Relative newbie- need help with custom IPA recipe

[5kbrewman]

I love IPA's and have brewed about 5 or 6 batches. I have learned that 3 hops (Citra, Simcoe, and Mosaic) really ring the bell for me. I want to brew a 2.5 gallon batch using those three hops. I've only bought ready-to-brew kits online. I have access to a local brew shop where I can get everything I need, but I don't really know exactly what to buy and in what quantity. Does anyone know of a recipe utilizing those hops? I'd love to look it over and give it a try. I will need to use a malt extract syrup, but I can steep the crushed grains and add hops at the correct time throughout the boil. Thank you for your help.

[berryman]

You could always go through some of the on-line retailers and see if any have 5 gal kits with that hop combination and split everything in 1/2 and you could make 2 - 2 1/2 gal batches. also a lot of recipes will pop up with a google search "citra simcoe and mosaic ipa extract recipes"

[John Sand]

I like an IPA with a little crystal and some munich. When creating a recipe, I generally modify a successful recipe. Brewing Classic Styles is a great source of recipes, it has both extract and all grain for each recipe. There's also a chart of hop substitutions. Brewer's Friend has a recipe calculator online that will crunch the numbers for you.

[berryman]

Brewer's Friend has a recipe calculator online that will crunch the numbers for you.

Brewer's Friend is a good free one and what I use most of the time, qBrew is a very easy one to start out with and I still use it sometime to get a quick idea on what I might want to do. You can get it from The Screwy Brewer site (a member here) http://www.thescrewybrewer.com/p/brewin ... mulas.html
That can let you play with numbers on IBU's

[5kbrewman]

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I love the IBU calculator you referenced. Much appreciated!

[LouieMacGoo]

Another option as far as homebrewing software is Screwy Brewers ezHomebrewing this is a good free option to get familiar with creating recipes.

When I'm looking at creating recipes I start by looking at the beers I really like in that style to see what the grain bill and hopping is. This can give you a good base or idea of what you want in the beer, then you can tweak it from there. If you want to stick with extracts you can use a pale malt LME (Liquid Malt Extract) as the base malt and steep or mash in crushed grains to get the malt profile you want. Your LHBS can help you with that.

Good luck and happy brewing.

[Kealia]

I can help you with a VERY easy recipe to turn out a good beer, based on what you've said.

This will give you a middle of the road IPA (in terms of ABV, bitterness, etc.) and will be a short brew day.

For a 5 gallon batch:
8.5lbs of LME
2 oz of Citra (15 minute boil)
1 oz of Simcoe (5 minute boil)
1 oz Citra (30 minute hopstand)
1 oz Simcoe (30 minute hopstand)

3 oz of any combination (or solo) hops that you want for a dry-hop.
Any clean yeast (US-05, WLP001, etc.)


Instructions:
Bring 5G water to a boil, turn off heat.
Add LME and mix well, ensuring none sticks to bottom of pot.
Bring back to boil, add Citra and start timer (counting down from 15 minutes).
With 5 minutes left, add Simcoe.
At 0, turn off heat and chill down to 170-180 degrees.
Add Citra and Simcoe for hopstand (add hops, cover pot and leave for 30 minutes).
At end of 30 minutes, chill as normal, rack to fermenter, pitch yeast.

7-10 days later, dry hop for 3-4 days.

From there, bottle as normal.


It's a starting point, feel free to ask questions, use it, don't use it, etc.

(Yes, there is no "standard" 60-minute addition for bittering. All the late additions will bring you all the bitterness you should need).