HOPS Schedule & Much LOVE IPA recipe

We have to say, it was fun to see what everyone voted for the hops additions to the recipes.  We gave our Instagram followers four options for our Much Love WCIPA recipe: 
1. Centennial, Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo
2. Cascade, Simcoe, Centennial
3. Galaxy, Amarillo, Cascade
4. Azacca, El Dorado, Citra, and Simcoe

And the winner is....option #1! Now we need to plan out how and when to use the hops and why. 

HOPS BACKGROUND and USES

Before we get started building the recipe, a little background on the various hops, and their flavor and aroma profiles. 

CENTENNIAL HOPS. Centennial hops are a great dual-purpose hop, meaning they can be used for bittering and aroma. They are a similar hop to Cascade and impart notes of pine, citrus, and floral notes (I think the floral tones are the smell of citrus flowers). They tend to provide an intense citrus aroma with lots of lemon. Many recipes use them for bittering, flavor, aroma, and dry-hopping. Basically, Centennial hops are excellent when used anywhere in the brewing process. 

CITRA HOPS. Citra is a dual purpose hop. It has a strong citrus aroma with flavors of grapefruit, lime, and tropical fruit (mango, passion fruit, pineapple, and peach). Citra is a favorite for dry hopping as the aroma is an intense citrus bomb. However, Citra is also widely used for flavoring and aroma in the late stages of the boil and flameout. 

SIMCOE HOPS. Simcoe is a bit smoother than Citra and has aromas of apricot, pine, passionfruit, citrus zest, and berry. Like Centennial, they are often described as "Cascade on steroids."  Simcoe is a dual purpose hop that can be used for clean bittering, imparting flavor and aroma, and earthy notes when dryhopping. 

AMARILLO HOPS. Amarillo also has a citrus profile with notes of lemon, orange, and grapefruit; however, it does lean a bit more towards the orange flavor profile. It is typically used as a flavor and aroma, and for dryhopping. 

HOP SCHEDULE for MUCH LOVE IPA

We followed one of our usual methods for adding hops. For a 60 minute boil, bittering hops added at 60 minutes, flavoring hops added between 15 and 30 minutes remaining in boil, and aroma hops added at 5 minutes and flameout. We like layering flavors of hops, so we did add hops at 10 minutes as well. For the 0 minute hops, feel free to use those as flameout hops or whirlpool them. We left this open for brewers to choose how they'd like to use the hops based on their equipment and setup (We know not everyone has whirlpool setups). Whether used at flameout or in a whirlpool (We typically whirlpool for 10 minutes and let sit for 10 minutes before cooling the wort), the aroma should impart in the beer. 

For dryhopping, we followed a typical 2JBC schedule. We typically dryhop after fermentation and don't like the hops sitting in the fermenter for more than 3 days. 

BITTERING HOPS: Simcoe, Centennial
BITTERING/FLAVOR HOPS: Citra
FLAVOR: Simcoe
AROMA: Centennial, Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo (added 3 times to layer the aroma)
DRYHOP: Simcoe, Amarillo, and Citra

We're hoping for a very citrus based IPA with subtle pine notes coming from the Simcoe and Centennial

YEAST

​We listed White Labs #WLP001 as the yeast in the recipe. However, the yeast is really the brewer's choice. White Labs #WLP001, Fermentis Safale S-05, and Wyeast Labs #1056 are all the same strain of yeast (Chico strain).  Several side by side by side taste tests have been done by endless homebrewing groups and results vary. Some brewers say one brand tastes different and others feel that the difference is imperceptible. By all means, use whichever you feel most comfortable with as all three varieties will produce a clean tasty beer. Honestly, in our 2JBC taste test, we could not find any discernible differences between all three yeast brands. 

WATER PROFILE & ADDITIVES

We did not create a water profile for this recipe. However, we brew with RO water at 2JBC, so we typically add the RO water into the water profile section on Beersmith to find out what additives to include to give our beer the qualities we are looking for. For this recipe, we did look over the predicted mash PH and added acid malt to get the pH into range. We like our IPAs in the pH range of 5.3-5.4 and added acid malt to set the target pH of 5.3. However, feel free to remove the acid malt and/or add in additives as you feel is necessary. You'll notice that the grain bill is a bit different from last week's due to the change in starting gravity from the addition of the acid malt; the change brings the estimated ABV to 6.7%.

RECiPE NOTES

We created this recipe using Beersmith's equipment profile for all-grain brewing in a standard 5 gallon Stainless steel setup. We used a very generic setup and not the actual 2JBC setup. If you use Beersmith, we highly recommend that you type in the recipe for yourself and adjust the recipe to your beer equipment profile. Also, we highly recommend you set the AA% on your hops to include the actual values for the hops you are using as this can change the final IBUs. 

Recipe notes:
Gravity: 1.064
Bitterness: 60.0 IBUs
Color: 5.3 SRM
Est FG: 1.014
Est ABV: 6.7%
Bitter Ratio: 9.37
Adjusted mash pH (w/ Acid malt): 5.26

MUCH LOVE IPA RECIPE

We hope you enjoy the recipe. We are planning on brewing the Much Love IPA recipe after the CraftLB Homebrew Invitational on March 19. We'll be using the same IBUs and grain percentages with slight changes to accommodate our brewing equipment. Please let us know if you try the recipe and your thoughts. We always appreciate feedback! 

Cheers! 
2JBC