Does this look like a reasonable AIPA recipe?

I'm about to start my second brew. I'm aiming for for an American IPA style brew. Does the below look like a reasonable recipe?

Target volume: 23L
Boil volume : 10L
IBU: 49
Boil time=60 min
SG=1.056 FG=1.013
AVB=5.6%

3KG Light DME
0.5Kg Amber DME
40g Simcoe - 60min
20g Simcoe - 30min
20g Cascade - 20min
20g Fuggles - 20min
30g Simcoe - 2min
30g Cascade - 2min
30g Fuggles - 2min

US-05 or Nottingham yeast

I'm looking for a strong fruity citrusy hop flavour, strong bitter kick, with a balanced malt body. Does this look like it might do the trick.

I know a lot of AIPAs are dry hopped but I'm not going to try this with this brew. Hopefully the late additions will still give me the hop flavour I'm after.

With the strength you have there, the malt element you will get from the amber and the lack of dry hopping, I would say you have the recipe for a very interesting - hoppy american pale ale, rather than an IPA

Its all very much a muddled scale admittedly (when does one really become the other?!), but to make this into the American IPA territory I would suggest upping the ABV to above 6% and adding dry hops.

Failing that, just make the recipe above - I think it looks like a great recipe and would make a cracking beer! I just think that the final outcome will be more Pale Ale like, rather than a commercial AIPA you might buy.

Hope this helps!

Only other thing I would suggest - your original/starting gravity is assumming 76% attenuation, which would be relatively normal for a pale ale - but for an IPA you would probably want the beer to finish drier. So getting you final gravity to somewhere around 1.008-1.010 would be ideal.

This would also bump you up to the 6-6.3% range - so add some dry hops onto that list and we really are in business

Just my 2 cents though!

I'm still really interested in your original recipe to be honest!

[graysalchemy]

Personally the Fuggles looks at odds in there, I don't see what it will bring to the table. Also I would make aroma additions at 20 (or 15), 10, 5 and flameout.

I would also definitely use US05 as well and dry hop once it has fermented out as hop aroma is lost during a vigorous fermentation.

Thanks for the tips. I wasn't sure of the exact distinction between an AIPA and an APA. I used brewers friend to calculate all of the figures, I wouldn't know where to start. There is a noticeable difference between using using US-05 and Nottingham yeast. The Nottingham yeast gives me the figures above. US-05 should give me a final gravity of 1.011 and ABV of 5.9.

How would you decrease the final gravity further? Substitution or addition of something easily fermentable like brewing sugar? Pitch two packets of yeast? I thought that as long as your wort was well aerated you pitched enough healthy yeast and fermented at a reasonable temperature then the final gravity was largely a product of the starting gravity. Can you influence it further without changing yeast strains for instance?

Personally the Fuggles looks at odds in there.

I know Fuggles isn't a classic American hop but I understand they are the forebear of Willamette which I know features heavily in American brewing. I am going to hold off dry hopping as this is only my second brew and the first that hasn't come from an established recipe. I'm sure it isn't a tricky thing to do but I'll maybe save it for my next brew.

[graysalchemy]

That may be true but it bears no resemblance at all in flavour .

With regards to FG I wouldn't worry about it being a few points lower and in anycase it is arbitary you wont know until it is brewed the DME may have more or less fermentables or the yeast may do better or worse on the day. The choice of yeast should be about what it does or doesn't bring in flavour and with an APA/AIPA you don't want the yeast to bring anything to the table you want a clean yeast.

That may be true but it bears no resemblance at all in flavour .

From what I had read, I thought the two were fairly close. I wanted something which would provide a slight variation to the fruity citrus notes of Simcoe and Cascade. I thought Fuggles might do that. I'm not particularly wedded to the idea of creating a beer which matches this or that style completely so I think I'll leave them in for now and report back on what it tastes like.

I think I will definitely go for the US-05 yeast. I'm not chasing a few points of AVB but it looks like the right choice for this brew. My question about how to lower the final gravity without changing the yeast was really out of interest rather than a desire to do so.

[graysalchemy]

Fuggles is grassy and floral, not something I associate with willamete but I am probably wrong.

I would use the us 05 yeast it's pretty neutral so would give a cleaner beer. Or try white labs San Diego super yeast it's great for pales

I just thought I should come back and update this thread. The beer turned out really well, although I did make some tweaks to the recipe above. I think I used 3.5kg of light DME and steeped some crystal malt too.

I bittered with Simcoe but ended up using more Fuggle in the middle of the boil and Cascade and Simcoe for late additions and then loads to dry hop.

If I'm honest I don't know if the Fuggle brought a lot to the party as the were overpowered flavour wise by the Cascade and Simcoe. Saying that I don't know what it would have tasted like without it. It was certainly a very nice beer (good enough that my next brew was my first all grain).

Now I just need to sell a kidney to by more Simcoe.

Big dry hop is the way to go for American beers! Currently sitting on an Amarillo pale ale with 5g/L dry hop that tastes amazing..