Brewing a Belgian Style IPA for first time.

[AlanHarper]

Well attempting my first home designed brew of a Belgian IPA. I used the Brewers Friend Recipe app to construct a suitable brew - based on previously read Belgian brews.
This is the recipe:

FIRSTBASHMASH
Belgian Pale Ale
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 20.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.024
Total Hops (g): 121.75
Original Gravity (OG): 1.067 (°P): 16.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014 (°P): 3.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 6.90 %
Colour (SRM): 7.8 (EBC): 15.4
Bitterness (IBU): 83.8 (Rager)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 83
Boil Time (Minutes): 90
Grain Bill
----------------
3.015 kg United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (60%)
1.005 kg Corn Sugar - Dextrose (20%)
0.502 kg Flaked Oats (10%)
0.502 kg United Kingdom - Amber (10%)
Hop Bill
----------------
50.0 g East Kent Goldings Leaf (5% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (2.5 g/L)
26.1 g Fuggles Pellet (4.5% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (1.3 g/L)
37.0 g Progress Leaf (6.3% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (1.8 g/L)
8.7 g Bramling Cross Pellet (6.5% Alpha) @ 4 Days (Dry Hop) (0.4 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
4.4 g Irish Moss @ 20 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Safbrew - General/Belgian Yeast S-33

==============================
Actual readings were different to the above.
Pre-boil O.G. gravity was actually 1.071

I don't know why this should be different other than I was able to get more out of the Mash? Any ideas out there? In any case it looks like it will blow the doors off after fermenting. I will post here what I achieve.

 

[Poochops]

Could be because it's 20% sugar?
I'm struggling to understand the addition of 3 different hops for 90 minutes in this one to be honest, you'll get a lot of bitterness with little aroma or flavour, what were you hoping to achieve? You have over 80 ibu's then a miniscule dry hop which will be overwhelmed by the bitterness. The recipe doesn't make sense to me personally.
Hope it turns out good for you though, It'll be interesting to hear your review

 

[AlanHarper]

Hi Poochops. You may well be right - this was a first bash after all and I am just a learner. I was using the recipe calculator and just played about till I got all green ticks on the screen. If the calculator has given me a bum steer then I will find out soon. It is all a learning process so the next batch will be better whatever happens. It's only 5 gallons so no big deal - wash out the kit and start again. I was going by the figures in the app so I guess the first lesson to learn is - don't use the App....

 

[Simonh82]

The app can be a useful guide but you need to have a reasonable understanding of what you want to achieve too. Most IPAs have a lot of hop aroma from heavy dry hopping. Luckily this is something easy fixed even after brew day.

I'd grab 100g of a fruity American aroma hop. Something like centennial, Amarillo Simcoe or Citra and chuck that in when fermentation has finished. Voila you're back in style.

 

[AdeDunn]

Software will give you guidance as to colour, OG, FG, IBUs and ABV. What it won't give you guidance on is flavour. For that, you can't beat trial and error, including trying out hops in a single hop beer sometimes. It also helps to read hop profiles, and work out in your head if in theory they will work together nicely, theory isn't 100% though, as sometimes combinations that shouldn't work, ever, for some reason do.

I'm a firm believer in suck it and see methodology. It's the only way to know if YOU like something. We don't all like the same things, so sometimes somebody will tell you that something is going to be horrid, and you find it's wonderful. The opposite been true also, somebody will tell you something is lovely and you'll find it meh at best. For example, I find dry hopping to be a waste of hops, unless you can drink the beer within 4 weeks of it been carbonated. After 4 weeks the aroma and flavour from the dry hop falls off a cliff, and you're left with what the beer REALLY tastes like. If you didn't get a good base flavour in there, you're left with something rather naff. So my approach is to get my boil, end of boil and steep/whirpool hopping sorted as the main focus, and if I use a dry hop I do it purely to give the beer enhanced drink-ability earlier in it's life, so as the dry hops fade you get a new, but still delicious, flavour profile.

Needless to say I don't really brew AIPAs... lol I'd rather have a hoppy Saison , US hopped naturally (mosaic, citra, amarillo... Best of the best right there.) (which, funnily enough, some consider a variety of Belgian IPA... lol).

 

[AlanHarper]

Thanks Simon and Ade for that useful information and guidance. As I said - just a beginner here - but a willing student. I don't mind a bit of bitterness (it stops the wife from drinking it!) so we will see what the final result is. I will go and get some hi aroma hops and see what happens. My previous brew was cloudier than I was looking for but that was down to the over-hasty sparging process and adding the hops direct into the wort rather than in a bag. This time I have a clearer wort - so lesson learned there - and now on to the wonderful magic world of HopWarts - the school of wizardry - I may use that for another recipe so I'm laying claim to it now lol. Off to read up more about it.

 

[Simonh82]

If you want crystal clear beer, homebrewing is probate wrong way to go. It's not that clear beer is impossible but there are a lot of ways toake your beer hazy. Saying that, I'm not at all bothered by haze.

I kegged and force carbonated a beer on Saturday. I'm drinking it today. Its hazy as hell but it will clear up with time. Right now, even though its only 2 weeks from brewday it tastes great. Really fresh and hoppy.

 

[Sadfield]

If you want crystal clear beer, homebrewing is probate wrong way to go.

There shouldn't be any reason why commercial standards can't be easily achieved.



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