some of my favourite IPAs either straight “IPA” or WC / NE specific styles are the ones with rich, full bodied, malt flavours. now’ i;ve done a few NEIPAs with Golden Promise, MO and other standard pale malts, including basic extra pale malt but with lots of caramel/crystal additions and i’ve just never gotten the flavours I want out of the malt backbone.

so this was based on some pro brewers mentioning vienna and munich, with a caramunich II for a hint of extra depth and a more amber colour as a base for big full bodied higher ABV IPAs, so I scratched together this recipe as a bit of an experiment to see what it does.

I also forgot an ingredient in the grist (GNO, goes in everything honestly!) on brew day when the boil was already underway and I didn’t want to try to cool back down and re-mash the missing ingredient so I quickly calculated how much DME I needed to make up for it, didn’t have enough in stock so I cut it with some brown sugar and overshot the gravity but whatever, it was going to be a normal-ish gravity now it’s a double.

What I ended up brewing was this:

Malts (5.5 kg)

4.2 kg (76.4%) — Gladfield Malt Gladfield Vienna Malt — Grain — 8.2 EBC

800 g (14.6%) — Weyermann Munich I — Grain — 15 EBC

300 g (5.5%) — Gladfield Malt Gladfield Chit Barley — Grain — 3 EBC

200 g (3.6%) — Weyermann Caramunich II — Grain — 124 EBC

Other (750 g) - cause I forgot 500g of GNO and had to improvise.

500 g — Extra Light Dry Extract — Dry Extract — 5.9 EBC — Boil

250 g — Brown Sugar, Light — Sugar — 15.8 EBC — Boil

Mashed at 67c for an hour, 77c mashout for 15 minutes, 1 hour boil. Post Boil OG was 1.071.

Hops are mostly Aussie hops in the standard WC flavour profile. made it up as I went along but this is what I ended up with:

  • 5 g (11 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — First Wort
  • 5 g (7 IBU) — Ella (aka Stella) 16.3% — Boil — 30 min
  • 25 g (14 IBU) — Chinook 13% — Boil — 10 min
  • 20 g (16 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — Boil — 10 min
  • 50 g (8 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — Boil — 0 min
  • 50 g (8 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 75 °C
  • 20 g (3 IBU) — Ella (aka Stella) 16.3% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 75 °C
  • 75 g — Vic Secret 18% — Dry Hop — 2 days
  • 50 g — Ella (aka Stella) 16.3% — Dry Hop — 2 days

Piched a new yeast to try, Cellarscience West Coast, which might have needed 2 packs due to the higher gravity in hindsight, but it’s going happily, just a bit slower than I’d expected. I always add yeast nutrients and dont worry too much about trub in the fermenter so there’s plenty for the yeast to munch on.

Currently it’s about 7 days along at 17c and has come down to 1.021, it will get another 2 days at 17 then a few days at 21 just to drive off whatever else it can do and help clean up any potential off flavours. I was originally planning on a 1010 finish but I think I mashed a bit hotter than planned and it might not get below 1016, but that’s perfectly fine for a big IPA that is trying to be rich and full bodied.

The Dry hop will happen after that at 14C for a couple of days, then since this is going to be at risk of hop burn it will get a solid week at -2c for a good cold crash before kegging.

Picture was 5 days into fermentation, still a lot of activity. it was near black when it went in, but it’s turning more orange/amber as it goes. final colour target is 17.5 EBC, so a nice amber, and should be quite clear by the time it’s in a glass.

Wish me luck, I will report with the finished product later.