Imperial IPA

Imperial IPA Recipe

This recipe has so many hops, I have no room to write a description! It’s the perfect beer to serve your hop-head drinking pals. Seriously, look at the IBU count on this bad boy and see if they can handle it.

Recipe Profile

  • Method: 1 gallon BIAB (Brew-in-a-bag), single stage
  • Target OG (Original Gravity): 1.093
  • Target FG (Final Gravity): 1.025
  • Bitterness (IBUs): 104
  • Estimated ABV: 9.1%
  • Boil: 60 minutes

Ingredients

  • 3.5 lbs US Pale Malt (2 row)
  • 6 oz Caramel Malt (10L)
  • 2 oz Caramel Malt (60L)
  • 0.30 oz Motueka Hops at 60 minutes
  • 0.5o oz Motueka Hops at 30 minutes
  • 0.25 oz Nelson Sauvin Hops at 10 minutes
  • 0.25 oz Nelson Sauvin Hops at 5 minutes
  • 1 oz Motueka Hops at 1 minute
  • 0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin Hops at 1 minute
  • Safale American Yeast (Fermentis #05)

The Mash

  1. Bring 9 litres of water to a temperate of 165°F. Add your grains and give everything a good stir until the whole thing looks a bit like oatmeal. Shut off the heat, cover with a lid, and let it steep for 60 minutes.
  2. Then you need to “mash out.” You put the heat back on, and raise the temperature  to 168°F (75.6°C) and keep stirring for 7 minutes.
  3. Remove the grains and prepare for the boil. If you’re using a bag, just pull it out and let it drip near-dry above the pot. If you’re using a colander, strain to remove the grains, preserving the wort, which you’ll add back to the pot.

The Boil

  1. Start the boil by bringing your wort up to a boil. Once boiling, start your timer. Add your bittering hops, as prescribed above.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare your sanitizer solution.
  3. Just before the boil is complete, make an ice batch in your kitchen sink. Load it up with as much ice and cold water as you can. Once the boil is over, transfer your pot to the sink to cool your wort to pitching temperature, as prescribed on the yeast pack. Remember to sanitize your thermometer every time you check the temperature.
  4. Meanwhile, thoroughly clean and sanitize your carboy, screw cap, airlock, funnel, and strainer/colander. You want everything to be ready to go once the wort is at the right temperature.
  5. Once the wort is at pitching temperature, transfer it to the carboy by passing it through a strainer overtop the funnel. Do not fill the carboy higher than the one gallon mark.
  6. Aerate the wort.  Cover the fermenter with a screw cap and gently rock the carboy back and forth for a few minutes to mix in some air.
  7. Pitch the yeast! Use sanitized scissors to cut open the package and pour in only half of the yeast.
  8. Seal the carboy by filling the airlock with sanitizer. Fit it in the screw cap. Move the carboy to a dark spot, free of the home’s daily commotion for at least 14 days (but ideally not more than 21).

Bottling Day

  1. Move the carboy to a the countertop, if it wasn’t already there. If the wort got lots of movement during transfer, let it sit so that any stirred-up yeast has a chance to re-settle.
  2. Sanitize everything that will come in contact with the beer: bottling bucket, auto-siphon, tubing, filler, bottles, and bottle caps.
  3. Dissolve 0.59 oz (17g) corn sugar in enough boiling water to dissolve it. Add the dissolved sugar solution to your sanitized bottling bucket.
  4. Fill your auto-siphon and hose with sanitizer before submerging in the carboy. Transfer the solution to a spare container until the beer has completely replaced all the sanitizer in the tubes. Now you can place the end with the bottle filler in the bottling bucket, which should also be on the floor and gently transfer the beer from the carboy to the bucket.
  5. Transfer all the liquid up and the point where it reaches the sediment. Leave the sediment in the carboy.
  6. Now, move the bottling bucket to the counter and siphon the beer quietly into each bottle. When the liquid gets to the very top of the bottle, remove the bottle filler, which will leave the perfect amount of headspace at the top of the bottle.
  7. Cover each bottle with the sanitized caps and cap them into place, or secure your sanitized swing-top caps if using those.
  8. Store the bottles upright in a quiet, dark corner at 65F (18.5C) or so.
  9. Wait 30 days, if you can. If you’re way too curious (I can’t blame you!) try and hold out for 14 days. If you absolutely can’t wait, you can try after 7 days, but the beer really needs at least 14 days to condition.

Comments

8 responses to “Imperial IPA”

  1. Nic hendrickson

    I appreciate the fact that you have such a thorough list of one gallon recipes, as I have found it difficult to find those in my short homebrewing career thus far.

    In regards to the recipe, is there any substitutes you would recommend for Moteuka? My local homebrewing shop doesn’t have them, and I’m not sure if they can get them or not (haven’t inquired yet).

    Thanks!

    1. Thanks for the note Nic, and I’m sorry it took so long to reply — I’ve had a very busy stretch at the office, so Beercraftr was on a temporary pause. I’d use Saaz as a substitute.

  2. Todd Eckert

    2 questions:

    can you 1. Rerack it for another 5-7 days to a 2nd carboy before bOttling,
    And
    2. I, personally, WOULD RATHER NOT PUT PRIMING SUGAR IN EACH BOTTLE so can you Dissolve sugar with water or a little beer, then add it back to the rest oF the 1 gallon, mix it around, then bottle?
    Thanks!

    1. Todd Eckert

      Just reread your bottling instructions…. i’m an idiot. (Palm to face)

  3. Andy

    For some reason this text field is showing all caps I hope it doesn’t come out this way…

    Anyway this is a wonderful recipe, I have it conditioning now and everything is spot on, the aroma, flavor (I drank my test beer after using the hydrometer… lol) OG and FG, I cannot wait to crack one of these open! Thanks so much for your efforts!

  4. Jonas

    In the recipe list there is 10l and 60l caramel malt. Do i need both measure for 1 galon?

    1. Chris

      The L refers to degrees lovibond which is a measure of how dark the malt Is, 60°L being darker than 10°L. You need both at the stated measurement.

  5. Matt C

    Are you sure about the 9 litres of water? That’s 2.4 US gallons. That would need to boil for a long time to reduce to 1 US gallon (3.8 litres).

    I’m used to using about 6 litres (1.6 US gallons) of water to produce 1 US gallon (3.8 litres)

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