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Back when Rockbottom served lunch, I got some great advice on blending hops and made a Centennial/Cascade hop blend IPA that turned out very tasty. This weekend I am planning on scaling up this hop blend recipe to make my first Double IPA, after checking the BJCP descriptions for 14C and putting the recipe through BeerSmith, I came up with the following grain bill and hop schedule. This batch will be 5.5 gals and uses 14 oz of hops, I am little concerned that this beer will turn out "muddy"......should I be? Will this recipe be a Hop Bomb or Mud Bomb?

Batch Size: 5.5 gals
Boil Time: 60 mins
Est Original Gravity: 1.081 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.5 %
Bitterness: 96.7 IBUs
Est Color: 10.3 SRM

14 lbs Pale Malt, CAN 2 Row (2.0 SRM) 82.4 %
1.75 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) 10.3 %
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 2.9 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 2.9 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 120L 1.5 %

1.50 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 42.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 23.2 IBUs
2.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min 20.3 IBUs
2.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min 11.2 IBUs
2.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
2.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs

1.50 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Dry Hop 14 days
1.50 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Dry Hop 14 days

Yeast - WY1056 American Ale, ~1.5-2L Starter with stir plate.

Mash Target at 150F, Final bottling volume estimated at 5.0 gals

Looks fine to me. You'll end up with hop haze in the beer but that's not a bad thing

This is just a preference thing, but if you like your double ipa's dry you might want to take out some 2-row and replace it with some plain sugar (up to 10-15% of your total fermentables). This will help lower the final gravity and maintain your alc percentage. This is not necessary though.

Just my opinion, but I think you would get a more rounded bitterness profile by modifying your hop schedule a little, using the same amount of hops.

2.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - FWH
2.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - FWH
1.50 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 42.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 23.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min 20.3 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min 11.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs

1.50 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Dry Hop 14 days (See Nash's excellent write up on preparing the dry hop soup)
1.50 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Dry Hop 14 days

Being as thrifty as I am, I would also go with the US-05. I have found it to be an excellent IPA producer.

If you are worried about clarity, you can always throw in 1 oz of Irish moss or some other fining agent the last 10 minutes of the boil. I'm sure it will taste great, hazy or not.

Cheers

ajcarp wrote:Just my opinion, but I think you would get a more rounded bitterness profile by modifying your hop schedule a little, using the same amount of hops.

2.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - FWH
2.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - FWH
1.50 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 42.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 23.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min 20.3 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min 11.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs

1.50 oz Centennial [11.20 %] - Dry Hop 14 days (See Nash's excellent write up on preparing the dry hop soup)
1.50 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Dry Hop 14 days

Being as thrifty as I am, I would also go with the US-05. I have found it to be an excellent IPA producer.

If you are worried about clarity, you can always throw in 1 oz of Irish moss or some other fining agent the last 10 minutes of the boil. I'm sure it will taste great, hazy or not.

Cheers

I've been following this with interest. What are your reasons behind the changes? Any more info on the improvement you see from the changes?. What's good about both hopping schedules?

It sounds like Nash indirectly had input into the original posted hopping schedule. Is that how he recommended to do it? I've got an idea the hopping might be derived from Fathom, which is why I'm interested. I like the sound of the FWH touch.

After discussing the original recipe I had made up, Nash offered the hop blend suggestion at 60/10/0 to obtain the beer I was trying to achieve with a standard 60/30/15/0 hop schedule. The result was by far the best IPA I have made and did not last long in the keggerator. I have taken that same hop schedule and "biggy sized" it, which is how I arrived at the recipe above but I was looking at other DIPA clones and my 14oz of hops for 5 gals seems like a lot, hence my minor concern over the beer being muddy. I am still going to pound the hops to this beer, so I am not that concerned.....but just asking the question.

I have never First Wort Hopped but have read about it in a few books. To briefly describe my set-up - I heat my strike water up in my BK, mash in at ~164F to my Coleman mash tun, hold at ~150-152F for an hour while I am heating up my sparge water in the BK, after 60mins lauter the first wort into a bucket, batch sparge in the mash tun, pour the first wort back in the BK and start boil, after ~10mins lauter second wort into bucket, add to the kettle and bring to boil. Just so I understand FWH, I would add the hops to the first wort in the boil kettle (at ~150F or so) while I am batch sparging and before the full boil starts......correct? After I get the full wort volume in the boil kettle, it takes about 30mins or so to reach full boil as my burner is pretty low end.

This seems easy enough to try, thanks for the tip.

- chicanuck

That is correct.