Souping up a Pale Ale into an IPA?

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Recently I made a columbus-simcoe-amarillo pale ale based in part on the advice from the forum here.  It came out really awesome, and now I’m thinking of kicking it up to IPA or perhaps DIPA range.  Looking for feedback on the best way to do this - just adding more grain/hops to bump up the OG and IBUs, or is there a more subtle/artful approach?

Here’s the recipe for the pale ale.  OG was 1.056, IBUs calculate at 49, SRM is 7.1.  Ingredients were:

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 92.7 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.3 %
0.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00%] (60 min) Hops 12.8 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (60 min) Hops 11.9 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (20 min) Hops 8.5 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (20 min) Hops 7.2 IBU
0.50 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (5 min) Hops 4.7 IBU
0.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00%] (5 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
1.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc 
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale

2

Here’s how I would do it. Up your base malt to get into the target gravity range for an IPA (add about 3 or 4 pounds). I would leave your crystal the same because an IPA significantly shifts the balance from malts to hops. I like my IPAs dry, so I mash low (149-150 for 90 minutes).  Leave the bittering 60 minutes additions, but double every addition after the 20 minute mark. Your flame out addition is already pretty significant, so you can leave that alone also. I would also dry hop it for some awesome aroma.

That’s at least my take, but IPA’s are a matter of opinion. This will leave you with a nice dry IPA that is full of hop flavor and aroma.

3

+1 - another option is just increase your flavor and aroma hops until your IBUs are about parallel with with your OG. In other words, if you have a 1.065 IPA aim for around 70 IBUs (or higher if you like).