What IPA should I make next?

From the sounds of it, a zombie dust clone spin-off with a Vermont yeast may be up your alley, maybe drop the crystal malt and replace with wheat. See this recipe for a rough idea... I referenced a few different ones and tweaked slightly for mine, but it will give you a baseline:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=303478

All citra hop, it's delicious (just brewed it myself)... But you can swap out the US-04 for the Conon and give it a try.

 

Grain Bill
60 - 70% Base Malt
10-20% oats
10 - 30% wheat malt
Touch of dextrin (optional as the wheat and oats will give good head retention and body)
crystal (@3%) for color
I personally like a higher % of wheat malt with a lower % of oats. I would target around 20 - 30% between the two. I have a beer fermenting right now with 20% wheat malt and 10% flaked oats. I wouldn't use flaked wheat and flaked oats.

London 3 yeast. 1318 has good attenuation, flexible temp to work with and has a nice Fruity esters is you want or clean fermentation. I have fermented low @63 and got clean fermentation and 80% attentuation. More esters ferment around 68 or even as high as 70. Easy to work with and is versatile. Just have good head space as the krausen is crazy thick and high. Never used Conan but heard it can be finicky, and London 3 is easy and awesome.

Small bittering charge between .25 and .50 ozs at first wort or 60
Small flavor hop addition around 10 min between .75 - 1 oz
@4 -5 ozs of hops at flameout/hop stand
@5 oz of dry hops split between krausen and in the keg. I started doing 4ozs @3 days in and then 2 ozs in the keg that I let sit for 2 - 3 days before cooling and carbing.

Build your water from RO with calcium chloride and gypsum. I have gone all the way but my last beer was 120ppm chloride and 60ppm sulfate and it was my softest and creamest beer. You could also go a little lighter like 100ppm/50ppm

Citra and mosaic or citra and Galaxy are my two personal favorite hop combos. Based on trillium recipes I layer them by using the same hop for bittering and 10 min the use the 2nd hop in the hop stand and then same hop then hops stand and then mix them for dry hopping 2:1 with the second hop.

 

Soft mouth feel? Get into water quality or use up to 70% RO water or 50% distilled for that effect. Bittering will be easy to control after 6 batches. Aroma & fresh hop taste come from last additions, dry hopping, hop oils, hop rocket or similar filtering. You might want to look into that last one if IPA's are your main thing, DIY can be built on the cheap (2 2 liter bottles, some cheese cloth, saran wrap and duct tape.)

Probably the best advice I can give you is pick a base recipe and alter it up one step at a time in developing "your IPA". We all have different tastes and after 6 batches you are probably ready to find your own. I personally found it very helpful to do SMASH beers (single malt/single hop) for hop understanding, but the malt base being single was not as beneficial for me and limited several beers enjoyment through the trials. YMMV

 

Citra 60 min or first wort @.25 - .50 ozs.
10 min citra (.50 - 1oz)
Hop stand 3oz citra, 1 oz Galaxy
Dry hop day 3/4 - 3 oz Galaxy
Dry hop in keg - 1 oz Galaxy, 1 oz citra

Adjust to your target Ibus and preference. If you prefer more Galaxy or citra. Some people skip the bittering hop and add more hop stand. I still like to add a small amount of first wort as I like how the bitterness comes across. I keep between .25 - .50.

When I brewed my citra and Galaxy my friend said it was like a better more hoppy Nelson IPA from Alpine. He was talking about the Nelson straight from alpine not the the green flash stuff. Big tropical and citrus notes.

 

Red's rye...sorry I love that citrus/rye combo

 

Try WLP644, it's my favorite yeast for hoppy beers. It matches up perfectly with fruity American and New Zealand hops. I get huge mango flavor and aroma from it.

 

Looks like a good "New England" style IPA. Ferment low like 150/149 to drive fermentability. The oats, wheat, water and yeast will give if body. Would love to hear how this turns out...cheers!

 

If I would change anything about it, it would be to use something else to bitter, and then plug that extra 1/4oz of Citra into dry-hop. I noticed that your quantities add up to even ounces. Are you buying hops by the ounce just for this beer, or using stuff you've purchased in bulk already? Do you have any other high AA hops lying around?

 

G’s Citra Burst Pale Ale (Bertus) #123

SG: 1.045
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.009

ABV: 5.6 %

6 Gallons

5 lbs Halcyon
5 lbs 2-Row
1 lb Munich
.5 lb Abbey
6 oz CaraPils
5 oz C60

.75 - 22 g CTZ FWH (I prefer mash hop but is forboden)

Irish Moss - 15 minutes

Blend: 2oz Citra, and 1.5 oz ea Amarillo and Simcoe. Add:
1.33oz (37g) @ 15
1.66oz (46g) @ 5
2 oz @ 0 Whirlpool @ 180 down to 160

Dry Hop: at 13 days for 8 days
1.5 oz Citra
.75 oz Amarillo
.75 oz Simcoe

Mash/Sparge/Boil 60 minute boil

sacc1 0 60 152
mash out 0 10 168 168 Infuse 194 full tun

Optional: 1 oz Liberty Caps day 21 for 2 days (gives a bit of clarity)


WLP644 Brett Trois Ferment at 19 C

 

Here's another suggestion

6 lbs rah rah 2 row
6 lb Maris otter
.5 lb L60
.5 lb victory
.5 lb carapills
Mash 148 to 150
I use spring water
Hops
60 minutes .5 Columbus
30 minutes .5 chinook
15 minutes 1oz each galexy Columbus cascade
5 minutes 1 oz each galexy cascade simco
Flame out 1 oz each citra galexy
Yeast
Nottingham starter
65-68 degrees 5 days
Dry hop .5 oz each citra galexy Amarillo for 3 days
Bottle or keg

 

I agree that this yeast is a good one to try, and I think your pairing ideas could be lovely. However, I will caution that, unless White Labs has changed their packaging strategy for this yeast, they are packing a partial pitch meant for a secondary fermentation. If this is still the case, homebrewers will want to step it up a 2-3 times or so to pitch as a primary yeast strain in an IPA strength beer.

 

Yeah, it absolutely needs a big starter to be made.

 

Been interested in trying this one for quite a while now but haven't had the time to do any brewing. Anybody want to build something around these characteristics and report back on how it is? Quantities aren't something I've even had time to think about lately but I've been thinking about interesting hop bills to work with.
Malt bill: heavily slanted towards German Pilsner or Maris otter, can't decide which (or a combo)
Hops: Bittering (55 minutes): Centennial and Chinook
15 minutes: Centennial and Galaxy
Whirlpool 30 minutes Galaxy and Pacific Jade
Dry hop: 3 days Motueka and Galaxy