Owner’s Obsession – IPA


I’ve had bad luck with all the IPA variations I’ve tried so far, so I wanted to take a shot at building my own recipe. I looked at some pale ale recipes that looked good, and then bumped up the grain and hops to push this into the IPA style. I started peppering in whatever leftover grains I had on hand (Victory, CaraMunich II, and Caramel 40L) and made due with the hops leftover from previous batches (Centennial, Citra, Falconer’s Flight, Cascade, and Columbus). I used a British Ale yeast strain (WLP005) which I already had a starter going for.

Since my main hop additions were Falconer’s Flight, I was hoping this would really highlight that hop, but it really didn’t. The British yeast took forever to flocculate, so during the peak freshness of the beer, it had a pretty severe yeast haze. I wouldn’t use this yeast again for that reason alone.

The name comes from my obsession with IPAs. I also hope it will be a mainstay of the brewery, so inserting the brewery’s name seemed like a good idea.

Overall, I really like this beer, and will be brewing it again switching the WLP005 for the WLP001, and also lessening the first hop addition to lower the overall bitterness. I also want to change the base malt from German Pilsener to 50% 2-row, and 50% Munich to give it some more body.

Brew Date: November 22, 2012
Kegged On: December 9, 2012
O.G.: 1.053
F.G.: 1.017
ABV: 4.7%

Recipe Details

Batch SizeBoil TimeIBUSRMEst. OGEst. FGABV
5 gal90 min46.9833308.9605781.0601.0146.193746

Fermentables

NameAmount%
German Pilsner Malt7 lbs57.14
German Munich Malt4 lbs32.65
US Victory Malt12 oz6.12
US Caramel 40L Malt8 oz4.08

Hops

NameAmountTimeUseFormAlpha %
US Zythos0.5 oz90 minBoilPellet10.9
US Simcoe0.5 oz20 minBoilPellet13
US Mosaic0.5 oz10 minBoilPellet11.6
Japan Sorachi Ace0.5 oz10 minBoilPellet12.6
US Simcoe0.5 oz1 minBoilPellet13
US Mosaic0.5 oz1 minBoilPellet11.6
Japan Sorachi Ace0.5 oz0 minBoilPellet12.6
US Amarillo1 oz0 minDry HopPellet9.2
US Columbus(Tomahawk)1 oz0 minDry HopPellet15.5
US Simcoe1 oz0 minDry HopPellet13

Miscs

NameAmountTimeUseType
Irish Moss0.07 oz15 minBoilOther

Yeast

NameLabAttenuationTemperature
White Labs WLP001-California Ale77%32°F – 32°F

Mash

StepTemperatureTime
Rest at154.4°F60 min

Fermentation

StepTimeTemperature
Aging0 days32°F

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