat 45, which is totally disappointing... and yes, I do measure PreBoil gravity and correct my hop additions live to make sure I reach my targets... (I'm using Tinseth too)

I wish I could dry hop with EKG, but my LHBS only has EKG as pellets and I'm really not very enthusiastic about dryhopping with pellets... Maybe I should order EKG Leaf online...
Any reason why you wouldn't like Fuggles as dry hop? I chose it because I read Fuggles is used often in English IPAs, but maybe it wasn't about dry hop...

Thank you and good evening!

 

[Golddiggie]

I would move the 45 minute EKG addition to 20 minutes. That way you'll get flavor from the addition, not just IBU's. I would also tweak the other additions to 15 and 5 minutes (instead of 14 and 3), keep the 1.

For dry hopping, you should get the same results from either pellet or whole leaf. That being said, I've only used whole hops for my dry hopping so far (my brew-buddy uses pellets with solid results). I have used EKG and Fuggles (50/50 split/mix) to dry hop with solid results. They seem to pair up really well together. I would also reduce the dry hop time to a solid week (7 days only). Depending on how much you want from the dry hopping, I would go with somewhere between 1 and 3 ounces total. I'll be drinking the batch that I used 2oz total (1oz each of EKG and Fuggles) tonight.

For the grist, I've typically used UK 2 row (either Bairds pale ale or Maris Otter) for my English IPA/PA's... The last one I made had 13# UK 2 row, 1# crystal Maris Otter (a 55L MO from Rebel Brewer), .5# British Crystal Malt II (65L), and .5# honey malt. That was half the BCMII and honey malt over my previous batch. I went with just over an ounce of EKG (7.20% AA) at 60, then one ounce at 20, 15, 10, 1 and then dry hopped with 1oz each EKG and Fuggles whole hops for a week. Flat sample, at kegging time, was really good, so looking forward to drinking it now that it's carbonated. BTW, I got about 53 IBU's with that hop schedule, which is solid for an English IPA.

I'm focusing on styles from the British Isles currently. I'm working to perfect my English IPA brewing it every 3-5 batches. I think I have the hop portion nailed, and could have the grist there with this batch.

BTW, I use either 1/2 or 1 tsp of Irish Moss in my brews. On the higher side for pale ales.

 

[DeGarre]

Works for me. I also use Target for bittering, then paint a pretty picture on top of it with other hops.

 

[ajf]

Your Promash estimates though, can't trust them... I read a lot of comments about Promash over-over-estimating...

I can trust the Promash estimates, but not my typing. I added 2.76 oz Target at 60 mins instead of 1.76.
By default, Promash will estimate higher IBUs than Beersmith because Promash is set up to use whole hops and Beersmith is set up to use pellets. Promash adjusts the AA% upwards if you use pellets, and Beersmith adjusts the AA% downwards if you use whole leaf. It's a simple adjustment with either program to make them behave the same. FWIW, I use Promash and whole leaf hops in the boil.

I wish I could dry hop with EKG, but my LHBS only has EKG as pellets and I'm really not very enthusiastic about dryhopping with pellets... Maybe I should order EKG Leaf online...

I dry hop with pellets. I can't imagine forcing 1 - 2 ounces whole hops through the neck of a carboy, or trying to clean the carboy when it's finished. I haven't been able to find any good whole leaf EKG on-line for a number of years. I've used US hops instead. They are a whole bunch better than very poor quality EKG.

Any reason why you wouldn't like Fuggles as dry hop? I chose it because I read Fuggles is used often in English IPAs, but maybe it wasn't about dry hop...

I just don't like Fuggles in a pale ale, but I have used Willamette when I was completely unable to get any other finishing hops.

-a.

 

[atreid]

ajf: I think since Beersmith 2, it's no longer the case. From the program Settings, you have to enter a % for Leaf Hop Adjustment, Plug Hop Adjustment and Pellet Hop Adjustment. Leaf is at 0%, Plug at 2% and Pellet at 10%, which tells me Leaf is base. I read the same thing in the forum (about the Beersmith 1.4 vs 2.0 base switch).
Also, you say you dryhop with Pellets, but do you use some kind of Nylon bag? I'm asking because I read some posts about people complaining about debris in their beers when dry hopping with pellets.


Ok so from all your comments, I modified my recipe a bit and decided, among other things, to remove Fuggles completly. I often read Fuggles is close to Willamette and since I've used Willamette in all my brews (4 for now), I'd rather try out a different flavor. I'll be using Target as main bittering, and EKG only for aroma and dry hop. I had 3 short aroma hop EKG additions, now I have 5, I want a very aromatic hoppy beer. I'll use 50g Pellet EKG but I wonder if I might even use 100g.

Oh and screw it, I now assume 70% efficiency, no way I'll still be at only 65% with my new equipement and with a decent sparge temperature.

Here's the new recipe. Even if I can't stand english units, I still included them in the recipe for all my american friends!

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Name: Shambolic IPA
Boil Size: 36.03 l (9.52 gal)
Post Boil Volume: 29.64 l (7.83 gal)
Batch Size (fermenter): 26.00 l (6.87 gal)
Bottling Volume: 24.00 l (6.34 gal)
Estimated OG: 1.063 SG
Estimated Color: 20.8 EBC (10.5 SRM)
Estimated IBU: 60.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 76.7 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Single infusion mash at 2.5 l/kg water/grain ratio (1.2 qt/lb)

Grains:
7.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Bairds) (15 lbs 6.9 oz)
0.50 kg Caramel Malt - 70/80 (Hugh Bairds) (1 lbs 1.6 oz)

Hops: (all Pellets except Leaf for Dry Hop)
50.00 g Target [10.00 %] - Boil 58.0 min (1.76 oz)
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 15.0 (0.88 oz)
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 8.0 min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 3.0 min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Boil 1.0 min
50.00 g Goldings, East Kent [4.70 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days (1.76 oz) (Probably Pellets if I can't find Leaf)

Misc:
0.75 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)

Yeast:
Burton Ale (White Labs #WLP023) (With an appropriate starter calculated using Mr.Malty)

Water:
I WAS planning to copy the Burton on Trent water profile from Beersmith using salts and 45 liters of Montreal water based on Montreal's 2010 water profile, but I revised the final profile:
In order of Ca, Mg, Na, SO4, Cl, HCO3 (ppm):
Montreal 2010 : 31 , 8 , 12 , 24 , 24 , 106
Burton on Trent : 295 , 45 , 55 , 725 , 25 , 300
My NEW target profile: 141 , 27 , 27 , 300 , 35 , 174
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You guys are great! This forum has been an amazing source of information! This will be my sixth brew, second all grain. I love this new hobby. It really reaches my Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering background... I'll sure be around much more here.

Alex

 

[ajf]

I don't have Beersmith 2 so I was unaware they had switched to whole hops as the base measurement.
No, I don't use a bag for the dry hops. I add them loose and siphon out about 10 days later, keeping the inlet to the siphon above the bottom but below the top. I may lose a couple pints, but the beer comes out very clear.
I like your new water profile. In fact, I like everything about that recipe except that it is being brewed in Montreal instead of Long Island.

-a.

 

[atreid]

Your 3797 american posts honors my 7th posts Quebec newbie brewer's recipe. I'd surely invite you to taste it if you were anywhere around here hehe With my first all-grain batch already done and many lessons learned from it, I think I won't screw that one up too much and it should turn out pretty well... Actually, my main problem was that I didn't sparge at the right temperature from the start, and even if I did, I wouldn't have been able to keep it right, since I had nothing to keep it right. I just found a great deal for a used mint condition Coleman 48 pints cooler nearby and just picked it up for 20$. I'll replace the plastic exit valve on there and use that instead of my uninsulated second fermentor that I used as a hot water tank with the new cooler. Should now have a real 77oC sparge water easily. Check out the setup I had for my first all grain batch. Had a lot of fun doing it... Image right here





(If you wonder, the whole piping and lauter manifold is made of CPVC, in theory ok for potable water and high mashing temperature, except for that only vertical part that is PEX, which should still be ok too.)

I also tried out the Ez-water-calculator you mentioned... Great stuff... It let me realize my mash pH would be closer to 5.7, which isn't that great. I'm planning to either use 175g of acidulated malt or 4mL of 88% lactic acid to bring the pH down to 5.45. Haven't decided between acidulated malt or lactic acid yet...

I might also try to make some kind of cheap 10oC (no equipment) cold crash of the secondary fermentor, after the dry hop period, 2-3 days before bottling. I hear cold crashing the primary might waste a lot of hop oil with the yeast settling down. I'll just keep the bottle back at room temperature for carbonation. Some people seem to be worried not enough yeast will be left out for carbonation, but I'm more inclined toward those saying there would still be easily enough in there for carbonation at room temp. I might just swirl the bottles after 3-4 days to make sure they come back in suspension after they adapt to the room temp...

Thanks again for the info and support :fro: