Need some carification on my ingredient choices and hop boil timing

Question

Want to make a simple high gravity single hop ipa. Will this recipe work?

• 10 pounds DME Amber
• 1 pound Crystal 40l steeped 45 mins
• 1 oz Citra hops start 60 mins
• 1 oz Citra hops 45 mins
• 1 oz Citra hops 30 mins
• 1 oz Citra hops 15 mins
• 1 oz Citra hops 1 min

• 1 oz Citra hops off

  California Ale yeast

I'm kind of iffy on how much Crystal malt is necessary to impart color or flavor and also the effects of adding hops at different boil times.

Answer 1

This question isn't easy to answer - at best it's subjective as to whether it will be the result you want or not. I don't know the final gravity or IBUs that this recipe will produce - I could find out, but then so can you with the free tools available - simply put your batch size and the ingredients into a recipe calculator like brewtoad to determine the likely OG and IBUs. You want to aim for a 1:1 ratio between OG and IBU.

When bring from extract, strong beers can have a high finishing gravity due to the non-fermentables in the extract. I'd suggest substituting a few pounds of LME with sugar to lower the resulting body. Also keep in mind that brewing a high gravity beer is more involved than simply adding more ingredients - temperature control and yeast handling become even more important than for regular gravity beers, so it'll be a good start for you to read up on those if you're not already familiar.