IPA/DIPA questions

If you have a recipe for one, calculate it into percentages (ie 85% dme, 10% crystal, 5% carapills). Then you can add/subtract to get the abv you want for the other beer. As for the hops, just look at the BJCP style guidelines to get a rough estimate of where you want to be. If it were me, only the bittering addition would be affected because I use a ton of late addition hops regardless of whether its an ipa or dipa.

 

I also think its common practice to add some sort of simple sugar to DIPAs in place of some of the malt sugar to keep it fairly dry. Obviously you'll be using some more malt to get the gravity up but you don't want it to finish sweet, it should finish in the 1.011-1.015 range. So adding some corn sugar or honey to the recipe (add it at flame out) for your DIPA in place of some of the malt sugar will be beneficial. 5-10% of the recipe should do it.

 

Yep, we just brewed a DIPA Saturday actually and added about 1.5lbs of honey at flame out (the end result was OG 1081 wort). This adds a little bit of end flavor to the beer (floral) but most of that sugar ferments out. If you're worried about affecting flavor and just want to showcase the hops, go with corn sugar...but don't overdo it as you'll end up with some "cidery" notes. I think about 1lb of corn sugar is enough for most recipes. Here is another thread that touches on this topic http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/corn-sugar-in-double-ipa.12736/

 

Double IPA = Imperial IPA

 

So more of a Black Double IPA? That would be interesting actually...

Good luck!

 

Lets be honest, there are a bunch of ways of accomplishing what you're trying to do here. If you're just looking to up the %ages of your IPA, then talk to your shop to determine how specifically to do it. If you're looking to change the recipe, that's another story.

The corn sugar idea works great, especially if you're looking to dry it out, but ditto on doing it a little bit at at time- if you do too much, it can turn out weird, so just be careful. 1% to start should work fine for ya.

 

Agreed but my pro tip of the day: Use table sugar. Cheaper and will not give you off flavours.

 

Will you be using dark extracts? Pale ME and sugar shouldn't yield a dark beer even with an amount of crystal, but you said all extract.

85-90% extract and 15-10% table sugar to the desired OG of an IPA and DIPA and a highly attenuating yeast. I agree it needs to get below 1.011 for me personally. I normally don't recommend specific hop schedules. There are many recipes for hop schedules online.

This is Jamil's Pliny clone for the DIPA.
http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/Mike_McDole_-_Pliny_The_Elder_NB_Kicker.html

 

Corn sugar is pretty cheap by the pound and it doesn't leave off flavors unless you use too much of it as a percentage of your grist. Basically, both work just fine in limited quantities and impart the same flavors if you put too much of it in your wort.

 

Have you experienced that first hand? What I have read was that "cidery" was a result of acetaldehyde, which some yeast produce more of than others. But it normally is a result of a hotter than ideal fermentation or stressed yeast, like the kind that are glued to the top of stale extract. I am drinking a saison currently with 20% table sugar and no "cidery" notes.

I'm not trying to be contrarian, just asking.

 

I've not experienced it with table sugar (sucrose) but I generally don't use sucrose outside of stuff like Belgians in the form of candi sugar. Mostly just read about it. Corn sugar cideryness is more well understood and John Palmer touches on it in How to Brew. He also mentions cane sugar which can be table sugar.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

I think there is some debate here on how much is too much. Glad to hear your 20% Saison has no ill effects though, I definitely want to experiment with these sugars more.

 

Ok. If you boil corn sugar or cane sugar though, don't you get glucose either way? How would the yeast know the difference? I checked out your link, and while I respect John Palmer, I couldn't find any citations for his information. Couldn't he just be passing on what he would consider common knowledge that isnt so?

I found as many posts to the contrary as those that support the idea. I guess it's good to know to be aware of the possibility.

Thanks for the info.

 

Yea you do get glucose either way but as I understand it table sugar (sucrose) needs to be broken down into glucose (+fructose) before the yeast can consume it. Since corn sugar is dextrose (aka glucose) it doesn't have that extra step and therefore ferments out faster than table sugar.

 

2 lbs. of Crystal 80? That's for a 5 gallon batch? That beer is going to be VERY sweet. You're also using amber malt which will make for a sweeter beer. Personally, I'd rethink that. I think 3/4 lb of the crystal 80 would be more than enough.

 

No sugar will impart off flavors unless the fermentation temperature is too high. Yeast are specifically set up to ferment glucose/fructose/sucrose/etc, the culprit in cidery flavors is hot pitch temps, hot ferm temps, and a very young beer (acetaldehyde) although the last one isnt as problematic as the first two