I bought some El Dorado recently without a plan on how to use them. I have used E.D hops before, a few years back from a single hopped IPA kit from midwest brewing. My town got a homebrew shop so I have been designing my beers the past few years, but haven’t used E.D. before in a designed beer. I am curious how it might play with citra and or amarillo?
I am also curious about the grain bill. I was thinking something super light, 90 % pilsner, 7 % white wheat and 3 % crystal 20
A far as yeast, I love 1968 and have adopted it as my go to house yeast for IPAs, but im not sure how it would play with this hop.
Well, the fruity esters from 1968 paired with fruity hops would definitely give you a fruity IPA for sure. Fruity IPAs are all the rage nowadays obviously. As for the hops themselves, El Dorado is fruity and strong like Citra - a 1:1 ratio would work there. Amarillo is a lot less strong than those two so you’d need to use twice as much Amarillo not to lose it in the mix. Obviously a little Simcoe or Chinook would help balance out these hops, if desired.
As for the grist, it looks fine. I don’t use wheat in IPAs but no major harm there. Pils can be nice in IPAs. Done it several times. Good luck.
One of the best hoppy beers I’ve made to date (and there have been a lot) was a combo for
El Dorado, Vic Secret, Galaxy. El Dorado on it’s own is kinda odd. It can taste literally like
candy at time, Jolly Ranchers in particular.
Thank you very much guys!
Embarrassing, but 9 years of brewing, I have never designed a beer. Just did kits for 7 years and the last two I have dialed in clones. So thanks for your help. Here is my rough draft of the design. If anyone sees stuff I should reconsider, I am not offended. I would rather have a beer I love!
26 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) UK (1.0 SRM) Grain 1 89.7 %
2 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2 6.9 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 3.4 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 19.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 5 8.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 11.6 IBUs
4.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min Hop 8 20.9 IBUs
2.00 oz El Dorado [15.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min Hop 10 17.1 IBUs
2.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [35.49 ml] Yeast 11 -
5.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
5.00 oz El Dorado [15.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days
One of our local breweries here in Western Australia makes a wildly popular IPA using Eldorado, Azacca and galaxy. I’ve pretty much cloned it using a dry hop of 3g/L of each. (you’ll have to do the maths to convert that to your units of choice!). But those hops work really well together.