Brewing with Hop Extract

I always seem to be in the mood for a hop overload. I decided to brew up a batch of Double IPA that was loosely based on Russian River's ever popular Pliny the Elder. The main thing I wanted to experiment with was hop extracts for the bittering addition of this brew.

A decent Double IPA has a ton of hops used throughout the brew process and these can put a serious dent in the amount of actual finished beer that one ends up with. While I wanted a lot of control over the hop flavor and aroma in my beer, I thought that the bittering component would be a perfect fit for hop extract of uncertain origin. I was able to get some IsoHop Bitterness Extract from MoreBeer. Which I swapped out for roughly 18oz of high alpha acid bittering hops in my 20 gallon batch.

The hop extract worked wonderfully and I was able to get 22 gallons of wort out of my brew pot quite easily. The finished wort going into the fermenter had a substantial bitterness to it (of course I added enough hop extract to theoretically add 175 IBUs), and was likely comfortably at the max of 100 actual IBUs.

Here is the recipe I brewed on May 21st, 2009.

Note: for a beer this big you need a lot of fresh yeast, so two weeks beforehand I brewed up a 20 gallon batch of a Golden ale (made with hibiscus and jasmine flowers & honey) that I fermented with WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast.

Finished Beer Volume: 20 gallons
Target Gravity: 1.074
Target IBU (theoretical): 189

Fermentable Ingredients

• 53.25 lb Golden Promise Malt (82.1% of extract)
• 4 lb Carapils (5.5% of extract)
• 1.25 lb Crisp Crystal 45L (1.7% of extract)
• 4.5 lb Sugar (10.7% of extract)

Mash for 60 minutes at 152ºF with 6oz of Simcoe whole hops. Recirculate until clear and collect 26 gallons of wort.

Hop additions

• 6 oz Simcoe, whole (added to mash)
  
• 2 oz Isohop, Extract (boil for 90 minutes)
  
• 4 oz Simcoe, whole (15 minutes left in boil)
  
• 4 oz Amarillo, whole (15 minutes left in boil)
• 4 oz Centennial, pellet (steep after flame-out)
  
• 11 oz Simcoe, pellet (steep after flame-out)
• 13 oz Amarillo, pellet (dry hop in secondary)
• 12 oz Centennial, pellet (dry hop in secondary)

Even without the dry hops, the fermenting beer is smelling very hoppy and quite nice.

Flower Power Blonde (two takes)

So I wanted to grow up enough WLP007 yeast to brew 20 gallons of double IPA, but also wanted something interesting and funky for myself. Instead of limiting myself to hops only, I also wanted to use some other "flowers" in this recipe. So in addition to Amarillo hops I used White Jasmine, Hibiscus and Arizona Citrus Honey.

I also did two separate ferments; one was for the 20 gallon batch with WLP007 to give away, the other batch was fermented with a tube of WLP568 Saison blend, two tubes of expired WLP565 Saison, and two tubes of expired WLP645 Brett Clausenii.

O.G.: 1.042
Finished Volume: 20 + 5 gallons
IBU: ~16

Fermentables

• 24 lb Cargill Two Row
• 10.75 lb Simpsons Golden Promise
• 2 lb CaraPils Malt
• 2 lb Dingeman’s Biscuit Malt
• 5 lb AZ citrus honey (add at flame out of boil)

Hops / Herbs

• 8 oz Amarillo 2006 crop, whole ~3.0%AA: 60 min
• 5 oz Hibiscus, Dried: 15 min
• 5 oz White Jasmine Dried: 10 min
• 2 ct Whirl Floc Tablet: 10 min
• 4 oz Amarillo 2006 crop, whole ~3.0%AA: steep
• 3 oz White Jasmine Dried: steep

1. Perform a single infusion mash at 156ºF for 90min

2. Recirculate until clear, sparge with 170ºF water until runoff is at 1.010.

3. Perform a 90 minute boil, with hop / herbal additions as above. Chill and put into fermenters.

4a. With a 1 gallon starter of WLP007 pitch into ferementer along wih 22 gallons of chilled wort. Control beer temp to 68ºF for 8 days, cool to 48ºF for 6 days and then transfer to keg.

4b. Pitch all the other yeasts (WLP568 Saison blend, two WLP565 Saison, and two WLP645 Brett Clausenii) into fermenter with 5.5 gallons of wort. Control ambient temperature to 80ºF for 2 days. Ramp to 85ºF and ferment for two weeks. Transfer to secondary, bottle when clear to 3 volumes of CO2.