Any suggestions? Imperial India Pale Ale

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DufrenesPartyof2

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Alright, I'm looking to put this beer up for adoption aka putting it in a contest, that's just what it feel like. Like having an NFL scout evaluate your high school football player son. Anyway, I've never brewed this recipe nor have I used the 007 Dry English yeast. If you guys happen to see this post I would love to hear any suggestions. If you guys have a minute to type in

All-Grain
This is a 5 gallon batch and a 90 min boil. Mash at 145 for 60 min and sparge for 10 @170
I don't know if I should add the honey to the boil or after the initial fermentation is done?
15 lbs Two-row pale
1 lb Vienna
1.50 lbs Maris Otter
.5 lb honey

.75 oz of Warrior @ 60
1.00 oz of Centennial @15
1.00 oz of Columbus @ 15
1.00 oz of Chinook @ 15

1.00 oz of Centennial DH for 10 days
1.00 oz of Columbus DH for 10 days
1.00 oz of Chinook DH for 10 days

Dry hopping done after fermentation

Yeast: Dry English Ale Yeast WLP007, I don't know what temperature to ferment at I would probably go at 65 F.
 
Couple of things;
145° for 60 minutes may not get the job done. If you want a highly fermentable wort, I'd likely go with a temp of 149°-150° and mash for 90 minutes or more.
1/2 a pound of Honey in a beer this big won't be noticeable and is really just a waste of honey. If you want to dry it out a bit, add a pound of sugar to it.
I think you'll need to bump your bittering hop to at least an ounce and then as a suggestion you could take the 3 ounces of hops at 15 min and divide them into the boil at say 10 min, 5 min and flame out.
That'll give you a nice flavor and aroma burst.
JMO
Brian
 
+1 on the extended mash. Lower mash temperatures convert slower.

+1 on the honey. It ferments out anyway, so sugar does the same thing. only cheaper. Use cane or corn sugar and avoid beet sugar.
 
I agree about the mash temp being a little low: 150 -154 for an hour should work. If it were me, I'd go with more of the Vienna and/or MO. Not that 100% 2-row doesn't make good beer, but if you're going to mess with it, put enough in to taste it. I've made an all Vienna and a 1/2 Vienna 1/2 2-row recently and both were a beautiful orange color. Can't go wrong with the MO either. Can't argue with the hops - I love that raspy-piney chinook flavor. That said, if you added some time to the mash, it'd be good beer as written. Good luck.
 
What kind of IPA are you looking for, malty and balanced, drier and hoppy? I usually do some 0 minute additions to really get a nice aroma on my IPAs. I would suggest staggering the 15min additions to 15, 10, 5 and then maybe a couple ounces at 0.... if you want something more aromatic.
 
chessking said:
+1 on the extended mash. Lower mash temperatures convert slower.
Click to expand...
How do you feel about mashing thinner?

I know the standard ratio is 1.25 qt/lb. When I started out I thought "nuts to that" as the mash tun was only half full and I was concerned about heat loss. I start every recipe with the assumption that I'll be mashing at 1.8 qt/lb.

The lowest mash efficiency I've had doing this is 88%, the highest is 95% - all at 60 mins.
 
I did it yesterday and I did break up the last three hop additions into columbus at 10 and centennial and chinook at 5 and also added an ounce of centennial when I stopped the boil. It smells delicious now. Thank you for telling me about the flame out hop addition. It was remarkable. I ended up mashing at 145 accidentally. I must have misread my thermometer at first or something, but I bumped the honey up to a pound and was very close to my target gravity but the beer has an amazing orange hue. I didn't know how that would play out. But to everyone who gave feedback, Hats off to you, this may be a good beer, still.
 
JAMC said:
chessking said:
+1 on the extended mash. Lower mash temperatures convert slower.
Click to expand...
How do you feel about mashing thinner?

I know the standard ratio is 1.25 qt/lb. When I started out I thought "nuts to that" as the mash tun was only half full and I was concerned about heat loss. I start every recipe with the assumption that I'll be mashing at 1.8 qt/lb.

The lowest mash efficiency I've had doing this is 88%, the highest is 95% - all at 60 mins.
Click to expand...

The old standard advice was that a thicker mash would have greater efficiency as the enzymes have closer contact w/ the starches for easier conversion, where a thin mash creates greater distance for the enzymes to cover, reducing efficiency. It seems to me that if that were the case, an extended mash would correct this. Also the Germans have been mashing thin for a long time, as they pump their mash form vessel to vessel. The Germans are very efficient brewers. They wouldn't do this if it meant a substantial loss. Then I learned about BIAB and how you use your entire water volume in the mash. This is a very thin mash. Perhaps some efficiency loss could be calculated, but not enough to over come w/ recipe adjustments. Then I came across Denny Conn and his writeup on batch sparging, and was sold.
Denny's website
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/
and his AHA presentation
http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2008/DennyConn.pdf
With a batch sparge, the best efficiencys are obtained with an equal split of first runnings and second. For example, if you want a 7 gal pre boil volume and assume 1 gal loss to grain absorption, then strike with 4 1/2 gal for the mash, and sparge with 3 1/2 gal. this leave you with 7 gal pre boil. So with a 10lb grain bill, and 4 1/2 gal, (18 qt), strike, I have a 1.8 qt/lb ratio.
However, if I have a bigger beer with 15 lb grain bill, I use 5 gal strike (3 1/2 gal + 1 1/2 gal grain absorption), but still sparge w/ 3 1/2 gal. this gives me a 2 qt/lb ratio.
I guess all this is to say that on the homebrew scale, an efficiency in the 60% to 80% range is acceptable, and while fine tuning you system and process is what we do, at some point its about the beer and how it finishes. I've got my beers to where I like them and have the process down so I can change one aspect (ie. recipe, mash temp, ferment temps) and everything else remains the same. I stopped calculating efficiency some time ago and now concentrate on making the beer taste like it was designed to, and repeating it accurately.
Sorry for the long post, but I was on a stream of consciousness, and couldn't get off.
 
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