American Ipa Recipe

[Dave86]

G'day

New to the forums but already seem to be on here a lot, maybe being a uni student has something to do with it!

Having a second go at making an apa, made one last year using DJR's hopmonster apa recipe (which was bloody fantastic) and trying to extend it to an AIPA.

This is what I've come up with so far, has to be a partial as being relatively new to brewing and also a uni student, I only have the means to mash about 2.5 Kg of grain at the moment:

Quantities for a 24L batch

4kg Morgans Masterblend Lager Malt
875g JWM Wheat Malt
500g Weyermann Pilsener
440g Weyermann CaraPils
270g Weyermann Munich I
131 Weyermann CaraMunich II
43g JWM Crystal

30g Hopburst Mix (10%) - 30 min
30g Hopburst Mix (10%) - 20 min
30g Hopburst Mix (10%) - 10 min
30g Hopburst Mix (10%) - 5 min
50g Hopburst Mix (10%) - Secondary

US-56 Yeast

Hopburst mix:

1/6 Simcoe
1/6 Nelson Sauvin
1/6 Amarillo
1/6 Tomahawk
1/15 Chinook
1/15 Ahtanum
1/15 Cascade
1/15 Palisades
1/15 Newport

Assuming this comes to roughly 10% AA, I've calculated this to come in at 54 IBU, 7 SRM and SG:1070

Would love some thoughts on this and any suggestions would be most welcome

Cheers

Dave

 

[goatherder]

Welcome to the forum Dave.

The recipe sounds pretty tasty but I reckon you need more hops. With your OG being 1.070 and your IBUs being 54, this gives a BU:GU ratio of around 0.77. This is a little low for this style of beer - you should be looking for a ratio of 0.9 or higher. Put some more hops in - shoot for 70 IBUs or even more. An AIPA should be a big bitter bastard...

 

[Dave86]

Welcome to the forum Dave.

The recipe sounds pretty tasty but I reckon you need more hops. With your OG being 1.070 and your IBUs being 54, this gives a BU:GU ratio of around 0.77. This is a little low for this style of beer - you should be looking for a ratio of 0.9 or higher. Put some more hops in - shoot for 70 IBUs or even more. An AIPA should be a big bitter bastard...

Cheers Goatherder

I'll have to do a bit of tweaking to the recipe once i order the rest of my hops and try and bump up the bu:gu

Dave

 

[Trent]

I, myself, would probably tone down the mix of hops in there, I did a hopburst AIPA that included only simcoe, amarillo and tomahawk, and it turned out spectacular. I would probably also up the crystal to 150g or so, and take some of the wheat out of the mix to accomodate that. I know alot of people put in wheat for head retention, but that is basically what carapils does. IMHO, I would forgo the whole wheat addition, and replace it with the pils malt, or half pils, half munich. The wheat will thin the body a little, and in an AIPA with 70IBU, you really want some of that malty backbone to show through and support the hops, otherwise it may end up a little too unbalanced. And in a beer that bitter, you will want the balance to make it drinkable (as in more than one in a sitting). Put in say 12g each of the simcoe, tomahawk and amarillo at each of those hop additions, and you will end up with a very bitter beer - I know from experience. I did 20g each at 15 mins, and 15g each at 10 mins, 15g each at flameout and the feedback from the judges was it needed more malt to back it up. Take my advice for what it is worth (approx 2 cents), and go with your gut, but those are the changes I would make.
All the best
Trent
EDIT - I used warrior, not tomahawk. Oops. It was 15%AA, if that helps. Someone once told me that tomahawk and warrior are the same, just under different companies. HTH.

 

[Stuster]

Someone once told me that tomahawk and warrior are the same, just under different companies. HTH.

They're different. Tomahawk is the same as Columbus. Just grown by different companies. Apparently one of the most grown hops in the US now. Click me, click me. I've never used Warrior, but it's supposed to be nice. Trent?

I'm with Trent on the hops. Personally, I'd keep it down to three varieties (or even less) so you have some idea of what's going on. But what you have would work.

 

[browndog]

The way I see that hop mix is that the Ahtanum and the Cascade will be completely smothered by the Simcoe and the NS, not to mention the Chinook, never used Palisades or Newport so I can't say how they will affect the mix.
As you don't mention a mash temp, your FG could be anything from 1.020 to 1.010, greatly affecting the resulting malt sweetness/hop bitterness relationship.


cheers

Browndog

 

[Dave86]

The way I see that hop mix is that the Ahtanum and the Cascade will be completely smothered by the Simcoe and the NS, not to mention the Chinook, never used Palisades or Newport so I can't say how they will affect the mix.
As you don't mention a mash temp, your FG could be anything from 1.020 to 1.010, greatly affecting the resulting malt sweetness/hop bitterness relationship.
cheers

Browndog

Thanks for all the advice

I've already decided to cut back the hops to amarillo, simcoe, tomahawk & nelson sauvin. With the exception of the tomahawk, these created a tasty APA last year which I will be drinking the last two stubbies of tonight unfortunately Mashing hasn't become too much of an exact science for me yet, having only a 15 litre cooler and a grain bag to work with, I usually aim to mash single infusion temp of about 68 degrees for at least an hour to an hour and a half, so any thoughts on this would also be appreciated! Am going to raise the IBU's to about 65 to 70, thanks to goatherders advice.

Cheers

Dave