Guys, I´ve being homebrewing for 10 months now and I´ve recently signed up for my first competition. There will be only 50 recipes of American IPA (21A BJCP). There will be a lot of unexpirienced homebrewers, so if I make a solid recipe I´ll have some chances. If you guys could criticize my recipe I would be deeply thankful. OG: 1,066 / IBU: 63,7 / Color: 6 / ABV: 6,7% batch size: 27L(app.7gal) Grain Grist: Maris Otter (6kg - 13.23lb) Carapils (400g - 14.1oz) Carared (300g - 10.6oz) White wheat (150g - 5.3oz) Hops: 15g (0.5oz) Magnum FW 7g (0.25oz) Citra/Galaxy/Amarillo @15min & @ 5min 40g (1.4oz) Citra/Galaxy/Amarillo @ Whirlpool 20 min 60g (2.1oz) Citra / Amarillo DH 4 days 80g (2.8oz) Galaxy DH 4 days Yeast: US-05 or M44 My concerns on the grain grist are: 1) Would you guys change carared? I´m using it solely to get some colour. 2) Would you use both white wheat and Carapils? My concerns on hops are: 3) Do you think it will be to Citrus? 4) Would add some piney, like chinook? Or would you change a hops? Thanks a lot guys.
never used carared so no idea hoe it tastes or acts with other malts. I like cara pills, but using both might be interesting. I predict it will be more to galaxy due to the increased use of it over citrus. an half oz of chinook at 15 would give you some pine. when in doubt and if you have time, make a few batches, 2,5 gallons per and make your changes. see which you like best. good luck
Personally, I would get rid of the carared. Unless you are making a red IPA (in which case I would just add a small amount of roasted malt or debittered black malt (husk less carafa or black prinz)), you don't want more color. You will get plenty of color from the marris otter and you already have plenty of dextrins and head forming proteins from the carapils. If you are competing in the American IPA category, you want the beer to finish dry and the carared is going to cause the beer to finish too sweet imho. Depending on your mash temp, you might consider dropping the carapils to 8 oz. other than that, the recipe looks solid. As far as the hop selection, it is dependent entirely on what hop character you are going for. If you are looking for dank tropical citrus, mango, and peach, then you should be all set. If you are looking for some spicy pine to compliment the citrus and tropical fruit then you may consider adding some simcoe or chinook late in the boil (20 minutes to 5 minutes). Good luck!
I use carared in my standard NEIPA grist... but only at 2%. I use it to get more of an orange hue as opposed to straight yellow. I wouldn't advise maris otter as a base, personally. It's OK if you want a little in there, but I'd stick to standard base grains for IPAs (2row, pale, pils, or golden promise). There are many ways to skin a cat. BTW, 50 IPAs in a single category is a pretty big competition. I won 1st in American IPA recently against 33 other beers and thought that was pretty impressive. Good luck! (*BTW, galaxy featured IPAs are my personal favorite!)
Thank a lot, DVoors. The only reason for the carared, is to obtain a 6SRM. I´ll consider your advise. As for hops, then I think I´m all set.
I think hop freshness/avoiding oxidation is going to be the biggest concern in making your beer stand out from the rest. Make sure the timing's right - ie. bottle the batch a few weeks out from the competition, or try to avoid introducing as much oxygen as possible. I think if you were to stick with this recipe, and keep oxygen out it will be very good.
Thanks, that´s a strong concern of mine. Since I do not have kegs i´ve been experiencing some oxidation issues. My next batch, I´ll test a bunch of processes trying to minimize it. Even tossing all DH at 1.020 and bottleone week later.
What you have should make a solid IPA. Technique is more important than recipe, especially for an IPA. If you want more color, you could throw in some Munich malt (10%ish) in place of carared. I would also sub in 2-row in place of (or at least part) the Maris otter. But that's just personal preference. Your call. Good luck!
There are easier ways to get color; consider something like 1/2 oz of Carafa III . . . so small to not be noticeable but will raise SRM a point or two. A famous Beer Judge (@jbakajust1 ) once told me the biggest mistake brewers make in the IPA category is not making them hoppy enough. Here's where a "little over the top" makes people remember you. RE Hops: I find nothing gives pine better than Simcoe, plus it plays very well with Amarillo/Citra. In addition to a good hop combination, freshness is also important. Just because you buy new hops doesn't guarantee they are this years crop and have been stored properly. I would give my supplier a "grilling" to make sure this is covered.
The recipe looks fine...when it comes to American IPAs and bottling for competitions though, timing is everything. Good luck.
American IPA = hops so ... Assuming you want to use Maris Otter, I would skip the carapils completely and probably the small amount of wheat as well, since Maris Otter comes across as "bigger" than some other malts and can hide hops pretty well. With that said, I really like it in an IPA, but I tend to use it by itself. Never used carared, but if you want the color, it probably won't hurt flavor too much. Why are you doing a small hop addition at 20 mins and then a relatively large one at 15 mins? And at whirlpool at 5 mins? I would either evenly distribute those hops across the full 20-30 mins or just add at a couple times. Citra and Amarillo work well together. I have not used Galaxy enough to say what that does to the combination, but I think it would work. Something like Chinook would probably work, but would be "different", it depends on what you want.
Got you. Actually the recipes calls for an addition of 7g of each hop at 15 and 5, and then 40g g of each for a whirlpool during 20 minutes.
I like Maris Otter in an IPA, I would use it by itself and drop the other malts. For the hops, I read it as a 20 minute addition but I think you are saying whirlpool for 20 minutes, that makes more sense
