so…I want to attempt my first imperial IPA. The thing is, I don’t care for the overly sweet character some beers of this style have. Want to go for a low temp mash to aid in attenuation, but dont want to end up with a watery beer. My thought was to go ahead with the low temp mash and just add a bit of carapils to throw a bit more dextrins into the mix. so basically the idea is to go with a pale malt base with a bit of crystal for color/flavor, and carapils to make up for lost body. How does this sound? Any input would be much appreciated! Thank you
I wouldn’t eliminate it entirely, you get flavors from the crystal besides just sweetness. I keep the crystal malts to about 5% of the grist, and use about 7% sugar for my IIPA.
I disagree about the need for sugar. I like 98-100% domestic 2-row and 0-2% of whatever specialty malt you like (I like British 65L crystal). I mash at 148-149 for 60 min with no mashout, then I boil for 90 min to get it at the color I like, and I use a huge amount of WLP001 or Pacman or some other very dry American yeast. Always gets it to the 1.010-1.014 range where I like them.
Throwing my hat in with Denny et al. Sugar is essential for a proper IIPA. I use about 10% in mine and about 5% crystal. You want to dry the beer out and thin the body out with the sugar but you need a small amount of crystal sweetness to balance the hops. I don’t enjoy these thick, caramelly IIPAs. A IIPA should be so good that once you drink one you immediately want another.
No, you don’t have to. But my experience is that it makes a better (and more to style, if you care about that) beer. without the sugar, my IIPAs end up more like Am. BW.
I hear you and I’ve had some turn out that way, but try mashing long and low sometime and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’m not a BW fan and this procedure has worked well for me.
Nothing wrong with using sugar, I just enjoy the challenge of doing it without.
I’ve done a 2 hour mash at 147 and I didn’t think the results were as good as when I used sugar. The long low mash lessened the body somewhat, but it still tasted too thick (yeah, I know…how can taste be thick?).
I think “thick” is a good description for it. I need some more experience using sugar, because it’s probably much more predictable than what I’m doing. While I don’t like thick beer, I also don’t like hot beer.
If you’re implying that sugar=heat then you might want to reassess how you’re using it and if other techniques might be giving you the heat. Sugar on its own shouldn’t do that.
Too much sugar will produce too much alcohol. That’s the “heat” I’m referring to. Maybe you only use that term for fusels, which I realize is not what we’re talking about.
Many belgian tripels use as much as 20% sugar as fermentables and I certainly don’t consider any of those examples as displaying “too much heat”. My own tripel uses 20% of sugar for a 1.075 beer and it is extremely deceptive and quaffable - the abv is hidden very well.