Any suggestions for a DIPA/IIPA recipe?

Pretty new to this so I don't have a lot of info, but the HBT (Home Brew Talk) forums have entire sections dedicated for recipes of one particular style or another.

This thread (currently above this one) has a Zombie Dust clone recipe which uses all Citra.

Edit: My bad, I knew Zombie dust isn't a DIPA, but my brain had a lapse. So that's a bad example.

 

Its a great beer (incredibly balanced) and FWIW the grain bill is very similar to the grist of my house IPA (86% Rahr 2-row, 2.5% Briess carapils, 2.5% Briess Munich, 7% Rahr White Wheat, 2% Gambrinus Honey Malt).

Only comment I have is something related to my own experience trying the 3 day dry hop cycles (3 days then pull, repeat) is that it really didn't work for me. The sweet spot for my system seems to be ~7 days per a room temp dry hop (68 F) or 10-14 days if doing a dry hop in the keg at 36-38 F. I tried two beers with the 3 day cycles (triple dry hopped both), and both beers were underwhelming in the nose and flavor department, whereas the same beers rebrewed with 7 day dry hop cycles turned out great.

 

I've brewed the Kern River, it's a good recipe. Infact, I have it milled up right now in the garage, to brew this weekend. Instead of the 2 row, I used Pearl malt for the base, and I'm gonna follow the rest of the hop schedule, as it's pretty solid and easy. Figured I may as well blow some of the 5#'s of Citra I have in the freezer.

I agree with barfdiggs, it's a very balanced beer, and taste really good. It's a bit busy on the grain bill, but it's not bad. Simple is usually just as good ( or better ).

The dry hop they have is mehh. I dry hop in my kegs, and I do it at keg temps, although the first day it's not that cold, it'll be shortly. I've found that if I'm cycling the dry hop, I'll do it for no less than a week, but I find that 2 weeks at keezer temps, it's at it's maximum output, and I can toss more in afterwards. 3 days, does jack shit, unless it's warm, IMO.

 

Kern River is an amazing DIPA. I don't know where you can find Citra hops though. I certainly can't around here. If you need another recipe though I wouldn't look any further than Pliny, another amazing DIPA. Recipe

Whatever you do make sure you pitch enough yeast and use a blowoff tube!

 

I just made this recipe, but with a different hops schedule. I only see two problems with how I did it...

1. it's not ready yet
2. I forgot to take the OG reading*

The link on the OP looks good. Seems like a lot of crystal tho (24 oz for six gallons, plus 6 oz honey malt?). But the comments seem to indicate it's quite good. I'd say go for it! Or try the pliny clone.

*I am guessing it wasn't far off the mark tho

 

you find citra hops on the internet

 

Citra hops are primarily reminiscent of lychee fruit and mango. By themselves in an IPA, they are kind of underwhelming. But when paired with late additions of Amarillo, you should have something very fruity and tropical. It's funny, because despite being named "Citra", its citrus and grapefruit flavors are fairly weak. For citrusy grapefruit forwardness, you want something bittered with Warrior and heavy with late Centennial and Cascade additions... possibly a hint of Amarillo in there. Some Citra at flameout for added complexity won't hurt, but it's unnecessary as far as your citrus-grapefruit goals are concerned. I tend to stick with pellet hops for a multitude of reasons, but we'll save that for another thread. And I don't ignore the importance of early, middle, late, and dryhop additions. Pound it out with 12-14 total oz. per 5-6 gallon batch.

Start with a 2-row pale malt base and try to keep any character grains and adjuncts that you may use (such as light crystal malt or honey malt, wheat malt, carapils, light munich, vienna, corn sugar) under 6% each. Mash between 147-151 F. Shoot for something like 1.070 OG / 1.010 FG. Using a clean Cali Ale yeast is smart. I like WLP090 because it's high floc, attenuates well, and I think it allows the hops to shine in American IIPAs a little better than the other strains.

 

I dig the CYBI podcasts, and this is actually one of my favorites. I had to sub out a good portion of the base malt for extract, but it is a great recipe. I also brewed an apa with this as my base idea. It did well in competition, however the judges deemed it catty and astringent. My last batch I tossed in some cascade to try to balance it out and dryhopped the hell out of it, 2oz of citra and cascade each. BM me if you need help finding citra, I know a few places you could drive to and pick some up.

 

80% 2-row
20% table sugar
A few ounces of C-40

Mash between 146-148 for 90 minutes
Hop to your preference. Use the hops you like at 60, 30, 15, 5, and 0 minutes.
Dry hop for 14 days with several ounces of whatever you like/have.
Pitch a healthy starter, at least 1800ml
Oxygenate at pitching
Give it time to reach FG
Shoot for a FG of 1.014 or lower. The lower the FG, the more bitterness you will be able to perceive.

 

That's a lot of sugar for an all-grain batch. I try to be careful not to exceed 7% sugar for WC IIPAs since they can begin to taste cheap, and just plain off-flavorwise, with much higher amounts. I've heard that New Belgium Ranger uses a lot of sucrose, but I don't know about 20%... probably more like 12%. Honestly, if your other processes are sound, there's really not a huge need to add sugar at all for good attenuation.

 

Going from 1.090 or higher to a point where it is not too cloying to be enjoyable is quite a lot of real estate for the OP who has only done "several all grain recipes". This is my goto DIPA recipe for beginners. It is a lot of sugar, but I find few things more disappointing then setting up a multistep hop schedule using 8-16 ounces of hard to find hops, waiting for fermentation, making multistep dry hoppings, then waiting another 14 days, then bottling and waiting longer just to crack one open to find hoppy syrup because the OP couldn't get the yeast to finish below 1.030. You can't get that expense or time back.

So why not start from a point that the malt flavor will be exceptable and the hop flavor can shine in a beer that is not so sweet it is undrinkable. And this recipe is not guaranteed to work. A DIPA is a challenge to do well for anyone.

Your statement is correct. I think i would be fine without using sugar. I trust my processes. I use 24oz. of sugar. But I'm not willing to risk all that time and expense. You are not incorrect, I'm just not a gambler.

And by all means, reject my information. I don't participate in order to force my information on others. I am sure there will be good or great info in this post completely indifferent to my post.