IPA recipe help for a newbie!

[Nige]

Hi all, help needed!

I have brewed about half a dozen batches of various styles (extract + steeped grains) and I am having trouble getting a good IPA. I can do a real nice Bavarian Wheat so I think its a recipe issue and not a brewing process problem.

I believe my first IPA was too sweet because I used 1kg of crystal malt (in a 23L batch). My second one was a rubbish colour and too bitter which I put down to using the wrong extract and too much bittering hops. I have been surfing the net for recipes to figure out where I am going wrong and came up with the recipe below.

 

Very keen to know if the below recipe looks sensible? I am particularly unsure about the ratio of crystal to carapils and munich grains as I am just starting to learn their various characteristics.

 

Batch size 12L (half batch in case it’s another fail)

 

0.85kg Briess Golden Light malt extract

0.85kg Briess Sparkling Amber malt extract

250g Pale Crystal

125g Carapils

50g Munich

 

25g Chinook @ 60m

25g Chinook @ 30m

50g Cascade @ 1m

 

Saf US-05 ale yeast

 

Thanks in advance, any other suggestions welcome!

[JumpR]

The malt bill looks okay - you could increase the malt extracts slightly (to 0.9-0.95kg each) to increase the OG slightly.  Don't bother if you want a slightly lower gravity though.  My main feedback is in relation to the quantity of Chinook - I entered the recipe into Beersmith and was giving 130 IBU's, which is very bitter.  The additions at 60min & 30min could be dropped down a bit.

I have scaled my hop schedule for an IPA recipe to 12L to give you an idea of quantities of hops that I have been using (which gave 44IBU's):

6g	Nelson Sauvin [11.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	4	15.2 IBUs
16 g	Cascade [8.30 %] - Boil 20.0 min	Hop	5	17.4 IBUs
16 g	Cascade [8.30 %] - Boil 10.0 min	Hop	6	10.4 IBUs
2g	Nelson Sauvin [11.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min	Hop	7	1.8 IBUs
22g	Cascade [8.30 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days	Hop		0.0 IBUs

[Ralph]

Putting a nice big wad of hops in at 0 minutes and letting them steep for 10 mins after flameout is a great way to get a lot of hop flavour into the beer and does not add much bitterness. Read up on hop bursting if you are interested. Personally I would keep the 50g of cascade at the end. Chuck it in and then turn the flame off and leave it sitting for a while before cooling.

[Richard Rice]

It's what I do with most of my beers.  I've recently started doing very small bittering additions and massive flameout additions.  My Brown ale, for example, had 15gms of Nugget for bittering and overall, a full 100gms of Citra, starting at 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes thent about 40 grams at flameout. 

 

So yeah, leave the cascade at flameout...will be nice!

[Peter Smith]

I am not sure if you will notice 50g of Munich,  if you are wanting to increase the malt complexity I would add more like 150g,   250g of pale cry feels a bit too much to me but I have not done any extract brewing like this so unsure of volumes compared with 1.7kg of extract , others haven't commented so go with the flow...     there seem to be a lot of different IPAs out there, some sweet some malty some dark and some light,  all comes down to personal preference I think and brewing to the style you like.

[Barry]

For a 12l batch I would drop the crystal to 150gm, and make the Munich the same. Or drop the crystal all together (as you have plenty of carapils), with all that amber extract it will still be a solid malt base.

What original gravity are you aiming for? Work out your IBUs for your target gravity, there's online software that should help you. For a pretty bitter IPA a 1:1 ratio (1.050 gravity : 50IBU, 1.040 : 40IBU, get it?) will be plenty bitter. That said you have a malty backbone to play with so it can take plenty of bitter.

My personal preference though is if you've got heaps of malt, make it a balanced drinkable IPA. If you want a hop bomb, drop some of the specialties and make it a paler, drier hop beast. Just my preference.

Shift the 30min Chinook to 15min, you want the hop character without the isomerisation/bitterness.

Post back again after running it through some software to work out gravities and IBUs, I'm sure someone can suggest some tweaks.

[Grant R Baker]

As mentioned by JumpR the IBU looks high. You can balance that up by making the beer sweeter or reduce the grams of hops.

I would reduce the hops by 8-10g per addition and keep them for dry hopping.

Maybe move the hops additions 10 minutes further back or so (50, 20, -5) will also reduce the IBU but dump heaps of hop flavour into the brew.

[Peter Smith]

having never done a steeped batch I did a google,  looks like munich is not such a great grain to try to steep with, after reading that perhaps stick to steeping with crystals or even some roasted rye, have had a few nice rye ipas lately

Mr. Wizard replies:

Mashing and steeping are very similar processes at first glance. Both involve soaking crushed grains in hot water. However, if you look more closely, there are some sharp contrasts between the two methods.

Mashing is a technique in which malted grains are soaked and amylase enzymes from the grains convert their starch to fermentable sugars. Some mashing methods combine malts that are very high in enzymes with starchy grains lacking enzymes. Other mashing methods only use malted grains. Mashing methods using adjuncts, such as rice or corn, work because enzymes from malt are able to move freely about in the mash once the malt has been crushed and wetted. The amylase enzymes cannot differentiate starch from malt or rice, and they go about their merry way breaking down (hydrolyzing) starch into fermentable sugars. The key to mashing is that the starch is broken down into fermentable sugars and special attention is given to controlling the mash environment — I’ll get to that later.

Grains that are mashed include any pale malt, lightly toasted or kilned special malts (such as Munich malt) and raw cereal grains.

Steeping, on the other hand, is a method used to extract colors and flavors from certain types of specialty grains. Although the grains are soaked in hot water, the idea is not to have enzymes acting upon starch. Rather, steeping merely extracts compounds contained in the malt. The types of specialty malts ideal for steeping already have the starch converted to sugars during the malting process. These include the family of crystal or caramel malts — grain or malt that is roasted to such a high level that the starch molecules have been modified by heat to the point where malt enzymes don’t do much to them. Roasted grains and malts include chocolate and black malt, roasted wheat, roasted wheat malt, roasted rye and roasted barley. Special malts such as Munich malts, pale wheat malt, pale rye malt and flaked cereal grains like barley, oats, corn and rice are not well-suited for steeping because these ingredients all contain a lot of starch.

The key differences in the actual processes of steeping and mashing lie mainly in the thickness, temperature, duration and method used to separate the grain from the liquid. Mash thickness, or the ratio of malt to water, is important in mashing because enzymes are affected by the concentration of starch. If it’s too high, the amylase enzymes lack the water needed to hydrolyze starch (hydrolysis is a term used to refer to breaking chemical bonds by the addition of water). If the mash is too thin, the enzymes are less heat-stable and are more susceptible to denaturation (enzyme destruction). Most mashes use between one and two quarts of water per pound of malt (~2 to 4 liters/kg). When it comes to steeping, thin is good and it is common to use ratios as high as six quarts per pound (~12 liters/kg). The thin steep not only improves the efficiency of steeping, it is also convenient since the steep water is usually used to dissolve malt extracts after the steeped grains are removed.

When it comes to mashing, the most critical variable to control is temperature. Different enzymes have peak activities at different temperatures, and some enzymes denature at just a few degrees higher than their activity peak. Brewers have named the various mash temperature rests for enzymes or their substrates because of this critical connection. We have the acid or phosphatase rest, protein rest, beta-glucanase rest, beta-amylase or fermentability rest, the alpha-amylase or conversion rest and the mash-off step. Few brewers include all of these temperature rests in their mash profiles, but mash temperature is always associated with enzymatic activity. These terms are moot when it comes to steeping. This is not to say that temperature is not an important consideration when steeping. Most agree that grain-steeping temperatures should be kept below about 170 °F (~77 °C) to avoid the extraction of astringent tannins from the malt husk.

Enzymatic reactions take time and most mashes last at least 60 minutes. Steeping does not require such a long time because the only thing happening is the dissolution of the malt solids. Fifteen minutes is more than enough time for steeping. The final step is separating the grains from the liquid. Most steepers use a nylon bag that is easily removed from the steep like a tea bag. Depending on the amount of grain steeped and the amount of water used, the bag is rinsed with hot water. Mashing requires the more involved method of separating the wort from the grains. This process is called lautering. Wort is separated from the solids in some sort of straining device — for example, a lauter tun — and is thoroughly rinsed with hot sparge water to extract as much wort as possible. This step is required in mashing because of the mash thickness. If the sparging were not used the specific gravity of the wort would be around 1.080, as compared to sparged gravities ranging from 1.040 and higher.

In summary, these are the key difference between mashing and steeping. To the extract brewer who uses steeping for specialty malts, mashing probably sounds very involved compared to steeping. However, the method of mashing is really not much more involved than steeping. It’s just that there is a lot more going on, and more variations on brewing to explore, when mashing is entered into the homebrewing equation!

[Barry]

True that @Peter Smith – Munich malt is not pre-converted (unlike crystal) so requires mashing. That said mashing is the same thing as steeping, only at a specific temperature to activate the enzymes and convert the starches to sugars.

[Nige]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the feedback, very useful. As suggested I will wind the hops and crystal malt back and maybe save the cascade for flame out or dry hop (thoughts?)

I hadn't really thought about a target gravity or IBU's (probably my first problem right there!). Up until this point I have been evolving recipes that I have been given without thinking about that stuff.

Just downloaded beersmith, will have a play and report back.

Cheers all!

[Nige]

From brewsmith, using my original recipe...

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.1 %
Bitterness: 120.9 IBUs
Est Color: 17.4 EBC

So bitterness seems over the top. OG is also too low according to the range recommended by brewsmith - does that seem right?

[Barry]

OG is too low for an "IPA", but the more important thing is balancing malt sweetness and hop bitterness.

For a starting gravity of 1.041 I wouldn't go over 40IBU, and I'd probably back it off closer to 30IBU just because it's not a very big beer to start with.

According to the BJCP (but again "styles" be damned, just brew tasty beer) an English IPA starts at 1.050 and an American IPA starts at 1.056. They both go up to 1.075 so can be pretty big beers. You'd want to be hitting above 1.065 to want to support over the top hopping, which 120IBU most definitely is :)

[Grant R Baker]

In truth there is nothing wrong with trying to brew a IBU monster IPA... but I would sample something like BrewDog Hardcore IPA first (150IBUs) & Epic Hop Zombie (80IBUs) to see what their sweet / bitter mix is like.

 

Target an OG of 1.060 (ABV should be above 6% for a big IPA) and then a IBU of 60+ (you choose, it's your beer). Beersmith allows you to tinker to hell before deciding on the final.