Imperial IPA

[greystashlawless]

Hey,

Im planning on making an imperial IPA next weekend and i would appreciate some feedback on the recipe/ingredients. This will be my third all grain brew and the first one i'm not following any recipe(although its loosely based on this http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/97818/stone-sublimely-self-righteous-ale-clone?uniqid=5aa9679bd3d48.)

Recipe: http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1853772/imperial-ipa

I have a couple of concerns/questions that someone more experienced might be able to help with.

1. The original recipe calls for 362.9 g each of the caramel and black malts. I bought them in 500g bags, is there any danger in using the whole 500g?
2. Do i need to use 2 packs of dried yeast? or is it overkill?

Thanks in advance!

[pob]

Hey,

Im planning on making an imperial IPA next weekend and i would appreciate some feedback on the recipe/ingredients. This will be my third all grain brew and the first one i'm not following any recipe(although its loosely based on this http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/97818/stone-sublimely-self-righteous-ale-clone?uniqid=5aa9679bd3d48.)

Recipe: http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1853772/imperial-ipa

I have a couple of concerns/questions that someone more experienced might be able to help with.

1. The original recipe calls for 362.9 g each of the caramel and black malts. I bought them in 500g bags, is there any danger in using the whole 500g?
2. Do i need to use 2 packs of dried yeast? or is it overkill?

Thanks in advance!

1. Should be ok, although the higher amounts may throw it out of balance. Might be better the measure out to recipe, brew it & change next time. I wouldn't worry about throwing out ~100g of grain that I'm not using if I'm unlikely to use it again. You could always bring it to your next local brew club meet & give it to someone.  A bit of info on using large quantities of black malt

2. Two packs will be fine for a big beer, most probably have a note saying you'd need the two pack, once you go over ~1.050 anyway.

[greystashlawless]

Thats a very interesting read pob, thanks for sharing. I think i will measure it out to the original recipe and adjust in future as needed.

I have not been to any brew club meetings yet, its definitely something I'll look into though.

[Qs]

Definitely measure the carafa anyway. Getting the balance right on that is the key to making it a black IPA and not a stout.

[greystashlawless]

Thanks Qs, i have modified my recipe slightly to bring the percentages inline with the originals.

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1853772/imperial-ipa?uniqid=5ab0d7f7665df

[Qs]

Recipe looks tasty, let us know how it turns out.

[Pheeel]

 I think you need some sugar to help dry it out. Biggest issue with IIPAs is that they don't end up dry enough

I'd go for 3 packets of dry yeast

[greystashlawless]

Hey Pheel, when you say it will need to be dried out..do you mean it will end up too sweet?

It will have to be just the two packets of yeast this time, because i have the ingredients in already. Although i cant brew just yet, waiting for some bottles to free up!

[Pheeel]

 Sugar will ferment out, where as wort won't as much. Adding sugar will dry it out to ensure there's less sweetness and make sure the taste is a bit thinner. Otherwise you can end up with a sweet chewy beer

I've done it with two but the feedback is that it was too sweet. Give it a lash if that's all you've got 🤣

[greystashlawless]

Interesting...what kind and how much sugar would you recommend?

[Pheeel]

I'm not anywhere near my computer so can't pull up my own recipes but I think it was a couple of hundred g of brewing sugar

[greystashlawless]

Update on this one, looking for some advice too.

The beer came in with an OG of 1.071 and a FG of 1.1012. I added > 400g of hops to the recipe, 220g of that was dry hopping. But there is little to no hop flavors off it, it tastes very alcoholic. More so than other IPA's i've tasted with similar strengths. I'm hoping that it will mellow out a bit as it matures, but im disappointed not to get the fruity flavors i expected.

I'm not sure what exactly has gone wrong with this brew, but i think it could be related to:
- Temperature getting too high during early fermentation, i measured the temp at around 26c on day two of fermentation. Towards the end of fermentation i picked up a tube heater and a controller. I have managed to keep the beer at solid 20c since then. Unfortunately i do not having any cooling equipment just yet. But im keeping my eyes peeled for an under counter fridge, will be picking one up before brewing again.
- Water quality,  i have heard people describe the water in the area as "soft" but i have no information as to what is actually in the water. Thinking of brewing with water from Aldi next time around.

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what could have gone wrong?

[BrewDorg]

Are you bottle conditioning vs kegging? I didn't make one IPA I was happy with until I started kegging. Just a thought

[greystashlawless]

It's been bottle conditioned. I should have added that its only been bottled tonight, so its obviously not carbonated yet...but i still would have expected there to be a somewhat hoppy flavour from it at this point.

[Qs]

What yeast did you use? And how much.