American IPA Hop Combo

[periolus]

I have just bought some American hops: Centennial, Chinook & Cascade. I also have some Cluster kicking about in the freezer somewhere.

My plan is to make an American IPA and I was thinking of Chinook, Centennial & Cascade.

I am aiming for 27L into the fermenter, so hop schedule would be:

50g Chinook @ 60
25g Chinook @30
50g Centennial @30
25g Centennial @15
25g Cascade @ 0

Dry hop: (4 days in 2ry)

25g Chinook
25g Centennial
25g Cascade

Does that seem like enough hoppage for the slightly bigger batch (27L)?

Any suggestions for very tasty US hop combos will be noted! Fire away!

 

[wilsoa1111]

sure it would be hoppy enough for some-others arent happy till they have used 400g total -but more late hopping always seems to help-i would also leave the dry hops in there a tad longer 7-14 days is usual

 

[IanCompetent]

The American IPA is a strange beast. Over here, there seems to be a race on as to who can make the hoppiest beer. A Canadian brewery called Flying Monkeys currently has an IPA that rates at 3000+ IBUs. If you go by that logic, your beer will never be hoppy enough!!

Your hop choices are awesome - you should have no issues with those in almost any combination. I guess the only thing that I would suggest would be to not put quite a large amount in at the beginning of the boil and to try first wort hopping. I like your late edition schedule. I'm a big believer in large late hop additions.

For my go-to American IPA recipe, I use Columbus and Cascade for bittering and Centennial, Citra and Comet for flavour and aroma. I use equal amounts of the bittering additions to first wort hop and then add an equal number of both @ 40 minutes. The last three I use in equal, large amounts @ 15, 10 and 5. The bitterness is very rounded and the flavour and aroma are quite intense. I wouldn't use Clusters at all for your recipe - it sounds like you have what you need already.

I agree with wilsoa1111 - I'd dry hop a little longer as well. I always add dry hops right after I remove the krausen (so 4-5 days fermenting). I don't use a secondary fermenter, though, so you may have to do that to your own fermentation schedule.

Hope something in there helps.

 

[RobWalker]

Cascade on the finish and Chinook on the bittering for sure, but everything else is pretty flexible. Brewdog dry hop at a rate of 20g to the gallon, so keep that in mind!

 

[periolus]

Hi!

Thanks for all the tips everyone! I have been looking into First Wort Hopping a lot today, and it all seems to relate to using about 30% of the overall hop schedule, but made up of late addition hops. My question is, can that be flavour as well as aroma hops, or should it use aroma only?

Now that I have my recipe together, I have realised the Chinook quantities were too high. My recipe is now (for 28L batch):

89.4% Maris Otter
5.0% Crystal
5.0% Munich

25g Chinook @ 60
17g Chinook @ 30
37g Centennial @ 30
25g Centennial @ 10
20g Cascade @ 1

Dry hop: 25g Chinook, 25g Centennial, 25g Cascade

Fermenting with US-05

Est. OG: 1064, IBU: 64.5, ABV: 7.0%

This is all based on everything being in the kettle so far. So, can I put 30% of my hops from 30 mins onwards into the kettle for first wort hopping? That would be 20g Centennial, 6g Chinook and 7g Cascade. Does that seem right?

Do I need to up any of the quantities if I am FW Hopping?
Advice gratefully received!

----EDIT----

The calculations above are 30% of the hops from 30 mins onwards, but actually I think it should be 30% overall, so that would be about 40g of hops. Could I just add the 20g of Cascade and 25g of Centennial, so the latest hops in the schedule? How would any of you choose which hops to use - I assumed the later the better.

 

[IanCompetent]

I haven't found the "30%" rule to be true at all, personally. People have tried to establish all kinds of rules for it, but it's much more simple than it's made out to be. I first wort hop every beer I make and just use whatever my 60 minute bittering addition would be and put it in the kettle before the first run-off. In the case of your recipe, the initial Chinooks would simply be used. The IBUs would still be roughly the same, but I think that you'll find that the bitterness is less sharp and more rounded in character. It also gives a better aroma and smoother flavour. Honestly, that's really the only thing you would have to do differently. I've heard lots of "rules" about first wort hopping (like don't use high AA hops, use 30% of your overall hops, etc.) but through practice have found them not to be true.

If you're not feeling experimental or don't feel like taking a roll of the dice with your expensive American hops, I certainly understand. But if you do just chuck your 60 minute Chinooks into the kettle and do your next addition at 30, I think that you will be happy with the results. The revisions to the hop schedule look really good, BTW. You really do have to be careful with Chinooks - they can be pretty cloying in large amounts.

Let us know what you did and how it turns out!! Good luck!!

 

[periolus]

Hi!

Thanks for that. I will give it a go. I got all confused, as I thought it was the late ones that go in for FWH. I am perfectly happy to experiment with my hops ; ) This will be the first time for 3 things: Dry hopping; First wort hopping; Parking my brew in a secondary prior to bottling and kegging (I will dry hop in the secondary as well).

I'll let you know how it all goes.

B

 

[IanCompetent]

You weren't confused at all - that 30% of late addition hops thing is constantly referenced if you look up FWH anywhere, but it's not entirely true. The rule of thumb with FWH is that you get 60 minute addition IBUs with 20 minute addition flavour and bitterness. You may ultimately try it and hate it, but it's always done me well. My beer has improved quite a bit since a friend of mine suggested that I try it myself. I've been a bit of a fanatic about it since.

I was worried that I may have muddled things up a bit for you - glad that is not the case. Hope that your beer turns out the way that you want it to. Let me know how it goes!!

 

[periolus]

Cool. Will try. All the online information suggests this works best with more gently-flavoured styles, but I reckon it would brilliantly in an IPA using high-alpha hops. We'll see ; )

I have a Porter and a California Common to make before I do the IPA so I won't be posting anything on this until the end of Jan/early Feb.