Thoughts on an IPA

Beer Recipes
1

I don’t make many IPAs, more of an APA guy but I’m thinking of trying a bigger, hoppier brew.

For a 10 gal batch at 80% efficiency I’m thinking of starting very simple with:

20 lbs 2 row
5 lbs Munich
1 lb C40
3 oz CTZ 14%aa @60
2 oz Centennial @ 10
2 oz Cascade @ 10
2 oz Centennial @ 0 stand 20 mins
2 oz Cascade @ 0 stand 20 mins
2 oz each Cascade and Centennial dry hop for 7 days.
WLP001.

I have most other common hops so if I should change them up, let me know.
Let me know if I’m on the right track.

2

Looks good to me…I’d drink it!  :slight_smile:

3

+1.  Looks good to me.

4

Looks solid!

5

That’s pretty much my IPA malt bill, but I change up the hops a bit.  I particularly like Amarillo late.

6

Hop schedule looks pretty good. Centennial and Columbus play well together, too. Amarillo and Cascades are very nice.
The only thing I would do, (and this is solely based on personal preference) would be to add about 2 lbs of cane sugar, to dry it out a bit. Otherwise, your malt bill looks nearly identical to mine, and I’ve had very good results with it.

7

Add or sub sugar?  Its always seemed to me that sugar dries when compared to a similar brew, same OG, but all grain no sugar. The sweetness comes from residual unfermentables right. If you just add rather than sub, they are still there. Or am I imagining things?

8

This.  Adding the sugar will just boost the alcohol without adding body and residual sugars.  It will still come off as drier… but it’s much better to think of adding sugar as only drying the beer out in comparrison to using base malt… It’s drier than that.  So substitution is the way to go.

9

Gosh, you guys are making me smart.

I look at it this way. A 1.060 beer that gets 5 points from cane will be dryer than a 1.060 all grain no sugar. But maybe the same dryness as a 1.055 all grain, just more alcohol.

10

I agree that you should sub the cane sugar for base malt if you’re going to do it. Personally, I prefer not to sub in sugar for my regular IPA’s. Good fermentation will get it plenty dry enough.

Obviously, if it were my IPA I’d use a crapload more late and dry hops. But this will be a solid IPA as-is, and a great place to start if you’re looking to step up from APA’s.

11

Thanks all. I am going to mash at 150 or 152 for ferment ability and pitch high. I did consider sugar I place of some base grain but I think I will go this route to start. I also wondered if the 10 min adds should just become all flameout with the 20 min stand. Since the wort is still so hot, are they all gonna become the same thing or does the rapid boil for 10 mins make a difference?

12

I prefer to add all my late hops at flameout to maximize flavor extraction. In my opinion, all that a vigorous boil is doing is blowing off hop oils.

13

This is my thinking as well.

14

+1.  I only sub in sugar (~ a lb) for IIPA.  Standard AIPA, generally not.

15

+1