House IPA

It's been a while since I brewed my house IPA recipe, so I'm giving it a go today. Since this blog is called "The Hop Whisperer", it's about time I posted an IPA recipe.

Before I get to the recipe, let me delve a bit into the philosophy behind it. In the end, I'm really more about ideas than specifics when it comes to recipes. Set your goals first, then you can hash out the specifics on how to get there.

I've been pushing the limits with my IPA's since I started homebrewing. I've constantly been looking to max out the hop flavor and aroma. I think I finally hit it. The end result is more like drinking hop juice than a typical IPA. It is pretty much the definition of a fruit bomb IPA, yet it isn't enamel-strippingly bitter (despite the 98 IBUs that this was lab-measured to be).

My grain bill philosophy is simple: don't leave behind any sweetness, but leave a little malt richness to balance the hops. I avoid Crystal malt altogether. I'm not saying that you can't brew a good IPA using judicious amounts of Crystal malt, but that's not my approach. I stick to base malt paired with specialty grains like Munich, Victory, Aromatic, etc.

So, now for the hops. My big secret is simply to add all my boil hops at flameout and do a long hop stand. I also use a very large amount of hops - about 3 oz/gallon in the boil and about 1.5 oz/gal in dry hops. The hop stand addition in particular is where the massive hop flavor comes from. I've tried a lot of other hopping schedules, but it's the hop stand (which approximates a pro brewer's whirlpool) that really pushes the flavor envelope.

As far as hop selection, I'm really shooting for a fruit-bomb in this beer. While there are certainly some hop varieties that would work well as single hops in this type of IPA, I find that to be a bit monotone for my tastes. I'm looking for something like sangria, rather than a mango smoothie (I'm looking at you, Citra). In choosing hops, I want each one to bring something specific and different, but they all need to fit the whole picture. Here's a peek inside my thought process for each hop in the blend:

Nelson Sauvin: White grapefruit citrus in the C-hop ballpark, but also has a white wine character that really goes nicely with the sangria theme. Can overpower other hops, so I'm using a bit less in the dry hops

Motueka: Lime zest and lemongrass. Motueka gets overpowered by oilier hops, so this is really just an accent note despite being used in relatively large amounts.

Apollo: Navel oranges. Apollo also brings some Columbus-like dankness, so I'm just using it in the boil. 

Citra: Mango, mango, mango. So monotonous on its own, but so awesome when paired with citrusy hops. Super potent in the dry hops, so I use a bit less.

Meridian: This is my ace. Meridian has a fantastic sweet stonefruit (apricot/pluot/nectarine) flavor and aroma. It really shines here when paired with citrus hops and the mango from Citra.

Here are links to the posts containing the recipes:

All grain (3-gallon BIAB)
Partial Mash

Yep, too much hops.

Here's another update from tonight's Belma IPA. I mentioned that the hot wort was the consistency of peanut butter. Well, things only went downhill as it cooled. The picture below is of the chilled wort. No, that's not a typo. This lump of green modeling clay is actually the wort in the kettle post-chilling.

I was rather surprised at how much liquid I was able to extract from this. The whole mass got dumped into my BIAB bag in a small bucket. I then wrung and squeezed the bejeezus out of the bag, and kept pouring the collected drippin's into a 1-gallon jug. I ended up with over 1/3 gallon of liquid (starting from 0.8 gallons preboil volume). We'll see what happens next...

Too much hops?

Update from my Belma IPA experiment. One pound of pellets in 3/4 gallon of wort. Try as I might, there's no way I'm going to get a whirlpool going in this. The consistency is like peanut butter. Wish me luck getting this into the fermenter.

Giant Freaking Barleywine - Brewday

I thought I'd give a little update in the Barleywine from my last post. The brewday itself was one of those stories you hear about on the "Brewing Disasters" shows on the homebrew podcasts (and I may send this one in if I find the time to write up the gory details). But the results were just about what I had hoped for, so it seems like it may end up being worth the frustration.

I missed low on the temp for my initial mash (156F instead of 160F), so I held it a bit longer to be sure I got the most alpha amylase activity out of it. I pulled the first grain bag after 60 minutes, and squeezed out as much as I could from the bag. I was left with about 3.8 gallons of wort in my cooler at 152F, at a gravity of 1.063.

I added my second grain bag and the second 8 lbs of Maris Otter. This brought the temp down to 140F. I let it sit for about 15 minutes, then added back 1 quart of boiling water to bring my final rest temp to 145F. I held this temp for an hour. I ended up with a preboil gravity of 1.113. After a 90-minute boil I got about 2.8 gallons of 1.142 wort into my fermenter. I'm pretty happy with this number. Any higher and I'd be concerned whether it would ferment down as low as I wanted it. But if it was much lower, then I could have easily hit that OG with a more standard single-mash using an extended boil.

Right now we're 8 days into fermentation. The Yorkshire Square yeast is still chugging away. I have it at about 56F right now, and will hold it there until fermentation starts to slow. I have some extra yeast tucked away from an earlier batch in case I need a "rescue" starter, but I think I'm going to hold off until I can get a gravity reading.

Speaking of gravity readings - the WLP037 is one crazy yeast. It is super flocculant - way more than even WLP002/WY1968. I literally could not get a gravity sample from my thief today because the wort was so chunky.

More details to come...