too much crystal malt IMO. A IIPA should be about one thing: hop flavor and aroma. Malt should be subdued. You also don’t need a 90 and a 60 minute hop addition. And you are wasting the simcoe at anything before 10 minutes IMO.
Yeah, when I said too much crystal malt I was looking at the cara pils in particular. Totally not needed (even if it is an ingredient in Pliny I always thought it was there “just because”). And definitely more hops. Especially in the last 5 minutes, flame out and dry hop. When you see a good IIPA recipe the aroma hop addition should look almost ridiculous.
Ok, I’ll tinker with the recipe. Gonna nix the chocolate and adjust the finishing/dry hops.
I’m also wondering why basically everyone is vehemently opposed to the use of Carapils, not just in this recipe, but I’ve gathered that from other posts as well. Am I wasting my money on dextrine malt?
Also, I have had great results when bittering with Simcoe. I did an all Simcoe/Maris Otter Smash a while back, 90 minute boil, with a bittering addition and 3 finishing additions, no dry hop and it was fantastic.
Too much Simcoe, Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA. Straight up peppers and onions to me.
In no particular order:
Dogfish Head 90 Minute
Great Divide Hercules IIPA
Dogfish Head DFH Ale (Only at Rehobeth Brew Pub, honestly the best IIPA I’ve ever had)
Ok, you wanna brew what you wanna drink. I think your recipe would fit that bill, an east coast imperial ipa is how I’d describe it. Malty and alcoholy with some hops. And it seems to coincide with your fav commercial beers (except for the Pliny). Carapils is a body malt so it goes well when looking for some body. Which in this case I think that you are.
Re: Carapils. I’m not against using it, it’s a tool. Use it when needed. But in a IIPA you are trying to have the beer fairly dry with the useage of sugar - so it doesn;t make sense to bump the body back up with the addition of cara pils (especially 2 lbs, that’s an awful lot). You have the crystal in there to give it some residual sweetness. Leave that and take out the cara pils.
Re: Simcoe. As a pro-brewer that can’t get a contract for simcoe until next year it pains me to see anyone waste it as a bittering hop. It’s like when my wife uses my Basil Haydens in a whiskey sour. But it’s your hop, use it where you want. But use more finishing hops for sure. If you’re not sure you like simcoe then bump up the centennial and amarillo.
+1, seems like a waste since you are only trying to achieve IBUs/bitterness and not flavor/aroma from adding the Simcoe at 90 minutes. Why not use a low cohumulone hop like Magnum or Warrior to achieve the same IBUs without wasting a flavor/aroma hop that is EXTREMELY hard to get right now, professional or amateur. Trust me, with that many hops in an IIPA, no one will notice the Simcoe being absent with a substitiution. Maybe take it out all together and just bump up the Warrior at 60 min to get the same IBUs or move the Warrior back to 90 minutes and eliminate the 60 minute addition all together? I get that you are possibly basing the recipe somewhat on Pliny, but when Vinny released that recipe, Simcoe was cheap and easy to get. Also, Russian River use hop extract now for the bittering additions, per Vinny (actually most large pro breweries now are using hop extract for bittering). So, even Vinny has eliminated the 90 minute Simcoe addition in his own recipe. Just a thought…