Simcoe single hop IPA

[Sunfire96]

Hello! I will be brewing a Simcoe single hop IPA, and would love some feedback. The ingredients came in a kit, so I can't change any of the grain bill (precrushed and all mixed in one bag). But! I can mess around with the boil additions, which is what I've tried to do. I've only brewed a handful of times, and have found my beers to be too bitter (I mostly drink pales and IPAs, which is what I've brewed so far). I'm slowly changing my process to try and fix problems that I hypothesize are the reason behind the beer not tasting as great as it could be. I'm also an apartment brewer, so fermentation temperature control is one of my issues. Instead of buying/making new equipment, I thought I'd try a warmer fermenting yeast first (using Lalbrew voss kveik). The original recipe used 0.5 oz of simcoe pellets split into 5 equal additions at 60, 45, 15, 5, and 0 minutes. I've reduced to 0.4 oz and have additions at 30 minutes and at flameout (I chose whirlpool, but it's really a hop stand in wort that I've gently stirred into a whirlpool). Please let me know what you think, thanks! I think this beer is on the verge of being an APA, but the abv seems high for a pale, to me.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1026547/simcoe-single-hop

 

[Sunfire96]

Also the original recipe came to about 65 IBUs and a BU:GU ratio of 1.1. My goal was to aim for a BU:GU ratio around 0.7 in the new recipe.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Looks like it meets the brief to me.

I've got to play around with Simcoe more. Only used it the once and the beer was pretty good. Seems like a really interesting hop for both boil and post-boil additions.

 

[Sunfire96]

I'm really excited about single hops right now (I have some smash blondes coming up on my to-brew list). Only done 7 brews so far, and I have so much to learn about hop flavors/aromas in homebrew. Simcoe was used in one of my all time favorite beers, New Belgium Ranger IPA (the original recipe, not the Voodoo Ranger), so I might use the remaining 0.1 oz for a Ranger-inspired IPA with Centennial and Cascade.

 

[Hawkbox]

Sounds like a nice plan. nothing wrong with it that I see.

 

[Sunfire96]

Looks like it meets the brief to me.

I've got to play around with Simcoe more. Only used it the once and the beer was pretty good. Seems like a really interesting hop for both boil and post-boil additions.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Sunfire96]

Sounds like a nice plan. nothing wrong with it that I see.

Awesome, thank you

 

[J A]

That much Crystal will make it seem heavy and a little cloying. When you have a choice about grain bill stick to around 5% C-40 and 5% Victory or 10% Munich and 5% Victory. I think you'll like the flavor profile much more.
Hopping is fine but I'd push the IBUS a bit. Simcoe is piney/dank in the early additions and more tropical/mango in the late and whirlpool. It's a great hop.
With such a small batch it's nearly impossible to measure everything out as accurately as needed to keep to the predicted numbers. It'll turn out fine and when you brew again, you may see some variation from batch to batch but it'll still be good.

 

[Sunfire96]

That much Crystal will make it seem heavy and a little cloying. When you have a choice about grain bill stick to around 5% C-40 and 5% Victory or 10% Munich and 5% Victory. I think you'll like the flavor profile much more.
Hopping is fine but I'd push the IBUS a bit. Simcoe is piney/dank in the early additions and more tropical/mango in the late and whirlpool. It's a great hop.
With such a small batch it's nearly impossible to measure everything out as accurately as needed to keep to the predicted numbers. It'll turn out fine and when you brew again, you may see some variation from batch to batch but it'll still be good.

Interesting. Piney is what I like about simcoe, I'm curious what comes out more in the final beer, that or tropical/mango. Yea it can get tedious weighing out super small additions; I usually convert hop amounts to grams and round to the 10th decimal place. My scale can measure to 0.XX grams, but between rounding from conversions and other things out of my control, I don't really trust the accuracy to that precise of a weight. One of the drawbacks of small batch brewing, I guess. On the plus side, I bought 4 oz of hops not too long ago, and shouldn't need to resupply for a few more months lol And a 10 lb bag of 2row is on the way, which is enough malt for 5 batches for me, so that's pretty convenient

 

[Hawkbox]

I weigh mine to the nearest gram. The only thing I worry about going finer with than that is brewing salts.
With your scale, as long as it's consistent you can largely ignore how accurate it is over the long term. 12g reading as 12g every time even if it's 13 or 14g will give you a consistent outcome you can dial against.

Nice order list. I never tried brewing that small so the numbers are just so tiny to me. But if I had gotten into it when I was still in my apartment that would have been the way to go.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

I would drop the crystal and victory considerably. I wouldn’t have more than 5% of each. Also the hops scales to 2 oz total for a 5 gallon batch. That just isn't enough hops in my opinion.

EDIT - sorry, didn't realize it was a kit with grains already crushed. I also must have misinterpreted your recipe from your description. I would delete but I can't

 

[Sunfire96]

I would drop the crystal and victory considerably. I would have more than 5% of each. Also the hops scales to 2 oz total for a 5 gallon batch. That just isn't enough hops in my opinion.

EDIT - sorry, didn't realize it was a kit with grains already crushed. I also must have misinterpreted your recipe from your description. I would delete but I can't

I appreciate the input nonetheless!

 

[Hawkbox]

It's really interesting to see how you are doing this, the scale is small enough that you can try all kinds of things.

 

[Sunfire96]

It's really interesting to see how you are doing this, the scale is small enough that you can try all kinds of things.

I'm really excited to experiment more with ingredients from my garden or local markets, but as a newbie I'm still trying to create my first GOOD beer. You know what I mean? I'm sure there will be flaws due to my process, but something that I'm proud (and willing lol) to have a friend taste test.

 

[J A]

I'm really excited to experiment more with ingredients from my garden or local markets, but as a newbie I'm still trying to create my first GOOD beer. You know what I mean? I'm sure there will be flaws due to my process, but something that I'm proud (and willing lol) to have a friend taste test.

You'll have better success when you start to understand ingredients better and build better grain bills. The pre-made recipes available are often not particularly good and often have more Crystal malts than is necessary.
A good way to work toward nailing the process is simply to brew SMASH beers or just use a good single malt with different hop combos. A decent 2-row will yield a proper Blonde, Pale Ale or even IPA. Malts like Golden Promise and Maris Otter or Vienna can be used alone to make beers with a lot of body and flavor.

 

[Sunfire96]

You'll have better success when you start to understand ingredients better and build better grain bills. The pre-made recipes available are often not particularly good and often have more Crystal malts than is necessary.
A good way to work toward nailing the process is simply to brew SMASH beers or just use a good single malt with different hop combos. A decent 2-row will yield a proper Blonde, Pale Ale or even IPA. Malts like Golden Promise and Maris Otter or Vienna can be used alone to make beers with a lot of body and flavor.

Thanks again for the input JA, I did mention above that I'll be brewing some SMaSHes next, probably a series of blondes

 

[Hawkbox]

I'm really excited to experiment more with ingredients from my garden or local markets, but as a newbie I'm still trying to create my first GOOD beer. You know what I mean? I'm sure there will be flaws due to my process, but something that I'm proud (and willing lol) to have a friend taste test.

I've been doing this for 3 years or so now and I still am learning and working on improving. We're always learning something.