Improving my homebrewed IPAs...

Mel did it good . . .


. . . but it was popular back in black & white (Treasure of the Sierra Madre):

 

It was my only hoppy beer to medal, and my only gold ever. I entered it on a whim. That medal got me hooked, but I never did that well again. I brought it up as anecdotal evidence that good beer is good beer, regardless of the BA homebrew forum opinions, including my own. Ha!

 

And right you are!

Cheers!

 

Well to be honest, that is likely what is giving OP the flavors he doesn't enjoy. He wants a lighter color beer with less malt to it.

 

Which could be achieved using lighter colored crystal malt - I use 20L crystal when brewing my IPAs. Nixing all crystal malts (e.g., "Putting a cease and desist on using c malts") is an extreme measure unless you are a member of the crystal police.

Cheers!

 

If it makes you feel better, I still use crystal in my stouts

 

Crystal malt is overutilized. This is carryover from the old days in the 1980s and 90s when complex malts like Munich and Vienna and anything else just weren't as widely available as they are today. Brewing a 1990s version of a Munich dunkel but can't find Munich malt? Hell, I'll just add a pound of Crystal 40, that's close enough. And people still do this today, whether subconsciously or totally unknowingly, or because an old recipe or brewshop owner told them to, or whatever.

Crystal malt is an important part of the palette for any craftbrewer artiste. But it needn't be caked sky-high into every recipe either. Many bad beers are bad because people tend to think more is better. Sometimes more is not better. Sometimes, zero is better.

 

well, for me the beer got a lot better once I stopped aerating the wort after fermentation...

 

And sometimes judicious use of lighter colored crystal malt is 'better'.

Cheers!

 

This is very often true. I can remember a time when almost every recipe included crystal malt. Old habits die hard.

 

Use crystal malt if there is a reason
I like to use a blend of pale, 10% wheat and a touch of light color cara malt,
but then again, depends on my goal

 

We could have a more focused and productive discussion with a recipe and process from @RickSalut and more specific info on what he wants in an IPA and what is lacking in his. In absence of that info, there are assumptions, guesses, and opinions.

 

True, but then we might get distracted from discussing the evils of crystal malt.

 

PS: @RickSalut Welcome to the homebrew forum.

Trust, me that side discussion almost sucked me in. Especially the stinkin’ badges line!