Comments on an Imperial IPA recipe

[bi0]

Hiya,

I'm extract/steeping grains newbie looking to brew a recipe from Greg Hughes' Home Brew Beer book for Imperial IPA.

As my kettle capacity is quite small (only 15l), I've used the calculator on brewersfriend.com to try and produce a recipe that uses a smaller boil size and is then topped up in the fermentor. I think I've kept things fairly close to the source recipe, I was just wondering if there's any major pitfalls I've not thought about?

The recipe's online at http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/410143/imperial-ipa

Thanks in advance,
Sean

 

[oliver]

with DME it should all work out as long as you're using the correct quantities of water and malt. Looks like it'll be fine.

personally i'd never use chocolate or caramel malts in my IPA, but if you're following a recipe, go for it.

The only other thing i might say is that you might want to secondary it for a few weeks to let it mellow a bit. Fresh imperial beers can give off a rather harsh liquor bite to them. Or try both, split the batch in half after primary has finished up, bottle half of it and put the other half in the secondary for a few weeks.

 

[Nosybear]

I like a good caramel-malty backbone in an IPA. Strange as it is to talk about balance in a style so skewed toward the hoppy side, I think a good dose of malty sweetness complements the hops. So I'd say go for the caramel. Chocolate malt on the other hand.... Not so sure. Your call of course. Given the small boil, hop utilization might be a problem but the software corrects for that. I'm interested in the choice of Willamette as your aroma/dry hop: It's very floral. Looks like an interesting recipe - keep us posted as to how it comes out!

 

[bi0]

Thanks for the comments

The only other thing i might say is that you might want to secondary it for a few weeks to let it mellow a bit.

Yeah, the recipe calls for 12 weeks (eek!) of conditioning at 12C. It's going to be a long wait!