Toucan Imperial Ipa

[zebba]

i would also be dry hopping at least some fuggles but would the target go well as dry hopping? or is it purely for bittering?

I'd be careful with your quantities dry hopping with Fuggles. For many people the earthy, almost musty aroma dry hopped fuggles produce can be a bit much. Personally, I LOVE it, but many don't, and if I was looking at an IIPA like this I would be using something different for the dry hop, or just dryhopping a little bit of fuggles (20g or less) and matching it with something else (I'm thinking Styrian Goldings would work well).

(Haven't used Target so can't comment on it)

(And if Warm Beers advice is worth 1.8cents, mines probably worth 1.5 or less. But I do so love my hops, and they occupy 90% of my thoughts...)

Of course, the easier option is to move away from the english side of the atlantic and do the cliched thing - load her up with yankee hops like cascade, amarillo, etc. Got a throat tearer at home (theoretical IBU's came out > 200) that used stupid amounts of cascade, amarillo and simcoe (with some leftover galaxy thrown in for good measure). I rate it in my top 5 beers of all time. Not homebrewed beers, beers full stop. mmmm....

 

[theredone]

nice replies ok so soaked up a little more info. in heindsight i might have been better going with fuggles and ekg but hey ive already got the target so lets go for the 50/50 hop scedule and c how it goes. think i will also steep some of my TF pale for 60mins along with the carapils. not so much for body but more so just for a nice head and retention, all previous beers have had SFA retention even though some ove them come out of the bottle damn near spewin the frothy goodness. plus it was pointed out that the carapils can give a nice bit of flavour, but anyways, we will see how it goes. oh and i subbed out dex for LDME. so here goes complete recipe(will be putting this down in about 2 hours so yell at me real fast if it looks like ive done something wrong) :S

1xtin coopers IPA
1xtin coopers Australian pale ale
1xBE#2
.2kg carafoam
.2kg TF pale
.5kg LDME
10g target 30
10g fuggles 30
10g target 25
10g fuggles 25
10g target 20min
10g fuggles 20min
10g target 15min
10g fuggles 15min
10g target 10min
10g fuggles 10min
10g target 5min
10g fuggles 5min
dry hop 20g fuggles
dry hop 20g target
7.6% alc
rehydrated notto and will be fermenting 16-18


still cant realy get the spreadsheat to work properly i dont think. ive had a look at 3 ibu calculators and they all come out dif.
but going off what i think looks about right in the spreadsheet the hops alone will add 25.2IBU and the cans as Fourstar said will add 77 so total of 102.2...... bit of kick there

 

[WarmBeer]

I personally wouldn't bother with the TF pale malt, especially in such small amounts. You're going to have to go to all the effort of holding your minimash at about 65 degrees to get full conversion, all for the same gravity addition that an extra 160gm of LDME would give. That small amount of base malt in a twocan is going to contribute SFA flavour. But hey, maybe you're a masochist

As RobboMC said, if you've got some crystal malts hanging around, use em. You just need to soak them for about 30 mins, and don't need to be anywhere near as fussy about maintaining temperature. I used to just put 200gm of crystal in 2lt of water in a pot, put it on the lowest flame on my stove, and come back 30 mins later, turn it off, tip the liquid through a sieve to collect all the grain.

How large is your boil volume going to be?

 

[theredone]

I personally wouldn't bother with the TF pale malt, especially in such small amounts. You're going to have to go to all the effort of holding your minimash at about 65 degrees to get full conversion, all for the same gravity addition that an extra 160gm of LDME would give. That small amount of base malt in a twocan is going to contribute SFA flavour. But hey, maybe you're a masochist

As RobboMC said, if you've got some crystal malts hanging around, use em. You just need to soak them for about 30 mins, and don't need to be anywhere near as fussy about maintaining temperature. I used to just put 200gm of crystal in 2lt of water in a pot, put it on the lowest flame on my stove, and come back 30 mins later, turn it off, tip the liquid through a sieve to collect all the grain.

How large is your boil volume going to be?

lol not quite a masochist
normally when i steep i get temp to 70 then lid on and cover with 2 big thick towels. come out to me no lower than 62. but yeah i might try leaving on the lowest temp setting and c how that goes. plus i steep in a grain bag so no need for sieveing and i can rinse through a bit more hot water(sparging?) if i feel so inclined

boild volume is a bit under 5l normally add a bit over 4l of water then 400g DME, have never taken sample to check but by my calcs this should bring og up to 1.046(ish)

edit: just thinking of hop utilization, because im doing a brew with higher og does my boil grav need to match this(or close to)? meaning i need to add an extra 150g of dme?

 

[WarmBeer]

With that sort of temperature control, you're going to get some, to maybe most of the base malts converted. You're probably not likely to get full conversion, which means you might get starches left in the wort. It's nothing to be super worried about, but if your beer comes out slightly cloudy, that's probably the reason why.

Using such a small volume boil means you're going to get less than optimum hop utilisation. It's a bit more of an ask, but can you bump your boil volume up to about 8-10 litres? You're throwing in all these beautiful hops, but due to the concentrated volume of your boil, you're going to miss out on getting a lot of the alpha compounds into solution. I used to put a couple of sanitised tupperware containers full of water in the fridge over night, and once I'd finished boiling my 10 lt volume, chuck those in the pot to help bring the wort down towards pitching temp. The other trick was to have about 10 lt of water in the fridge overnight to top up your fermenter, rather than tap water. This also helps reach a good temperature.

For a 5lt boil volume, 500gm of LDME should give you a gravity of roughly 1.040. If you decide to go the 10 lt boil, chuck in the 500gm LDME and also 500 gm of BE2, should be close enough.

Whatever you do, you're going to end up with good beer, and it'll be your beer, so go for it.

lol not quite a masochist
normally when i steep i get temp to 70 then lid on and cover with 2 big thick towels. come out to me no lower than 62. but yeah i might try leaving on the lowest temp setting and c how that goes. plus i steep in a grain bag so no need for sieveing and i can rinse through a bit more hot water(sparging?) if i feel so inclined

boild volume is a bit under 5l normally add a bit over 4l of water then 400g DME, have never taken sample to check but by my calcs this should bring og up to 1.046(ish)

edit: just thinking of hop utilization, because im doing a brew with higher og does my boil grav need to match this(or close to)? meaning i need to add an extra 150g of dme?

 

[theredone]

yeah its not the cooling of the wort that is the problem. i asked the old girl to grab me a pot last time she went to do the shopping but apparently coles dont sell big ones. so im making do with what i have atm untill i get off my arse and go get a good pot from kmart or something
edit: cheers for all your help too lads

 

[theredone]

just did my dry hop and boy it smells strong in there. i had 30g of each left so i chucked them all in. i dont think it would make it all that undrinkable. plus im going to leave these for min 1-2 months before drinking to let flavours settle.

cheers again for the help lads i will post on taisting

p.s. i did drop the tf pale as advised and its actually been fermenting at 12-16 as per stick on thermometer so probly more like 14-18 inside

 

[theredone]

nice replies ok so soaked up a little more info. in heindsight i might have been better going with fuggles and ekg but hey ive already got the target so lets go for the 50/50 hop scedule and c how it goes. think i will also steep some of my TF pale for 60mins along with the carapils. not so much for body but more so just for a nice head and retention, all previous beers have had SFA retention even though some ove them come out of the bottle damn near spewin the frothy goodness. plus it was pointed out that the carapils can give a nice bit of flavour, but anyways, we will see how it goes. oh and i subbed out dex for LDME. so here goes complete recipe(will be putting this down in about 2 hours so yell at me real fast if it looks like ive done something wrong) :S

1xtin coopers IPA
1xtin coopers Australian pale ale
1xBE#2
.2kg carafoam
.2kg TF pale
.5kg LDME
10g target 30
10g fuggles 30
10g target 25
10g fuggles 25
10g target 20min
10g fuggles 20min
10g target 15min
10g fuggles 15min
10g target 10min
10g fuggles 10min
10g target 5min
10g fuggles 5min
dry hop 20g fuggles
dry hop 20g target
7.6% alc
rehydrated notto and will be fermenting 16-18


still cant realy get the spreadsheat to work properly i dont think. ive had a look at 3 ibu calculators and they all come out dif.
but going off what i think looks about right in the spreadsheet the hops alone will add 25.2IBU and the cans as Fourstar said will add 77 so total of 102.2...... bit of kick there

ok so 2 week taisting is today(as i type). very bitter, but not a bad, dry your mouth out bitter, quite pleasant. there is a little bit of bite from the high alc but nothing like what i was expecting. the only thin im realy unipressed with is the amount of hop flavour. maybe next time i should us more later in the boil less early. colour is quite spectacular as well. a very dark red/brown..... almost like and irish red. anyways ima leave it condition for another month and c how it goes then