This post is one in a series of making small adjustments to a single recipe in order to improve it, learn more about the impact each ingredient has on the finished product, and the art of recipe creation. The rest of the series can be found here.

Author: C. McKenzie

Brew Day

Nine months have passed since I last brewed a red IPA. I began to get the itch to brew this recipe again, and I was especially interested in trying out some things that I’ve learned this last year to improve my red IPA. Taking advantage of some time off work, I pulled out my brew kettle and got things going.

Coffee mug firmly in hand, I gathered 4 gallons of strike water and lit the flame underneath it. Once things were heating up in my garage, I put a kettle on the stove and used that water to preheat my mash tun. I then used an online calculator to quickly determine what temperature I should mash in at. I slightly overshot that calculated temperature, but I must have miscalculated the temperature of my grains as well (one of the inputs used to calculate strike water temperature), because I overshot my desired mash temperature by 3 degrees. I have a 5-gallon mash tun, and I like to mash thinner when possible, so with a little more than 12 pounds of grains, I had zero room to add cool water to lower the temperature, so I let it ride.

I let my mash rest for as long as time with the family dictated, which ended up being just shy of 2 hours, at which point I drained the wort and batch sparged until I had my desired pre-boil volume of wort.

Once I got things up to a boil, I added hops as indicated in the recipe and then cooled the wort down with my immersion chiller, stirring the wort to help cool it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, at the time of year I brewed this, my groundwater was not very cool. Around 100⁰F, the drop in temperature began to slow to almost a halt. Once I managed to get the wort below 90⁰F, I put the top of the kettle on to let the trub settle out before transferring to my fermentation vessel.

Once I moved the wort to my carboy, I pulled roughly half a gallon to add to the rehydrated yeast I had waiting. I placed my carboy in my fermentation chamber to finish cooling and let my vitality starter do its thing. Several hours later (admittedly a few hours longer than I usually wait to pitch due to the temperature the wort was at when I placed it in my chamber), when the wort was just a few degrees above my desired fermentation temperature, I pitched the yeast. I awoke the next morning to early signs of fermentation.

Once fermentation was nearing completion, I raised the temperature of the beer a few degrees. When the krausen dropped, I added my charge of dry hops and let that sit for a few days. Then I kegged the beer and burst carbonated it. I pulled my first pint a few days later.

Recipe

Iteration 11 saw a return of the apricot and peach notes that I enjoyed about this beer when I returned Amarillo to the recipe (I had exchanged it for Citra in Iteration 10). Countering the positive aspects of this iteration, the cherry and plum notes that I loved about the malt bill in this recipe were fairly muted. The hop aroma also was not at the level I wanted, despite a lengthy hop stand below isomerization temperatures and a decent-sized dry hop. In addition to these other disappointments, the bitterness was at a higher level than I think worked for this beer. Balancing the malt profile with the hop profile has proven to be difficult with the competing flavors. That said, I don’t believe it was the hop flavors or aroma that masked the malt richness in Iteration 11, but rather the higher level of bitterness was what I believed to be the culprit.

Considering these complaints that I had with the last version of this beer, I decided once again to adjust my hops. I liked the flavors I was getting from the hop varieties, so the way they were being used was where I wanted to focus. One thing that I believed to be causing more bitterness than I had expected was the hop stand. Even though it was done below isomerization temperatures, I couldn’t help wondering if that was adding more than the zero IBUs that were calculated.

Another item that shaped my thinking for the way that I adjusted my hop additions was another IPA that I had brewed earlier in the year. That recipe turned out exceptionally well and was well-received by those I shared it with, including a few people who say they are “not a big fan of IPAs.” That recipe used two hop additions: a charge of 40 IBUs at the 60-minute mark and a 5 minute addition of 3 ounces of hops, adding another 10 IBUs; there was also a 4 ounce dry hop, which was already in line with what I was doing with this red IPA recipe.

Out of curiosity, I simplified my hop additions to mimic the times and amounts used in this other recipe, and I found that it didn’t take much adjustment to get similar IBUs. Dropping the hop stand and making only two hop additions simplified my boil, and I hoped it would also help the parts of this recipe that I enjoy so much to shine through and come into balance with one another. These changes resulted in the following recipe:

Mashed at 153⁰ F for 2 hr. 10 lbs. 2-Row (82%) 1.2 lbs. Crystal 120 (10%) 1 lb. Vienna (8%)

Boiled for 1 hr. 0.75 oz. Magnum (60 min) at 14.7% AA (38 IBUs) 1 oz. Cascade (5 min) at 5% AA (3.4 IBUs) 1 oz. Centennial (5 min) at 9.7% AA (6.6 IBUs) 1 oz. Amarillo (2 min.) at 8.2% AA (2.4 IBUs)

Pitched US-O5 Fermented at 67⁰F Raised to 68⁰F day 3 Raised to 69⁰F day 4 Raised to 70⁰F day 5

Dry hopped 2 oz. Cascade, 1 oz. Centennial, and 1 oz. Amarillo for 3 days

OG: 1.066

FG: 1.012

ABV: 7.1%

Kegged and burst carbonated

Tasting

This beer poured an amber/red hue with a moderate, white head that had decent retention.

The aroma was easily identifiable, and I quickly noted citrus, peach, and cherry in the nose.

The taste of this beer had notes of peach, grapefruit, and cherry. There was also the slight flavor of bread crust and cracker present. The bitterness lingered on the palate but wasn’t overly bitter.

Final Thoughts

This iteration was overall rather decent. At first I wasn’t quite sure what I would change, though I don’t yet consider this recipe finished. The hop character is right where I want it—not overly bitter and in balance with the malt sweetness, and an appropriate and pleasant amount of aroma and flavor. Honestly, this iteration tastes like a fruit salad with both light and dark fruit flavors coming through, and as it turns out, that’s pretty delicious.

The bitterness was much better in this version than in Iteration 11. While this recipe only saw an 8 IBU drop (calculated), the actual IBUs may have decreased much more due to the lack of a hop stand (utilized in Iteration 11), though I have no way of knowing that for sure. Whatever the reason, the changes resulted in a much more balanced beer that was not overly bitter like the last version was.

Something about this iteration, though, didn’t have some of the character of previous iterations that I enjoyed so much, and that was in the malt department. The malt flavor didn’t come through as richly as I wanted it, and I’m not exactly sure why that is. Perhaps it’s a pitfall of the style—trying to marry rich malt character with in-your-face IPA hop aroma and flavor. Perhaps not though. I do wonder if a different yeast choice could favor the malt slightly more and achieve the balance I want, or perhaps a change in my water composition would be the answer. At this point I’m just not sure which would be the right way to accomplish what I want, but I do know that what I want is the balance of this beer to shift and the malt richness to come through just a little more than it did with this version.

Recipe Progression

Iteration 1Iteration 1 Iteration 2Iteration 2 Iteration 3Iteration 3 IteratioIteration 4n 4 Iteration 5Iteration 5 2-row 10.25 lbs. 10.25 lbs. 10.25 lbs. 9 lbs. 10 lbs. Crystal Malt 1 lb. C80 1 lb. C120 0.75 lb. C120 1.25 lbs. C120 1 lb. C120 Character Malt 0.5 lb. Special B 1 lb. Munich 1 lb. Vienna 60 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 30 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 15 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 10 min. hop addition 5 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0 min. hop addition Dry Hop 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial OG 1.059 1.064 1.056 1.052 1.056 FG 1.008 1.010 1.008 1.010 1.008 ABV 6.7% 7.1% 6.3% 5.5% 6.3%

Iteration 6 Iteration 7 Iteration 8 Iteration 9 Iteration 10 2-row 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs. Crystal Malt 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 Character Malt 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 60 min. hop addition 1 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 30 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 15 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 10 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 2 oz. Cascade 5 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 2 oz. Centennial 0 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Amarillo 0.5 oz. Amarillo 1 oz. Amarillo 2 oz. Citra Dry Hop 0.5 oz. Cascade, Centennial, & Simcoe 0.5 oz. Cascade, Centennial, & Amarillo 1.5 oz. Cascade; 0.5 oz. Centennial & Amarillo 2.5 oz. Cascade; 1.5 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Amarillo 2 oz. Cascade; 1 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Citra OG 1.066 1.073 1.066 1.066 1.064 FG 1.010 1.010 1.010 1.010 1.010 ABV 7.4% 8.3% 7.4% 7.2% 7.1%

Iteration 11 Iteration 12 2-row 10 lbs. 10 lbs. Crystal Malt 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 Character Malt 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 60 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.75 oz. Magnum 30 min. hop addition 0.5 oz. Magnum 15 min. hop addition 10 min. hop addition 1 oz. Cascade 5 min. hop addition 1 oz. Centennial 1 oz. Cascade, 1 oz. Centennial, 1 oz. Amarillo 0 min. hop addition 2 oz. Amarillo Dry Hop 2 oz. Cascade; 1 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Amarillo 2 oz. Cascade; 1 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Amarillo OG 1.062 1.066 FG 1.009 1.012 ABV 6.96% 7.1%