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IPA Recipe?

E

Enchanted Brew

I'm looking for an IPA recipe for our next batch of beer but after snooping around in BeerSmith it would appear that an IPA may be for advanced brewers.  Since we're beginners and since the IPA recipes on BeerSmith are grain recipes, maybe we would enjoy more success if we stayed with beginner type recipes?  Does this line of thinking make sense?

We may be bottling our first batch of beer this weekend, a nut brown ale.  Since we haven't tasted the fruits of our labor yet, now may not be the time to jump into an advanced recipe.
 
NONSENSE! There's something out there for everyone! You don't have to be an advanced brewer to brew an IPA. Yes there are some recipe's that may need more attention/knowledge than others. But if you like IPA's the By all means brew it up!

Download Extract1 recipes from http://www.beersmith.com/recipes.htm and make the Bums I.P.A. If you have any question's about it. Just let us know and we will help! You may want to download Extract2 recipes also while you are there...

Hope your Nut Brown turns out well!

Cheers
Preston
 
+1!

Actually, APA or IPA are great recipes to do.  They aren't too difficult and they give you plenty of malt and hop to blend and put out a good product.  This one was so good I adapted it to all grain a couple weeks ago.  It went too fast.

It was really balanced and hoppy with a head you could cut with a knife. 

This is actually a Partial Mash where I steeped the grains in a grain bag for 40 minutes at about 155 degrees.  Then "Sparged them" by running a gallon of 170 degree water through the grain bag.

You could cut the 2 row down and use more Extract if you like. 

That proceedure is the one I learned on and it makes good beer.
 

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I'm not a BeerSmith user, but I like the site and encourage anyone to brew at home.

There are plenty of books out there, as well as websites, that have very good recipes for extract IPAs. 
All you need is a lot of extract because we need the alcohol, more bittering hops than you think is necessary, and more flavoring hops than you think is prudent.
The result is a potent brew with enough natural preservatives to survive the trip from England to India via Africa by ship, and a lot of happy soldiers.

Even if you screw up, as long as you keep things clean and your brew doesn't get an infection, you'll drink it and like it.
I promise.
 
We need some help with definitions.  The Bums IPA recipe says, "Secondary rack for 14 days".  With our current batch of nut brown ale, the beer was in a plastic ale pail for one week then we racked into a glass carboy where it remains to date.  Is our nut brown ale currently in a secondary rack?

The Bums IPA recipe says "2 weeks to fully carbonate.  Cellar for 28 days or more."  Does this mean that immediately following bottling it takes 2 weeks for the bottled beer to fully carbonate, then the bottled beer should just sit, I guess in a dark and cool location, for another 28 days?

It sounds like if we're not brewing beer on a weekly basis then we'll be running out of beer sometime in the near future?
 
As for running out of beer... you'll eventually stock up.  When I first started brewing, I brewed 4 batches my first month.  After that I calmed down a bit and let myself catch up to my stockroom. 

You are correct, your nut brown is infact in a "secondary rack."  It's really just a lazy persons way of telling you to "rack to a secondary fermenter."  This step isn't really necessary, but some prefer to do it.  You won't get any taste advantage out of a secondary fermentation.  At least I've never noticed one.  The only time I use secondary is when I'm adding something like dry hops or fresh fruit to the beer.  That is more than likely why your IPA recipe calls for it. 

You are also correct with the carbonation question.  Most stronger beers need a little time to condition themselves.  I would suggest trying it after 3-4 weeks.  Try one every week after that.  With most beers, the longer they sit, the better they'll get.   

Good luck. 
 
Assuming you like wheat or wit beers, you could brew/ferment/bottle them in 10-12 days, and they are meant to be enjoyed fresh, so you could be drinking them four weeks after brew day.  You could do that for the brew practice and the inventory, and then do another style that takes a little longer to condition or age to perfection. 
 
MaltLicker said:
Assuming you like wheat or wit beers, you could brew/ferment/bottle them in 10-12 days, and they are meant to be enjoyed fresh, so you could be drinking them four weeks after brew day.  You could do that for the brew practice and the inventory, and then do another style that takes a little longer to condition or age to perfection. 

Yea... drinking a wheat beer fresh is the only way to go.  After I keg mine... about 4-5 days is all it needs to be perfect.  I love my hefe recipe.  70% malted white wheat  30% malted barley Pearle Hops at about 13 ibu... and of course a TRUE hefe yeast like white labs hefewiezen IV.  Its a winner every time!  Hmmm/.. I think I'll pour one up now. :D
 
I have a traditional pale ale that I have perfected that is in the primary for a week, secondary for a week, keg, serve after 3 days.  Always great and never any complaints about it.
 
The only time I ever secondary is when I'm making a fruit beer.

There is a lot of discussion on this topic on many brew boards (BN, B3, etc) but the general consensus (IMHO) is that a secondary can introduce few problems: 1) possible infection 2) removes the bulk of the yeast, just when they are needed to clean up the by-products of their work. Plus, I'm lazy and if I have more work to do, I'll never brew...


I say to leave it for a week after gravity has stopped dropping. RDWHAHB :)
 
Regarding learning how to do IPAs, I'm finding that Beersmith is also a great learning tool for things like hops utilization.

I've been tinkering with clone recipes for Bell's Two-Hearted. The recipes on the web have a huge range in hops usage (2.5-5.5 oz for a 5-gallon AG batch, a little more for extract) while they all generally claim to be in the 55 IBU range. This morning I double-checked the hops I bought this week from my LHBS and saw that they are labeled as 8% AAU. I'm going to call them to double-check (since the AAUs are handwritten and I just wanna make sure that's what they meant) but given how many recipes on the web are based on 9.5-10% AAU for Centennial, that makes a huge difference in how much to use.

Studying hops and how they change the recipe based on the timing of their addition, their AAUs, and so forth is really interesting. (I confess until today I didn't pay attention to the AAUs on the hops packets... it was eye-opening to "dial down" the AAUs and watch the IBUs plummet!)

Edit: and I see from Palmer's How to Brew that late extract additions should result in better hops utilization -- and by copying my recipe and deleting the extract, I can see the impact.
 
It's probably not quite the same impact, but if any of the hops are older, it pays off to use the Hop Age tool to downgrade your AA% before brewing.  I had some older hops I won at a comp and at 60 minutes, the aged calculation made a difference. 
 
Thanks, Maltlicker! That's a great tip and reminder. I have some hops in the freezer that are up to 6 months old and it may be a little while yet before I use them, so that tool will be really helpful.
 
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