IPA - All grain beginner

m.mihai

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Hello everybody,

Link to the preliminary recipe: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/466561/apiipa

I am planning on brewing an IPA in the next coming weeks and I would like some feedback, suggestions and critique on the following grain bill:

6000 gr ( 13.22 lbs ) Pale Ale Malt
750 gr ( 1.65 lbs ) Munich Malt
750 gr ( 1.65 lbs ) Vienna Malt
250 gr ( 0.55 lbs ) Carapils
250 gr ( 0.55 lbs ) Victory Malt

The equipment is a Grainfather. 5 - 5.5 gallons batch. 60 minutes boil

I have not yet gotten to the hops addition and amount.

I am keen on the Carapils and Victory ( for the nutty backbone it will hopefully* provide ), but I am unsure of the rest. I am however willing to try something new, which is why I got intrigued by the use og Munich and Vienna, along with the rest.
 
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If it's an IPA, hops will mask most of the flavor differences of base malts in small %. You have three base malts and can safely simplify that to one or two. I agree that Pale is the best suited for IPA from that list. Vienna and Munich have similar all-around malty flavors and if you want that profile you can go with either. Munich is darkest but you may not care since color is driven by Victory.
 
Hello KC. Thank you for the reply, much obliged.

If I were to leave the Munich and Vienna, would I risk adding an exaggerated " malty ", " bready " flavor to the resulting beer? I want a malty backbone, but not overly so, that it could distract from the rest of the flavors.
 
Hello KC. Thank you for the reply, much obliged.

If I were to leave the Munich and Vienna, would I risk adding an exaggerated " malty ", " bready " flavor to the resulting beer? I want a malty backbone, but not overly so, that it could distract from the rest of the flavors.
It all depends on your hops schedule
if you haven't already, check out the BU/GU stat. it's basically a ratio of bitter to gravity. If i remember correctly, if it's close to or over 1, it'll be more hoppy. if it's below .5 or so, it'll be more malty
 
It all depends on your hops schedule
if you haven't already, check out the BU/GU stat. it's basically a ratio of bitter to gravity. If i remember correctly, if it's close to or over 1, it'll be more hoppy. if it's below .5 or so, it'll be more malty

Thank you for that. Made some digging and found out the information you wrote above. According to Beersmith, the BU:GU ratio is 1.015.
By typing the recipe here on the site, it gives me an IBU of 68.41 and an original gravity of 1.082, with a final ratio of 0.83.

It would seem the final beer is bitter, which is desirable.
 
If I were to leave the Munich and Vienna, would I risk adding an exaggerated " malty ", " bready " flavor to the resulting beer? I want a malty backbone, but not overly so, that it could distract from the rest of the flavors.

Both Vienna and Munich are bases that can be 100% of the grain bill. At only 20% total and masked by IPA hops, Victory, and caramel in your recipe, they will not contribute anything exaggerated.
 
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Yea that is a big grainbill! I'd get tired arms BIABing that one lol. You could go half and half pale/Vienna I've done this in a pale and tasted great I am bias though:rolleyes:. What yeast are you cooking it up with BTW? Good luck.
 
I've had good luck with a similar grain bill:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/400189/columbus-cascade (You can ignore the C40 and touch of Special Roast in that recipe and make up the diff in base malt. And mash lower than the temp I have listed...152F tops)
Just Munich will do what you want. I'm with you on the Victory. I think it adds something...a little more won't hurt. You could up it to as much as 12 oz, but I wouldn't go more than that.
Carapils at .25 for a 5 gallon is enough, but up to .5 lb is okay.

If you want to figure out mashing, do some SMASH recipes...keeping it simple will help you really concentrate on your process. Invariably guys who try SMASH brews end up keeping them in steady rotation because they tend to make excellent beers when it comes to IPAs and APAs.
 
#KC Good to hear.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/members/mark-d-pirate.15032/
#Mark D Pirate
The Grainfather can go up to 9 Kg ( 19.8 lbs ). I have only did a 7.75 Kg ( 17.1 lbs ) batch and it was OK, although had some minor issues with the filter ( due to whirlpooling ), which came off two times and had to empty the Grainfather and then boil again :(and so on and so forth... TWO times.:cool:

A stainless steel collar for the filter has been acquired since. :rolleyes: That beer is currently fermenting and hope to post some feedback on it in a few weeks.

#Trialben I will probably go with Safale US-05.

#J A SMASH is on our priority list, as I brew together with a friend. So we are definitely looking forward to doing small batches in the future, in order to find out what to add/keep/remove from our future recipes.

But I am very glad to have found this forum and the good people on it.
 

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