Friday 1 June 2012

A Hop Too Far? (IIPA) - Brewing

Ok, I confess.  I'm a hop addict.  Can't get enough of American hops.  So it was inevitable that I'd try and make a Double IPA.  This beer is a bit of a beast and if all goes well, should be quite drinkable.  Although the dry hops are listed I haven't reached that stage of fermentation yet.  The aroma coming off this beer at three days in is the stuff dreams are made of.  I expect this will come together very well in the bottle.

Also I used Calcium carbonate in an attempt to lower the acidity from the fermented sorghum, in the boil this time.  And I added the Amber Candy Syrup at flameout.  This should make for a nice amber coloured beer.

Recipe:
8oz Maltodextrine @ 60 minutes
1.4Kg Sorghum Syrup @ 60 mins
0.75oz Columbus Hops @ 60 mins
0.75oz Centennial Hops @ 60 mins
0.5oz Cascade Hops @ 30 mins
0.5oz Columbus Hops @ 30 mins
0.5oz Centennial Hops @ 30 mins
1 x whirlfloc tablet @ 15 mins
0.5oz Cascade @ 15 mins
0.5oz Centennial Hops @ 15 mins
0.5oz Cascade Hops @ 5 mins
0.5oz Centennial Hops @ 5 mins
0.5oz Chinook Hops @ 5 mins
1tsp Calcium carbonate @ 5 mins
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 5 mins
500ml Amber Candy Syrup @ 0 mins
1.4Kg Sorghum Syrup @ 0 mins
*** Cold Crashed for 30 minutes ***
2 packets of US-05 American Ale Yeast

Dry hops
1oz Cascade Hops
1oz Centennial Hops
1oz Chinook Hops
1oz Citra Hops

8 comments:

  1. Hey BreMan101:
    Great job on the double IPA. You really hit the hops quite hard, didn't you? One question, though, it appears the "0.75oz Columbus Hops @ 60 mins" showed up twice - for 60 minute addition. Was that intentional or just a typo.

    Again, great job.

    Keep up the good work.

    A Fan.

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  2. Thanks for picking that error up. Should have been Columbus and Centennial.

    If you've got lots of American hops, this is the beer to brew. Too expensive otherwise.

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  3. Great looking recipe. Is it for a 5 gallon batch size?

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  4. Yeah, sorry I should have said it was 19 litres.

    This was well worth brewing.

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  5. Why did you put in two packets of yeast for a 5 gallon batch? I don't see that very often. This brew looks delicious (and I loved your quick review of it) and I want to make it myself.

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  6. Hi Anonymous,

    I regularly use two packets of US-05 for a few reasons.
    * I don't need to bother with a starter
    * It's insurance for a good fermentation
    * If the yeast are stressed at all they will produce off flavours

    Is it absolutely necessary? No. Just hedging my bets :)

    Good luck brewing this beer. It was really popular with the hop heads.

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  7. Trying this recipe (or a variation on it) tomorrow!

    Though I am running some very high AA hops and sort of a big spectrum of them including: Summit, Simcoe, Columbus and Chinook...

    What was your OG? Final?

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    Replies
    1. Hi John,

      Good luck with the brew tomorrow, this was a fantastic beer. The only change I would recommend is adding about 1kg of Sorghum or Rice malt to bring up the OG and the ABV to be around 7%.

      I recommend typing your recipe into Brewers Friend's free calculator. http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/ It will work out a pretty close approximation of the OG and FG for you.

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