matching styles in brewers friend

[Clint]

Hello all
I'm nearly ready to attempt a partial mash....I'm going for an American ipa style. I've got maris otter and crystal malts, some tins of lme,and citra,centennial and cascade in the freezer. I dail my bits in,not quite sure of hop additions times etc but reach the standard in terms of ibu , the only thing not ticking the box for style is abv. I know this is due to the amount I put in vs style...
Does it matter that I only brew to say,4.5% instead of the style standard of 5.5-7.5 and apart from this will it affect the final product?
Recipe. ..(to standard)
2kg maris otter
250g crystal
1.5 kg lme
700g dextrose
500g dme
Hops...
35g citra @ 60 mins
20g each citra centennial cascade @ 15 mins
20g cascade flame out
40g cascade
25g citra
30g centennial. ..all dry hop
US 05
..that's using all my c hops from my freezer and a packet of yeast I have...advice please!

Cheers

Clint

 

[Brew_DD2]

Sounds tasty to me. Don't worry about the tick-box matching. Call it a Session American IPA. Although "session" to the Americans is about 6% :lol: You could always brew a little shorter if you want to bump up the abv.

 

[Clint]

Thanks for the quick reply! I don't mind the high abv...I'd just like to drink a few more at once!
Just wondering at the timing of my hop additions. ..
Also I see some AIPA recipes and kits include dextrose to dry the beer out and also bump the abv so I suppose it's optional..
Batch size 23l. Boil 60 mins. Wasn't sure of mash size so just used 11l. .

Cheers

Clint

 

[Grizzly299]

What yeast strain were you planning on using? You'll need a clean fermenting ale yeast for almost anything American.

 

[Clint]

Safale US05. .

 

[MickDundee]

As long as you don't end up too bitter for your OG, the "matches style" stuff only really matters if you were entering a competition.

 

[Clint]

Thanks...how do I know is its too bitter for the og?

Cheers

Clint

 

[Chrissparky]

If you make a beer that you love, who cares if it matches a style. I make mainly IPAs sometimes they match APAs sometimes IPAs. Sometimes none. If they taste how I want I don't care. All I know is most of the beers I make taste far superior to anything I can buy in the supermarket for much less dosh

 

[IainM]

Thanks...how do I know is its too bitter for the og?

Cheers

Clint

There is trick Ray Daniel's uses in his book, 'Designing Great Beer', which is to plan around the BU:GU ratio. BU stand for bitterness units, and is the IBU value, and GU is the gravity units, which is worked out from the OG. An OG of 1.048, for instance, would be 48 gravity units.

So say your OG is 1.048, and you have 50 IBU of bitterness, then your BU:GU ratio would be 50/48 = 1.04. You can compare this to guides which tell you appropriate BU:GU ratios for different styles. The one I link to says a good value for an American IPA would be 0.84, so 50 IBUs in a 1.048 beer would be quite bitter for the style. If this is the case, then you can move some of the early hops to the end of the boil, until you get an IBU value of around 40. That way the BU:GU ratio would be 40/48 = 0.83, which is pretty much spot on for the style. Hope this helps :thumb:

 

[Clint]

Thanks...very helpful. .and interesting! I've done around 10 kits and fancy trying a bit of grains. .so plenty of questions..

Cheers

Clint

 

[DoctorMick]

There is trick Ray Daniel's uses in his book, 'Designing Great Beer', which is to plan around the BU:GU ratio. BU stand for bitterness units, and is the IBU value, and GU is the gravity units, which is worked out from the OG. An OG of 1.048, for instance, would be 48 gravity units.

So say your OG is 1.048, and you have 50 IBU of bitterness, then your BU:GU ratio would be 50/48 = 1.04. You can compare this to guides which tell you appropriate BU:GU ratios for different styles. The one I link to says a good value for an American IPA would be 0.84, so 50 IBUs in a 1.048 beer would be quite bitter for the style. If this is the case, then you can move some of the early hops to the end of the boil, until you get an IBU value of around 40. That way the BU:GU ratio would be 40/48 = 0.83, which is pretty much spot on for the style. Hope this helps :thumb:

Very much what Iain has said here. I use BeerSmith which calculates the bitterness ratio in this was although, from memory, I think Brewers Friend does it differently. I like my IPAs quite bitter so aim for a bitterness ratio of about 1 to 1.1. It isn't a cut and dry thing tho (what is with home brewing?) because the residual sweetness in the beer can also balance out the bitterness from the hops but with most IPAs you'll usually end up with a low FG.

What is your expected OG, FG and IBUs?

 

[Clint]

I'd have to input my info into the calculator to answer...I didn't have any expected values I just put what I've got in stock into the recipe builder and kept changing things until I got all green ticks for AIPA style..the og and fg matched but it came out at 6%+ which was correct but that's why asked about abv...to drop it a bit. The ibu came in as per guide but can't remember...I'll have another play and post what I get...

Cheers

Clint

 

[Clint]

Right...I've input everything but changed the fermentables a bit but still comes in,I added a little more hops to the 60 minute as I think the actual aa of my citra is a bit more than the calculator value (but can't be bothered to root around my freezer). The ibu range for the style is 40-70, my recipe comes in at 41.7 so just in the range. Abv is still at 6%+..

Cheers

Clint