Batch No. 21: IPA Project

I rarely try to brew exact clones of beers these days. Unless I have a fresh version of the beer I am trying to clone to taste side by side with my beer, I don't really know how close I got anyway.  If a certain beer I like is readily available to me, I'll just buy some of it instead of trying to duplicate it.  

Often I will find a recipe for a beer that inspires me, and then I will put my own spin on it. I don't consider these recipes to be my own if I have just made a few minor changes.  Thus far, I only have a few recipes that I would call completely my own.  None of which happen to be an IPA, which is my favourite style.    

For my 21st batch of beer, I decided to change that and begin the process of creating my own IPA recipe. For the malts some light crystal, Carafoam/Carapils, and a little honey malt. The hops are also pretty straight forward for an IPA.  There is nothing ground breaking about this recipe.  A little bit of inspiration came from my two favourite IPAs, Alesmith IPA, and Ballast Point Sculpin.  

No. 21 IPA Project:

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.01 gal
Estimated OG: 1.071 SG
Estimated Color: 6.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 53.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

12.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 15L (15.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Carafoam (2.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)

Hops

0.50 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (First Wort)
0.50 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (30 min)
0.50 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] (10 min)
0.50 oz Amarillo Gold [6.90 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] (5 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [6.90 %] (5 min)
2.00 oz Amarillo Gold [6.90 %] (0 min)
2.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] (0 min)

2.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [6.90 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)   

Yeast

Pacman (Cultured from 2 Rogue bombers)

Mash Schedule 

Mashed @ 149F for 75 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

59F ambient temperature for 1 week

65F ambient for 1 week

Dry hopped for 1 week at 65F

Actual Numbers

Measured OG:  1.070

Measured FG:  1.014

ABV:  7.3%

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Tasting

Pretty solid IPA.  Really hit its stride at about 4-5 weeks in the bottle.  Quite bitter, decent hoppiness, but not quite as much hop flavour and aroma as I would expect for the amount of late/dry hops.  I don't find it to be very dry, but a few other homebrewers have described it as quite dry.

At this point the beer has been in the bottle for nearly 7 weeks, and I am down to my last few bottles.  The hoppiness has faded a bit and more malt sweetness is coming through.  

Lynn's Take

Lynn is my girlfriend.  She is not really a beer drinker.  In fact the only beers she actually likes are: Dieu Du Ciel! Paienne, Southern Tier Pumking, and Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA.

I like to make her taste my beers and get her opinion.  This was her reaction to my IPA:  

Takes a small sip, scrunches up her face, "Its too bitter"

Thoughts for Next Time

Once the hops faded a tiny bit, I felt it had a bit too much maltiness.  

Reduce crystal 15 to 0.75 lbs.

Eliminate Honey Malt

It was quite bitter, a little more so than I was expecting for an estimated IBU level of 53.  The flameout hops were steeped for 20 to 30 minutes while i set up my wort chiller and got organized. I have heard from several sources that alpha acids do not need to be boiling to continue to isomerize, they just need to be above a certain temperature. By steeping a fairly large amount of high alpha hops at a near boiling temperature for 20 or so minutes, I may be getting a lot more IBUs than I expect.   

On a recent episode of Can You Brew It, Jamil mentions that they don't do traditional bittering additions at Heretic. They only hop late in the boil and in the whirlpool, in order to get the bitterness they want.  I also remember Mitch from Stone saying they get a large amount of bittering from the whirlpool hops.  

Next time I will probably get rid of the first wort and the 30 minute hops to try to bring down the bitterness a bit.  I will also increase the dry hops to 5 or 6 oz total, by adding some Columbus to the existing dry hop.