Home Brewing: Double IPA Recipe

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Double IPA

If you're the type of person who likes hoppy beer and also takes a "go big or go home" approach to drinking, this beer is for you. It's a high ABV, insanely hoppy, fairly bitter, double IPA. It's really big and it (was) extremely delicious. We've never had a beer get drained from our kegerator faster than this one!

What's a double IPA, you ask? Here are the requirements for this style, according to the book IPA Brewing Techniques, by Mitch Steele:
  • Original Gravity: 1.075 to 1.10
  • Final Gravity: 1.012 to 1.020
  • ABV: 7.5%-10.5%
  • IBUs: 65-100

Double IPA Brew Day Video

A couple of notes. First, we forgot to add 12 ounces (340.2 grams) of dextrose at the end of our boil, which ended up lowering the ABV quite significantly. If you want yours to be a double, don't forget this! Also, full recipe details are below, which INCLUDE the turbinado addition. However, our benchmarks (original gravity, etc.) won't match yours if you follow the recipe on this page.

Double IPA Recipe

Water

  • Beginning water volume: 8.69 gallons (33 liters)

Malts

  • Pale Malt (2 row) - 14.3lbs. (6.5kg)
  • Cara-Pils - 10.2oz. (289.2g)
  • Caramel / Crystal Malt 10.2oz. (289.2g)

Mashing

We mashed at 150 Fahrenheit (65.6C) for 60 minutes

mashing in

Mashing in

recirculating during mash

We use a spray valve to recirculate during the mash - it's included with all of our brewing systems (except our starter system)

pulling grains before boil

Pulling grains at the end of our mash

Boil & Boil Additions, Etc.

We heated to boiling temp and boiled for 90 minutes. Here's the hop addition schedule

  • 90 minutes - 3.5 oz. (99.2g) Comet
  • 45 minutes - 0.75 oz. (21.3g) Amarillo
  • 30 minutes - 1.0 oz. (28.3g) Chinook
  • 15 minutes - Whirlfloc Tablet
  • 0 minutes (Flameout) - 2.5 oz (70.9g) Amarillo, 1.0 oz. (28.3g) Chinook
  • 0 minutes - 12 oz. (340.2g) Dextrose (we forgot this in the video)

using a mesh bag for hops

Because this recipe calls for so many hops, we had to use a mesh bag. We recommend you just use an extra hop basket.

Fermentation

At the end of the hop-stand we cooled the wort to 67 Fahrenheit (19.4C) and added two packages of US-05 dry yeast (though we probably only needed to add one).

aerating wort before pitching yeast

We always aerate our wort by shaking before adding yeast. Doing this will incorporate more oxygen which will allow the yeast to have a more vigorous fermentation.

pitching yeast

Pitching yeast

Dry Hops

On day 5 of fermentation we added the following:

  • 2.0 oz (56.7g) of Amarillo hops
  • 1.0 oz. (28.3g) of Comet hops

Kegging / Bottling

On day 10 we racked the beer into a keg and put it in the kegerator! 

Tasting Notes

This beer ended up being overwhelmingly bitter without the additional sweetness, alcohol to balance it (because we forgot the dextrose). Though, this wan't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it ended up being a really awesome, middle of the road ABV, beer. We highly recommend this recipe. If you want a true double, don't forget the dextrose. If huge beers aren't your thing, leave the dextrose out and it'll still be great.

 

Portrait of Kyle Brown

Kyle Brown is the owner of Clawhammer Supply, a small scale distillation and brewing equipment company which he founded in 2009. His passion is teaching people about the many uses of distillation equipment as well as how to make beer at home. When he isn't brewing beer or writing about it, you can find him at his local gym or on the running trail.

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2 Comments

  • DB
    Comment Author: david BASILE

    hey guys just curious on two things
    1. do you mind sharing what water profile i should use for a west coast style ipa?
    and
    2. you mentioned turbanado sugar but i didn’t see it anywhere in the recipe. did you mean the dextrose?

  • L
    Comment Author: liam

    hi, absolutely love the recipes you guys are posting on here! i was wondering how long your hop stand is before cooling to yeast pitching please?