I’m going to try my first American IPA. I’m hoping for a ton of piney/dank hop flavor & aroma at a drinkable ABV… so maybe it’s more a hoppy APA. Any thoughts on how it sounds or ways to improve my recipe or process?
Hop Stand: Added after cooling to 180f, hold for 1hr
Simcoe: 0.50oz
F7: 0.50oz
Chinook: 0.50oz
CTZ: 0.15oz
Dry Hop: (5 days in secondary after 2 or 3 weeks in primary)
Simcoe: 0.50oz
F7: 0.50oz
Chinook: 0.50oz
CTZ: 0.50oz
Water:
Gypsum: 5g in Mash, 3.5g in Sparge
Estimated pH: 5.4
Profile - Ca: 133 Mg: 8 Na: 20 S04: 284 Cl: 54 HC03: 49
(Ca & S04 on higher end for pH & Hop accent)
Yeast:
Dry packet of rehydrated American Ale
Targets:
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.012
IBU/SG: 1
ABV: 5.6%
I’ll be trying a few techniques that are new to me for this brew. First Wort Hopping, a hop stand, a BIAB batch sparge (basically planning to separate around half the water in a second kettle, heat it to 168, and transfer the bag after the mash).
I think your hop combo will definitely get you the dank/piney bitterness that you’re looking for. I don’t know anything about Vienna so somebody else can weigh in on that.
Your FWH is more of a flavor addition than an actual bittering hop IMO. What I would do is move your ctz to 60 minutes and maybe bump it to 1/2 oz. Then I’d combine all of your F7 additions and add that to FWH. Calculate your FWH as a 20 minute IBU addition to determine your desired amount. Your flameout and dry hop schedule is solid. So maybe a schedule of something like this…
Appreciate the input - Hmm, the concept of FWH is interesting and new to me. I remember hearing Gordon Strong mention you get tons of flavor out of it. It seems odd to me that the flavor wouldn’t be driven off during the boil though but given the impact I suppose it makes sense to use the F7 instead of CTZ for the FWH for more complexity.
I was originally going to try the newer FWH/Hop Bursting technique Mitch Steele lined out in his IPA presentation where you get all the buttering from FWH, Hop Bursting, & Whirlpool but ended up adding a small addition at 40m. I’m also assuming that by cooling the wort to 180f I won’t be obtaining any noticeable IBU’s from my hop stand.
What do you mean by 20minute IBU addition for FWH? I currently have it in Beer Smith as a 60m First Wort addition.
While a FWH addition will add as much IBU (slightly more, actually) as a beginning-of-boil addition, some brewers say that it tastes like a 20 min addition.
I don’t like CTZ as a dry hop, and I would ditch the 40 min addition (or move it to 10 min), but otherwise it looks like a solid recipe to me, and I think it will at least get close to your description of what you’re going for. Is this a 2.5 gal batch?
Ah, that makes sense since I hear it imparts a smoother bitterness similar to hop bursting. Yea, I was debating getting rid of the 40 and using some F7 for FWH. Maybe I’ll tone down the CTZ dry hop, think it may be overpowering?
3 Gallon Batch estimating 70% efficiency (I’ll adjust with DME/Water to hit target if need be)
+1. I think it looks like a pretty good recipe to get what you’re after. Personally, I’d keep the CTZ as a dry hop. It belongs with the dank, piney thing you describe. I’ll dry hop an oz of it sometimes (for 5 gallons), along with citrusy/floral/fruity type hops. Nice job !
This is what I was trying to describe. Like Jon said, I also like ctz as a dry hop if I’m looking for “dank.” If you’re looking for dank/resiny/piney, you’ll certainly get that with ctz/Simcoe/chinook. Seems like you got those hop profiles down! Good job with the recipe!