New Zealand Hopped IPA Recipe Opinions

[Clinton]

I've been experimenting with making my own recipes lately, and I have been wanting to do an IPA with NZ hops. Although the grain bill is standard for an IPA, I have created a hop schedule of my own that will let me get two 21L batches out of the 100g bags I'll buy. I like citrusy ales, with lots of hop flavour/aroma, so I've tried to incorporate that.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: US-05
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.066
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU: 68-72
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 10 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 days at 18C

5kg Pale Ale
0.45kg Munich Medium
0.35kg Crystal 60L

42g Pacific Jade @ 60 minutes

15g Cascade @ 15 minutes
15g Wai Iti @ 15 minutes
15g Cascade @ 5 Minutes
15g Wai Iti @ 5 minutes

20g Cascade Dry Hop for 7 days
20g Wai Iti Dry hop for 7 days

So, any opinions on this? I'd rather keep the number of hop varieties low, as I don't want to have too many open bags of hops in the freezer.

[Peter Smith]

I am not sure that Nelson and Wai iti are a good pair if you are wanting to show off Wai-iti,  Nelson is very dominate hop....  but all good if you are looking to do the Liberty brewing hoppy style

[G S]

Agree re the Nelsen Sauvin, it's one to be treated with caution.

I'd be including some zero minute hops as well, depending on the chilling method. I have an immersion chiller, I throw in my flameout hops, at flameout (!!!!), and give the chiller a couple of minutes of running water, once the wort hits 80c I turn off the water and continue recirculating with the pump. I figure 80c is hot enough to stop bugs, and to get the oils out of the hops, but below the temp required for bittering. After 10 mins or so the worts dropped to 70ish, and I turn the cooling water back on. Seems to work well for me

[Clinton]

I run a counterflow chiller, which cools very fast, especially in these temperatures. I may add in the 5 minute additions over the last couple' minutes instead, which will still utilise the hops rather than chucking them into wort that is being chilled straight away.

[Clinton]

Thanks Peter, I've never used Nelson Sauvin, I'll probably try it out on another recipe. I guess I could just double the Wai Iti additions and tweak once I've brewed/sample it.

[Peter Smith]

I used wai-iti in a blond and it was great, I like the hop a lot.  I have since used Citra a few times, I like both for summer beers. 

My attempts with Nelson have always been small 10g additions and it was in the background not in your face.  Its a funny hop I like it but even with Liberty beers I am ready to move on to another beer once a nelson is finished, I personally cant session this hop in great amounts, and once my palate tastes enough in a beer I can't taste anything else in there.

There is a good recipe advice thread where there was talk of using 1/6 or 1/8 nelson to other hops, cant remember where is was now.