Having done both, the vacuum sealer makes a big difference FWIW. Your beers would thank you !
This is everything I was thinking about posting without posting it myself
This is the moment I wish I was BJCP certified [emoji6]
I’m hesitant to pick apart someone else’s award-winning recipe, but if this isn’t your tastes, I could make a few suggestions on how I’d do things differently to tailor this to my tastes.
A) I count 7 hop varieties here. I like variety in my hop bills, but that might be enough to lead to some muddled flavor. I try to narrow my hop bills down to 3-4 varieties in IPA’s.
B) I’ve been moving away from sharply bitter IPA’s, so I’d cut out the FWH of Chinook and possibly the 30 minute Columbus.
C) This is a fair amount of hops, but I use about double the amount of late and dry hops as this recipe in a 3-gallon batch of IPA. There’s certainly room for more hops in this.
D) For maximum flavor and aroma impact, move all the late hops to the whirlpool/steep. The jury is still out on what temperature to steep at right now. 170F will work fine. 120F may work better.
E) I know many brewers like their results from a 30 minute steep, but I feel that I get more hop character from a longer 60-90 minute steep.
If I were going to adapt this recipe to my own tastes, I’d have 3 hop additions:
Warrior at 60 minutes for 60-70 IBU
Whirlpool for 60 minutes at 170F with 3.5 ounces each of Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra
Dry hop with 2 ounces each of Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra
Obviously, everyone’s tastes will vary, and this is just my take on this. I’m a huge hophead, and when I started brewing IPA was the style I really wanted to jump into. My beers never quite got to the level of hop character I wanted until I started really pushing the hopping rates and focusing on a big steep addition.
Yeah, I would. PM me.
Shipping this keg is gonna be expensive! PM sent.