English IPA recipe tweaks, OK?

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Hop-Sniffer

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Hi chaps I'd appreciate your views on this. I'm a novice AG brewer, I've just done my third AG brew, the chiller is running at the moment and it will be in the FV within the next half hour hopefully.

Because I was trying to use up some hops from the previous brews, I tweaked the recipe I was using. I winged this without the benefit of a recipe program or any knowledge whatsoever :oops: Because I'm still new to this, I haven't quite got my head around IBUs, AAs etc! :confused: I hope I haven't wasted a brew? The recipe is from Greg Hughes "Home Brew Beer" (page 131) and is for an English IPA. I'll list the recipe as printed, then list the hop changes I made.

Brew length 23L, mash liquor 14L, mash time 1 hour, boil time 70 minutes

Grain bill, 5.8kg Pale malt, 145g Crystal malt.

Challenger 70g at boil start
Goldings 35g for last 15 minutes
Goldings 35g at switch off

I substituted Progress for Challenger, and East Kent Goldings (mostly) for Goldings. Actually, I was about 20g short of EKG so made the 15 min addition up as follows: EKG 15g; Progress 10g; Citra 10g. The switch-off addition was all EKG.

Will these hop amendments be OK?

Also, I have some Simcoe hops left from an American IPA I did (same book, turned out ace :thumb:). Could I dry hop with these? I do like very hoppy beers. If so, how much, at what point and for how long?

Thanks for your patience with my muppet questions.
 
Your beer sounds ace mate and I have the same book as you and it gets good reviews.
I am unqualified to help you sorry :hmm: but if you like hops then I can't see you going wrong, I don't think you will end up with a Sierra Nevada Torpedo !
Good luck and pm me if you need a chief taster :wink::wink:
 
Cheers, I hope you're right. If you're passing through Stroud anytime you're welcome to a slurp :thumb:
 
'm sure that your substitutions will be fine. It just sounds like a lot of bittering hops at the start of the boil, to me. % AAs show the "strength" of the hops and are a measure of the amount of Alpha Acids, the vital bits, which the hops contain. The percentages are a usefull guide but don't tell the whole story when it comes to the flavours you will get. A good recipe and the experience you get whilst brewing will be more helpfull.:drink:
 
Yes I think you will have a very bitter beer, but not off the scale, probably about 70 IBUs. ABV around 5.5- 6.0%.

You could dry hop with Simcoe. It's a great hop. About 50g in 23 litres, some would say more, some would say less. As it stands your beer is more English IPA, the Simcoe dry hop would swing it towards an American IPA. I like both, but think I'd do the dry hop myself.
 
Thanks guys, all really useful stuff. Clibit reading your post has set me thinking. I've already done an American IPA which turned out really well, so for variety and as a learning process, I might hold off on the dry hopping this time to experience the style the recipe is supposed to be and get a baseline so I can gauge the effect of dry hopping If I do it again. If i dry hop this time i might get a hoppy beer I really like, but not really be able to gauge what difference the dry hopping has made. Does that make sense?

Is it my hop substitute of Progress for Challenger that will make it particularly bitter, or was the original recipe already that way?
 
It was already that way - the Progress may even have been a bit less bitter than Challenger - what was the AA % on the pack?

You could split the batch if you have another FV, and dry hop half, to gauge the difference and get two beers!

Download Brewmate - it's free, and pretty easy to use. It will tell you what your beer is going to come out like, in terms of strength, bitterness and colour, and help you to adjust your recipe. And teach you, basically, I have learnt loads from putting recipes into it and tweaking them. I got a bit carried away, like, and have 200-300 recipes stored in it now! When I want to brew, I just browse through and see what takes my fancy! All my past brews are stored in there too, with notes! :geek: :???: :hat:
 
70g of virtually any hop at the start of the boil willleave it bitter. I'd compare other recipes on the forum, if I were you. You may find half or less of this amount will lead to a more palatable ale. Just have a look at older brewday threads and the impressions that have been posted, perhaps.:cheers:
 
Thanks chaps, every day's a school day! I'm a little surprised that a recipe in a book like this would recommend a quantity of bittering hops that was borderline excessive. I do like quite bitter beers though so I'm sure it will get drunk! Good suggestion about splitting the batch in two and dry hopping one.

I'll also download brewmate and have a play. I can't remember the AA percentage from the the progress, and I binned the packet I'm afraid.
 
I don't think the bitterness will be crazy tbh, especially if you are ok with bitter beers. I brew some very bitter beers myself, deliberately, and I also brew more balanced beers. Experience teaches you about the effects of different hops, timings and techniques.

Hope it works out. Progress are around 8%AA, Challenger around 9%AA.
 

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