Stone Ruination IPA recipe from Stone themselves - not bitter & hoppy enough

[jdebonth]

Hi All,

A few weeks ago I brewed the ruination IPA (extract) clone recipe provided by stone themselves: link. I strictly followed the recipe and was on the generous side of hop additions. I also used Centennial hop pellets for the dry hop instead of Centennial whole hops as these were not available, I believe this also should have pushed the brew further to the hoppier side.

Stone ruination is personally my favorite beer because of how the intense bitterness combines with the gorgeous aroma and flavours in the finish, it's simply divine.

Unfortunately my clone was not even close in the level of bitterness and hop intensity as the original. The original is a 120IBU beer, I would guess my clone would be closer to 40/50.

Any ideas what could have gone wrong?

I am planning to try the recipe again this Friday (I just need to get this one right!) and am considering a few options:

- double up on the hop addition in the boil
- double up on the dry hop amounts
- perform a second dry hop (possibly third, I will taste the uncarbonated beer as it progresses through dry hop and when I get the bitterness and hoppyness I will bottle)
- use hop extracts/oils (does stone use this even though its not mentioned in their clone recipe?)

Any ideas would be appreciated!

 

[Calichusetts]

What is your water profile like?

 

[jdebonth]

I used bottled water. This one: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristaline

Our tap water in Brussels, Belgium is VERY hard, we have severe limescale issues.

 

[jdebonth]

calcium 39 mg/l
magnesium 25 mg/l
sodium 19 mg/l
potassium 1.5 mg/l
Fluoride <0.3 mg/l
bicarbonates 290 mg/l
sulfates 5 mg/l
chlorides 4 mg/l
Nitrates <2 mg/l
Dry residue at 180 °C 270 mg/l
pH 7.7

 

[gpack]

Are you drinking the beer warm out of the fermenter?

Is it carbed?

How old is it?

2.25 oz of magnum is alot. over 100 IBU in that gravity wort.

1.5 Centennial is a decent addition at 15 too (over 20)

I have IPA that when first brewed are kinda lackluster out of the fermenter but develop over a little time.

 

[jdebonth]

I have had the warm pre-bottled beer and chilled bottled beer @ 1, 2, and 3 weeks bottle conditioned. In all cases I found the bitterness and hop character was lacking. The bottled beer has carbonated nicely. The beer is now approaching the 4 week point but I doubt there will be any difference in the hop characteristic.

 

[temple240]

Check out Yooper's Ruination clone recipe on this forum. I just brewed an adaptation of it last week and I guarantee it will be very hoppy and bitter. I did add a 30min hop stand to it though.

 

[jdebonth]

I have compared several recipe's to Stone's own clone including Yooper's which came out as the hoppiest. It uses 19% more hops in the boil but 20% less in the dry hop.

What I am leaning towards doing now is tripling up the boil hops to get something closer to 300IBU to ensure I have saturated the palate in terms of bitterness (bitterness is no longer perceived above around 90 IBU). I had the Mikkiller 1000IBU and really enjoyed it so I do not think there is a risk of a brew which is "too bitter."

For adequate aroma and flavor hops I will continually dry hop adding more hops every 4-5 days and based on small warm beer samples continue until a desirable hop character is reached.

 

[temple240]

I have compared several recipe's to Stone's own clone including Yooper's which came out as the hoppiest. It uses 19% more hops in the boil but 20% less in the dry hop.

What I am leaning towards doing now is tripling up the boil hops to get something closer to 300IBU to ensure I have saturated the palate in terms of bitterness (bitterness is no longer perceived above around 90 IBU). I had the Mikkiller 1000IBU and really enjoyed it so I do not think there is a risk of a brew bitter."

For adequate aroma and flavor hops I will continually dry hop adding more hops every 4-5 days and based on small warm beer samples continue until a desirable hop character is reached.

There may not be a risk of over bittering but there is a very real risk of wasting hops. I would save those bittering additions for late additions (<15min) to get the flavor and aroma you're looking for.

 

[jdebonth]

Thanks for the tip. I think I will do the following hop additions in this brew to maximize hop impact:

19 Liters/5 gallons batch size.
Steep crushed specialty grains.
Remove grains from wort, add water (bottled).
Boil for 60 minutes, adding ingredients as follows:

Hops (boil @ 0 min) Magnum 14% 150 g (5.3 oz)
Hops (boil @ 15 min) Centennial 9.6% 75 g (2.6oz)
Hops (boil @ 30 min) Centennial 9.6% 75 g (2.6oz)
Hops (boil @ 45 min) Centennial 9.6% 75 g (2.6oz)
DME (boil @ 45 min) - DME added 15 mins before end of boil to maximize hop isomerization
Hops (boil @ 60 min) Centennial 9.6% 75 g (2.6oz)

Dry hop 7 days: Centennial 9.6% 100 g (3.5oz)

Sample @ day 7, if more hop aroma/flavor needed add another 100g (3.5oz) and dry hop further 7 days.

This should make for one insanely hopped up brew, probably above 400IBU. Thoughts would be welcomed.

(This is perhaps somewhat wasteful of hops (and expensive) but I will try this out once just to see how bitter and hoppy it will turn out.)

 

[Yooper]

For the water profile you posted, is that the water you used?

That's a LOT of bicarbonate. Way too much. If that is your water, if you could boil it to decarbonate it, then rack off of the precipitate, and add some gypsum (the sulfate is too low for an IPA), then you may have a pretty darn good water for a hoppy IPA. But that was as is will cause muted hops flavor even if you add more hops.

The water is the cause of the lack of hoppy flavor and bitterness.

 

[jdebonth]

Very interesting Yooper, thanks for posting. Fortunately I plan to brew on Friday so I can still do something about the water problem.

Does it make sense (instead of improving the water I used last time) to either consider using the local Brussels, Belgium tap water (although this is very hard, we get limescale on everything) or use a different type of bottled water? I will do some further research as to what water properties are important but it seems bicarbonate and sulfate are the ones to watch.

 

[Yooper]

Very interesting Yooper, thanks for posting. Fortunately I plan to brew on Friday so I can still do something about the water problem.

Does it make sense (instead of improving the water I used last time) to either consider using the local Brussels, Belgium tap water (although this is very hard, we get limescale on everything) or use a different type of bottled water? I will do some further research as to what water properties are important but it seems bicarbonate and sulfate are the ones to watch.

Can you get your tap water profile? It's possible that your tap water isn't much worse than this.

If you want to use bottled water, can you find reverse osmosis water? Or distilled water? If you can, that would be ideal. You'd then have to add some gypsum to the water (but you should do that anyway with the calcium and sulfate level you have in that bottled water also!).

 

[jdebonth]

I have not been able to get an exact tap water profile in my region however I averaged that of surrounding regions I was able to find and got to the following:

Aluminium (Al) g / l 20
Calcium (Ca) mg / l 150
Chloride (Cl) mg / l 80
Fluorine (F) mg / l <.4
Iron (Fe) ug / l <20
Conductivity mS / cm 850
Potassium (K) mg / l 2
Magnesium (Mg) mg / l 13
Manganese (Mn) ug / l <5
Ammonium (NH4) mg / l <.3
Nitrite (NO2) mg / l <.015
Nitrate (NO3) mg / l 20
Sodium (Na) mg / l 20
Oxygen (O2) mg / l 8
Lead (Pb) g / l <5
Sulfate (SO4) mg / l 100

 

[peterj]

Are you doing a full boil like the recipe says, or are you doing a half boil and topping off with water? It's thought that wort will become saturated with iso-alpha acids at around 100 IBU. So your pre-diluted wort will have a maximum of about 100 IBU. If you dilute that by half with your top up water then your finished beer will only have about 50 IBU max.

If you're already doing a full boil though, then it's probably the water thing like you and Yooper are talking about.

Good luck, I hope it turns out! I love that beer!

 

[tmurph6]

^this is exactly what I was going to say before reading your post. If you have 100 ibu in your wort (unlikely for a highly concentrated boil) then top up with water you will end up with around 50 ibu depending on how much water.

 

[jdebonth]

doing a full boil! I think the water profile was the issue and I will brew with tap water substituted with an adequate amount of gypsum as per a water profile brew calculator I found online.

 

[Calichusetts]

doing a full boil! I think the water profile was the issue and I will brew with tap water substituted with an adequate amount of gypsum as per a water profile brew calculator I found online.

I also brew with spring water that is similar to yours. By not correcting the water profile I've found that my IPAs were hit or miss...especially the bitterness and hop profile. I've got a resupply gypsum and calcium chloride coming in my next order as I have found I've really been on an IPA kick this spring.

 

[eric19312]

In addition to doing a full boil, if you add most....say 80% of your extract in the last 10 min of the boil you will dramatically increase hop utilization. (turn off the heat and strip bottom of pot vigorously so you don't scorch it)

I will check math and post here in a few min...

 

[jdebonth]

I was planning on adding 100% of my DME at the last 15min of the boil. Speciality grains steeped pre-boil as usual....

Do let me know if there are any relevant formulae to use regarding late DME addition!

 

[eric19312]

Using beer alchemy to calculate hops...

First I'm assuming no topping water and you end up with 5 gal in your kettle at end of boil. If you strain out the hops and trub you end up with less than 5 gal in the fermenter (sorry not using metric units but this way I won't mess it up...).

If you follow the recipe exactly and add all your DME at beginning of boil, you get 147.5 IBU...that is a hoppy beer no matter how you cut it. I agree with all the water posts, you need some adjustments in your salts...

But in addition to that,
Without adding any mor hops, if you split your DME and add 2 pounds at start of boil and 5 pounds at end of boil bitterness goes to 205 IBUs...

Again this is no topping water...if you use any topping water you will dramatically reduce IBUs and probably not hit target gravity...

 

[tmurph6]

I was planning on adding 100% of my DME at the last 15min of the boil. Speciality grains steeped pre-boil as usual....

Do let me know if there are any relevant formulae to use regarding late DME addition!

You need some malt in there for hop utilization and pulling out the bittering aspects. From what I've read the alpha acids need the protein in malt to bind with in order to impart bitterness.

 

[Sheldon]

Let me throw this monkey wrench in. Does anyone use (Beersmith) tools to age your hops to adjust IBU's?

I've recently started and I think it has improved my bitterness tasting, then again it could all be in my head.

Sheldon

 

[Calichusetts]

Let me throw this monkey wrench in. Does anyone use (Beersmith) tools to age your hops to adjust IBU's?

I've recently started and I think it has improved my bitterness tasting, then again it could all be in my head.

Sheldon

I do sometimes...I also wing it. If I've had a 9.9% AA hop for awhile, I'll drop it to 9

 

[peterj]

I've found from experience, research, and talking with people on this forum that late addition of extract has little to no effect on hop utilization. The correlation between hop utilization and gravity is because the iso-alpha acids produced in the boil adhere to the proteins in the hot break and fall out of solution with them. Extract has already had most of that hot break protein removed during its processing so gravity obtained from extract does not have the same effect on IBU as gravity from fresh grain. However, I'm still in favor of late addition of extract because of color issues. LME tends to darken during a 60 minute boil. I would still calculate IBUs normally though. When I used extract I would usually add it at flameout.

Also, I don't think you need any malt in a boil to obtain IBUs. It's the heat of the boil that isomerizes the alpha acids from the hops and creates what we measure and taste as IBUs. I could be wrong here though, and I've never done a no malt boil to see if it was bitter.

 

[unionrdr]

I found the ruination clone recipe in best of byo's 250 classic clone recipes,page 50. For comparisons sake,at least.
Extract with grains;
5 gallons/19L
OG-1.075
FG-1.010
IBU-100+
SRM-6
ABV-7.7%
6.6lbs Northwestern Gold LME
2lbs Northwestern Gold DME
1lb Breisse 2-row
1lb Breisse crystal 15L
1tsp Irish moss (15 minutes)
2.25oz (64g) magnum hops,16%AA (60 minutes)
1.5oz (43g) centennial hops,10.5%AA,(0 minutes,steep 5 minutes)
2oz (56g) centennial hops,10.5%AA
WLP001 California ale yeast,or Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast
.75C dextrose for priming
**** Steep the 2 crushed grains in 3 gallons (11L) of water @ 149F (65C) for 30 minutes. remove grains from wort. add magnum hops & LME & bring to a boil. add Irish moss (?) & boil 60 minutes. add 1st addition of centennnial hops at the end of the boil,steeping 15 minutes.
**I don't agree with this section. I'll list there way first,then my/our way 2nd.**
Add wort to 2 gallons (7.6L) cool water in sanitized fermenter,& top off with cool water to 5.5 gallons (20.9L). Cool the wort to 75F (24C). Aerate & pitch yeast. Allow beer to cool over the next few hours to 68F (20C) & hold this temp till end of fermentation.
Add last addition of centennial hops for dry hopping. Dry hop 3-5 days. Then bottle & enjoy!
**My/our way**
Chill wort in ice bath or with wort chiller down to 75-80F. Sanitize clean fermenter. Place dual layer,fine mesh strainer over top of FV. Pour chilled wort through strainer in circular motion to make it come out the strainer like rain. This aerates it a lil better. Pour water chilled in fridge a day or 2 through strainer in same fashion to 5.5 gallons. Remove strainer & stir roughly 5 minutes to mix well & aerate a bit more. Take hydrometer sample,& pitch yeast. Temp should be allowed to rise to 68F (20C) & held till fermentation is complete. When FG is reached,give beer 3-7 days to clean up & settle out clear or slightly misty. Dry hop with last centennial addition 3-5 days. Then prime & bottle.

 

[jdebonth]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I have spent a bit of time researching water profiles and have found some good bottled spring water that with the addition of 0.5g/L of gypsum will give me a great IPA profile, almost identical to commonly agreed optimal IPA profiles I have found around the net.

I will brew tomorrow, add 25% of the DME at the start and 75% in the last 15 mins. (And obviously go completely overboard with the hop additions). Should be a great brew, I can't wait. Some valuable lessons learned in this thread, thanks again!

 

[Yooper]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I have spent a bit of time researching water profiles and have found some good bottled spring water that with the addition of 0.5g/L of gypsum will give me a great IPA profile, almost identical to commonly agreed optimal IPA profiles I have found around the net.

I will brew tomorrow, add 25% of the DME at the start and 75% in the last 15 mins. (And obviously go completely overboard with the hop additions). Should be a great brew, I can't wait. Some valuable lessons learned in this thread, thanks again!

I'd encourage you to add the 75% of the DME at flame out. Otherwise, you'll stop the boil at 15 minutes and it would screw up your late hopping schedule. Or add it at 20 minutes and bring it back to a boil before you start your late hopping, if you can't bear to add it at flame out.

 

[eric19312]

Looking forward to hearing how it goes. Problem with changing a bunch of things at once is figuring out what was the most significant driver of the results.

I'll admit I cringed when you said you still plan to hop the hell out of it. Your call but I am guessing that just fixing the water so the bitterness is brought out and adjusting the timing of the DME additions is going to give you the Ruination impact you are looking for.

Well...
Unless your hops are mislabeled and you are really using some low alpha nobel hop variety instead of 16% AA Magnum...

 

[jdebonth]

I'd encourage you to add the 75% of the DME at flame out.

Doesn't the DME need some boil time to ensure sterilization? Like in making a yeast starter- the reco is to boil DME for 15mins for this reason...

 

[Yooper]

Doesn't the DME need some boil time to ensure sterilization? Like in making a yeast starter- the reco is to boil DME for 15mins for this reason...

Well, I pasteurize milk at 160 degrees, and 15 seconds is the recommended length of time. If I can pasteurize milk and make it safe (even with USDA standards) at 160 for only 15 seconds, I'm pretty sure that boiling wort will pasteurize DME. That's assuming that the DME even needs to be pasteurized, and I"m not sure it does. But it's certainly fine to boil it if you're a paranoid sort. More than 10 seconds would be serious overkill, but there is no problem with that.

 

[jdebonth]

I do want to ensure boil for at least 15sec just to be on the safe side. I'll add it just before flame out to ensure it gets back up to 100c, and then turn off the fire when it does. If I added at flame out it would not get the 15sec boil, the dme addition will probably take the temp down quite a bit.

 

[peterj]

I do want to ensure boil for at least 15sec just to be on the safe side. I'll add it just before flame out to ensure it gets back up to 100c, and then turn off the fire when it does. If I added at flame out it would not get the 15sec boil, the dme addition will probably take the temp down quite a bit.

I used to add it at flame out for that exact reason, to help start the cooling process. I don't think there's much difference in sterilization between 15 seconds at 100C and 15 seconds at 90-95C. But better safe than sorry if you're concerned about it.

 

[jdebonth]

Ok, perfect, was thinking it would indeed be very convenient to help cool, I'll drop it in at flame out.

Good timing cause am in mid brew, about to finish steeping and top up to 23L and start boil.

 

[kombat]

Well, I pasteurize milk at 160 degrees, and 15 seconds is the recommended length of time. If I can pasteurize milk and make it safe (even with USDA standards) at 160 for only 15 seconds, I'm pretty sure that boiling wort will pasteurize DME.

Yabbut even pasteurized milk will spoil after a couple of weeks.

If 160° F for 15 seconds is enough to sterilize something, we do we need 30 minutes at 250° F at 15 psi in pressure canner to make our wort shelf-stable when canning wort or making agar slants for yeast vials?

 

[unionrdr]

Canning is different than making wort. Low acid foods need to be pressure canned to keep on the shelf at room temps. Adding extract at flame out is perfectly safe. Since pasteurization happens around 160-162F in seconds & the wort is still boiling hot,it's all good. I cover it & steep for a short time while getting the ice bath ready. Works fine.

 

[jageraholic]

I was reading a book on Hops in the 4 elements of beer series and they mention that you lose a lot of IBUs during fermentation. I use beer smith and they always seem to show really high IBUs for my hop additions. This could be what happened to your brew as well. Anybody know whether beer smith calculates IBUs post boil or post fermentation?