Screwy's Recipe 58 - Screwy's Noble Wheat

This 5 gallon recipe is designed using the Weizen/Wiessbier wheat beer style guidelines for gravity, bitterness and color. It includes Muntons Wheat Dry Malt Extract as the backbone of the recipe with some steeped CaraPils for improved head retention and body. Taste wise it is remarkable similar to the Paulaner Hefe Weizen wheat beers I had during lunch with some friends.

I also added a bit of Pure Clover Honey to boost the alcohol content and enhance the aroma of cloves imparted by the Safbrew WB-06 wheat beer yeast strain. There are 3 German Hallertauer hop additions for bitterness, flavor and aroma to lend just the right finish.

Hallertau, Honey, Wheat DME, CarPils Malt And Safbrew WB-06

 I was able to brew this recipe in just under 4 hours from start to the end of cleanup and even had time to clean out some bottles and a corny keg in the process. It's pretty much the same exact recipe I brewed back in May 2011 but this time I based the recipe on a 5 gallon batch size. I also used CaraPils for the steeping grains to enhance the body and head retention and because of it's light color.

Screwy's Noble Wheat SRM 4

As always I begin my recipe design by opening qBrew and loading in the most recent version of the recipe and begin my research. The last batch produced some very drinkable beer in about 3-4 weeks. The bottle carbonation levels and mouthfeel were perfect and the finish had soft notes of nutmeg and clover. Although the addition of Carahell steeping grains produced a slightly darker SRM 8 beer that was still within range of the Weizen style.

Estimated IBU=13, SRU=4, OG=1.053, FG=1.013, ABV=5.2%

 Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database   

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Recipe: Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=13, SRU=4, OG=1.053, FG=1.013, ABV=5.2%

2 pounds honey

1 pound CaraPils

4 pounds Muntons Wheat DME - 60% Wheat/40% Barley

1/2 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 30 minutes

  2 pounds of Pure Clover Honey for 25 minutes

1/2 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 17 minutes

  1 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 7 minutes

11.5 gram Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast

Pitched at 65F and fermented at 65F until final gravity is steady for 2 days

Directions:
** Steep grains at 153F for 30 minutes **

Remove grain bag, stir and pour into 12 quart boil pot

Top pot off with filtered water and bring to a boil

Add hops at 30 minutes

Stir in clover honey and boil for 25 minutes

Add hops and boil for 17 minutes

Stir in DME and boil for 10 minutes

Add Whirlfloc and boil for 9 minutes

Add hops and boil for 7 minutes

Place in ice bath, or use wort chiller until wort temperature cools to 70F

Aerate and pitch yeast at 65-70F
Ferment at 65F temperature until final gravity is steady for 2 days

I filled up a 12 quart boil pot 1 gallon of filtered water and set it on the burner, this would be my steeping pot. When the water hit about 160F I put the steeping grains in and checked the temperature to make sure it stayed at 153F for the entire 30 minutes of the steep. While this was heating up I filled my 20 quart boil pot with filtered water and set it on a burner, this would later be my make up water volume for both 12 quart boil pots.

Steep 1 Pound Of CaraPils @ 153F For 30 Minutes

After 30 minutes of steeping I could see the color of the wort was much lighter than my previous batch, the substitution of CaraPils in place of Carahell malt for the steep will definitely make my beer lighter in color. I removed the grain bag and began moving half of the steeped wort into another 12 quart pot for the side by side boils.

Two 12 Quart Pots With Steeped Wort

With the steeped wort evenly distributed between both pots, I topped them off with the heated water from the 20 quart pot to get both up to their full wort volumes. As I re-brew my house recipes and locking down their ingredients and brewing processes I try to save time by planning long running tasks ahead of time and to run in parallel wherever possible. Heating 20 quarts of water on my stovetop takes at least 30 minutes and by heating it the same time I do the two 12 quart pots it's pretty close to boiling by time the steeping is done.

12 Quarts Pots With Steeped Wort And Full Boil Volume

At this point both pots were heating up to boiling so I started getting my yeast ready. I filled 2 White Labs yeast tubes with filtered water, poured them into a small pot and added some extra water to compensate for losses due to boil off. I then soaked a small bowl, fork and the 2 yeast tubes in One-Step for 10 minutes to get them ready for use.

11 Gram Package Of Safbrew WB-06 Split In Two

I boiled the measured water for 10 minutes, let it cool down to 90F and then filled the 2 yeast tubes with it. Next I emptied the yeast tubes into the small sanitized bowl, sprinkled in the dry yeast and soaked the tubes and caps in One-Step again. After 20 minutes I stirred the yeast into a cream using a sanitized plastic fork, filled both tubes, capped them tightly and placed them caps down in a small bowl of the sanitizing solution.

1 Pound Of Pure Clover Honey Per Pot

Since I've read so many different takes on how brewers are using honey in their recipes and brewing process I finally decided to boil the honey for 25 minutes. I'm convinced that this length of time in the boil will kill off any wild yeast or bacteria that could cause problems later on. At 30 minutes my first hop addition went in followed 5 minutes later by the honey addition. The flavor hop additions went in 8 minutes later followed by the addition of the wheat DME 7 minutes after that.

Wheat DME Gets 10 Minute Boil With Hops And Honey

The WhirlFloc and last aroma hop addition went in and when the boil was done I used the wort cooler to get the wort down to the 70-75F pitching temperature. It's important to cool your wort as quickly as possible to prevent wild yeast and bacteria from contaminating it causing off flavors or making it undrinkable. I place my boil pot in the sink, fit my wort cooler inside it and turn on the water flow.

Wort Cooler Gets The Temperature Down Quickly

Using an auto siphon makes moving your beer out of the boil pot almost fun and leaves most of the debris behind in the process. I can't even imagine how I did without one for so long, all the spills have been eliminated and my primary fermenters contain so much less trub than when I used to simply pour the wort into the fermenter.

The Auto Siphon Is A Huge Time Saver

With the temperature near 70F and the wort transferred to the fermenter I aerated and pitched my yeast. I poured the rehydrated dry yeast from one of the two tubes I had prepared earlier directly into the fermenter and aerated it again before screwing on the lid.

Half A Rehydrated Package Of Safbrew WB-06 Wheat Yeast

I rinsed off the outside of the fermenter and then wiped it dry using a clean towel and put it inside my fermentation chamber to ferment. I placed a few frozen water bottles in there  to drop the initial fermentation temperature down to the 65-70F range.

Original Gravity 1.054

The original graviy reading showed 1.054 which was only a point off of the qBrew recipe calculation. The color of the wort was also lighter in color then my initial recipe making the cosmetic appearance of this beer closer to the lower end of the BJCP style guideline.

12 Hours Later Both Fermenters Showed A Lot Of Activity

The next morning I checked in on the fermentation progress and found both fermenters had a healthy initial fermentation going. I will be fermenting this batch in the mid sixties until they both reach their estimated final gravity of 1.013. At the 65F temperature I can see them both going about 10 days before I take my first readings.

Bottling Day: (09-Jul-2011)

Noble Wheat Day 11 - FG Was 1.010 At 70F

 Today I had my second consecutive hydrometer reading of 1.010 at 70F so it was time to bottle it. My Bottle Priming Calculator, for a German Weissbier style beer, called for 3.6 to 4.48 volumes of Co2 as the correct carbonation range. This quickly translated to 8 tablespoons of pure cane sugar for a 2.25 gallon batch to get 4 volumes which was right in the middle of that range.

Cooling Priming Sugar Solution To 70F In Ice Pan

 I dissolved 8 tablespoons of pure cane sugar into about a cup of filtered water and boiled it in a small pot while stirring for 10 minutes. After the boil was complete I filled a pan with cold water and placed the pot in it then added a bunch of ice cubes to cool the solution down faster.

Adding Priming Solution First Before Transferring The Beer

 Once the priming solution reached 70F I poured it into a sanitized Mr. Beer keg that I used for my bottling bucket. I transferred the 70F beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket using a small length of vinyl tubing that reached to the bottom of the bottling bucket. After all the beer was transferred I used a sanitized long handle plastic spoon to gently swirl the beer around a few times to make sure it was mixed thoroughly.

Transferring Fermented Beer To Bottling Bucket

 I like using a bottling bucket for 2 very important reasons. It leaves nearly all of the dead yeast and trub behind in the primary fermenter and out of your bottled beer. It also mixes the beer completely with the priming sugar solution to give you more uniform carbonation between bottles from the same batch.

Sanitized Bottle Tree With 48 Long Necks

With the beer and priming solution mixed and ready to go I began filling the 12 ounce bottles that I had sanitized earlier and allowed to drain for about 30 minutes. The sprayer at the top of the bottle tree really makes the sanitizing go by quickly, just 2 or 3 pumps and the bottles done and ready to drain.

I dip the bottle necks into the sanitizing solution before using the pump to spray their inside and I soak the bottle caps in the sanitizer. This is just to make sure that the entire surface of the bottle that comes in contact with the bottle cap is free of contamination before capping them.

46 Long Neck Bottles Of Noble Wheat

My long handled bench capper makes short work of capping the bottles. I can cap a case of long necks in only a couple of minutes. I fill the bottle with beer, place a cap on top to prevent anything from getting inside and when I have them all done I quickly press the caps on. A quick wipe with a wet washcloth gets any spilled beer off the bottles before I put them in a plastic container to carbonate.

Screwy's Noble Wheat Poured From Bottle

 After initially thinking I had some issues with bottling I found out I was mistaken when I poured a my first glass from a bottle that had been cold conditioned in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. The color came out perfectly according to the calculations I had gotten from qBrew and the taste was absolutely amazing and spot on. This is an easy to brew recipe that produces a really easy to drink wheat beer with plenty of flavor. The combination of the Halleteur hops, Safbrew WB-06, Clover Honey and Pilsner steeping grains combine to make this a very rewarding beer to add to my pipeline.

Screwys Recipe #57b - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

I have two batches of my Screwy Pale Ale in various stages of production now, one is just finishing up primary fermentation and the other had been moved to corny kegs a few weeks ago for conditioning. The weather was lousy this past weekend and I saw it as an opportunity to sneak in another brewday.

The only question was what was I going to brew, a nice Chocolate Barley Stout, another batch of my Screwy Noble Wheat recipe or maybe another Screwy Oktoberfest/Marzen lager. This brewing thing was really starting to get interesting.....so many great tasting beers, so little time.

Marris Otter, Crystal 40L, Biscuit, Magnum, Kent Golding And Cascade

I had an extra tube of White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ in the mini refrigerator, left over from last weekend's brewday when I brewed my Screwy Pale Ale for the second time. The latest samples I took of the now nearly fermented ale tasted amazing so I decided I would be brewing it again.

Brewdays Always Start Out With Coffee And qBrew

I loaded my SPA recipe from last week into qBrew and made some changes to the grain bill cutting back on the Crystal malt and adding a shade more Biscuit malt this time. The plan is to reduce the sweetness and increase the biscuit flavor while leaving the hop schedule the same. This should produce a beer that has subtle differences when compared to last week's recipe.


Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=65, SRM=11, OG=1.062, FG=1.016, ABV= 6.0%

I pitched White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it. I soaked the tubes in One-Step™ as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
10.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

  0.5 pounds Crystal 40L

  0.5 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

 1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

 2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

 1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

 1 - White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 70° F over 2 days and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Infusion Mash at 158° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68° F (18.8 °C).

The only real changes I made in the ingredients from last week's recipe was to substitute 1.75 pounds of Crystal 60L with 0.5 pounds of Crystal 40L this time and to add another 0.25 pounds of Biscuit Malt. To keep the total grain weight at 11 pounds, the maximum I can mash in my 5 gallon mash tun, I added another pound of Marris Otter.

Hitting The 158F Mash Temperature

 I know that 11 pounds of grain when mixed in with 172F strike water to a total volume of 4.5 gallons give me a 1.25 mash thickness at 158F. This also leaves me enough room to add a small amount of cold water, or some hot water to lower or raise the mash temperature if needed.

30 Minute Lauter With First Wort Hops In One Pot

I decided to toss some hops into one of the boil pots at the start of the lauter to see if I or anyone else will be able to taste the difference between this batch and the other one without the FWH. I always boil the pot on the right first for 60 minutes and it's the first one in the fermenter. The other pot usually boils for 90 minutes because I have to wait until the first pot has cooled down enough to pitch since I only have one wort cooler.

Start Of Lauter Gravity Was 1.092

Once the wort was flowing clear I drew off a sample and cooled it down to 60F to get a reading on the gravity of the wort at the very start of the lauter. The sample tasted very sweet and it was also somewhat thick as well, it had a lot of nutty caramel grain flavor to it that was very pleasant.

Left Pot 90 Minute Boil Right Pot 60 Minute Boil

 Both pots of wort got a good hard boil and a fast cool down to remove any DMS produced quicker than it could form. I also skim off any break material I see floating on the top, I like to keep the wort as free of any unwanted grains or proteins as I can before siphoning it off into the fermenters.

The Wort Took About 20 Minutes To Cool Down To 70F

 Once the wort was cooled down to pitching temperature I used my auto siphon to move the wort to the primary fermenter. I pitched half a tube of WLP005 yeast directly into each of the Mr. Beer fermenters after briskly aerating the wort before and after pitching the yeast.

Mankind's Greatest Achievement The Auto Siphon

I view every time I move my beer as being another opportunity to clean it. Usually there is about half a quart or so of thick gooey sludge left in the bottom of the boil pot after transferring the cleaner wort to the fermenter.

Allow For Boil Off And Trub Loss When Figuring Boil Volume

When I looked at the fermentation progress 24 hours after pitching the yeast I saw that there was already a nice thick layer of krausen floating at the top and a layer of trub forming on the bottom of both fermenters.

Fermenting Away Nicely At A Steady 68F

  I could also smell the nice fruity aromas seeping out of the fermenters along with the Co2 being produced. This was a great brewday.

1.016 Final Gravity And Ready To Bottle

I took another final gravity reading today and it was spot on according to my qBrew recipe calculations. Tomorrow I plan on bottling this up into the 12 ounce Sierra Nevada glass bottles I've been stocking up on until now. I like buying the Sierra Nevada bottles because of their unique stubby shape and because they come with free beer inside them to drink.

If I can find the time in the next few days I would love to brew this same exact recipe again and pour the cooled wort right on top of the same yeast. When a brew comes out tasting exactly the way I wanted it too I hate pouring the poor yeast down the drain especially after they did such a great job.

Bottle Carbonated Sample Tasted Awesome

 I had to try a sample of this beer while I was brewing up another batch and I'm glad I did. This beer tasted good even though it's only been carbonating and conditioning in the bottle for a little under 3 weeks. I also kegged 2.5 gallons of this batch and batch primed it with the same amount of pure cane sugar I had used for the bottling bucket. Allowing the beer to naturally carbonate in the corny keg as it conditioned.

Natural Carbonation Was Done In The Corny Keg

Screwys Recipe #57a - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

After sampling this beer last week I thought it tasted so good that I brewed this exact same recipe again this past weekend. I was trying to decide what to brew and kept coming back to this Screwy Pale Ale because I think it's going to be a winner. So I emailed my order over to Joe early Sunday morning, drove out to pick it up and was brewing beer by lunchtime.

Marris Otter, Crystal 60 And Biscuit Malts

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=65, SRM=14, OG=1.062, FG=1.015, ABV= 6.0%

I pitched White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it. I soaked the tubes in One-Step as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
9.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

1.75 pounds Crystal 60L

0.25 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

1 - White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 70° F over 2 days and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Infusion Mash at 156° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68° F (18.8 °C).

The only real change I made in the ingredients was with my yeast selection, this time I was able to use some really fresh White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ as opposed to the Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast I used last week. After soaking the new WLP005 tube in 70F One-Step I used an empty tube from an earlier brew to measure the yeast out into 2 tubes, one for each of my 2 fermenters.

2 For 1 Economy

Since I use the Mr. Beer fermenters and they hold around 2.5 gallons of wort I can use half of the yeast that's packaged for 5 gallon brews and still get a high cell count. I see this as another low risk way to save money on ingredients while maintaining quality.

  Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database   

Directions:  

Infusion Mash: (Soak tun in 8 quarts of 170° F water for 20 minutes and dump it to preheat tun)

Heat 20 quarts of filtered water to 172° F

Pour 14 quarts of 172° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 70° F

Pour the remaining 172° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 156°F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to both 12 quart boil pots

Full Wort Boil: (Split these quantities between both boil pots)

Add 1 ounce Magnum hops with 60 minutes remaining to boil

Add 2 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 20 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/2 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounce Cascade hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F

Primary Fermentation:

Use auto-siphon to rack wort from boil pots to fermenters

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 tube White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ at 68-70° F

Ferment to final gravity then raise to 70° F over next 2 days

Secondary Fermentation:

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

After lautering off a little over 5 gallons of wort I took a gravity reading of almost 1.020 proving to myself that they were still plenty of sugars available to be drawn off from my 11 pounds of grain. I got into the habit of taking gravity readings at 3 critical points during my brewing sessions, when I first begin to lauter, when I have finished lautering and after the boil just before pitching my yeast.

1.090 @ 70F Sample At Start Of Lauter

The initial sample I took showed 1.090 and tasted really sweet, no tannins there. I had 1 bad experience where my all grain batch turned out very astringent and I attribute that to sparging with too hot strike water and too much volume.

An Exhaust Fan Is Required To Remove Boil Vapors

  I recently installed an exhaust fan to remove the wort boil vapors from the basement where I do my brewing. At the opposite end of the basement I leave the window open to draw in fresh air from outside. I recommend that anyone who considers brewing beer indoors includes adequate ventilation in their plans. Removing the odors and hot vapors created during a typical brewing session will go a long way in keeping living area  healthy.

Doing Dual 2.5 Gallon Boils At Once Is Easy

  Since I brew indoors on my stovetop I split the 5 gallons of wort collected into two 12 quart pots so I can get them both up to full boil quickly.The trick to getting roughly same same OG in both pots during the lauter is to alternate between the 2 pots when filling them.

Fly Sparge Using A Stationary Diffuser Gives Great Results

I fly sparge and take at least 30 minutes to fill both boil pots with sweet wort. The new bracket I made to hold my sparge diffuser really worked out well for me. I was able to pour 168F strike water into the top of the mash tun without having to hold and balance the diffuser with one hand.

1.020 @ 70F Sample At End Of Lauter

After filling both boil pots with about 11.5 quarts of sweet wort I took another hydrometer reading to see how much sugar was still left in the 11 pounds of grains. This sample still tasted sweet, no tannins or astringent tastes were present, the reading was 1.020 which is above my 1.010 minimum threshold for lautering.

Transferring the cooled wort to the fermenters has become so easy I almost can't wait to use my auto-siphon when I brew, it works that well. The wort I rack to the fermenter is cleaner too, much of the trub is left behind in the boil pot so the wort that does make it into the fermenters is cleaner. During the boils I've also been ladling off a lot of the hotbreak and foam that accumulates on the top of the boiling wort.

Original Gravity Showed 1.060 @ 70F

My original gravity readings confirmed I came very close to hitting my target OG of 1.062 proving that my mash conversion efficiency was what I had expected. I pitched a 1/2 a tube of WLP-005 into each of the 2 sanitized Mr. Beer fermenters at 70F after aerating the wort into a foam.

Aggressive Fermentations Developed After 24 Hours

About 24 hours later both fermenters showed very active fermentation and a nice trub layer on the bottom, a sure sign that there would be more great tasting beer to come. While I keep an eye on these two latest batches of SPA this week I'll be also be bottling up the two previous batches I brewed on May 28th. 



The final gravity reading taken just before bottling came very close to my 1.015 target and after 2 days of getting the same 1.017 hydrometer reading it was time to bottle. 

1.017 Final Gravity Before Bottling

Bottling Day:

Re-purposed Sierra Nevada Bottle Rinse

Since I was able to make a connection where I can buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottles that ship with free beer inside, I haven't been buying too many empty longnecks. I like the Sierra Nevada bottles because they are shorter and stubbier than the standard 12 ounce longnecks and are easy to tell apart.

After soaking the bottles in a mixture of OxiClean FREE and water for at least an hour I peel off the paper labels and scrap the remaining glue off with the edge of a plastic ruler. I let the bottles dry on the outside before putting my vinyl labels on them permanently. 

Bottles Filled With One-Step Soak For 10 Minutes

I used my priming calculator to determine how much pure cane sugar would be needed to carbonate 2.25 gallons of beer, the answer was 5 tablespoons. I filled a small pot with about a cup of filtered water and brought it to a boil. Then I stirred in the 5 tablespoons of pure cane sugar and let it boil for about 5 minutes.

5 Tablespoons Of Pure Cane Sugar And 1 Cup Of Water

I cooled the sugar 'syrup' and poured it into a sanitized keg that I used as my bottling bucket. Then I transferred the fermented beer from the primary fermenter to the bottling bucket, right on top of the sugar syrup so it mixed in well. 

Transfer Using A Short Length Of 5/16 ID Vinyl Tubing

Once the beer and sugar were in the bottling bucket I gently stirred the mixture for a minute using a sanitized spoon. The stirring helps evenly distribute the beer and sugar which will make the finished bottles have more consistent carbonation levels.

Bench Capper Made Short Work Of Capping The Bottles

I used a bottling wand and locking spigot to bottom fill each bottle and placed a sanitized bottle cap on each until I was ready to cap them all. The long arm and stable base of the capper made it very easy to cap a case of bottles once they were filled.

Bottling Sample Of My Screwy Pale Ale Recipe

The samples we tasted were really perfect having a nice hoppy character, somewhat sweet and that coveted biscuity finish. There was nothing harsh about this beer at all in fact the flavor, smell and aromas came together to make this a truly memorable beer. This will make for some good beer drinking come July 4th when the carbonation should be completed.

Screwy Pale Ale On July 1, 2011

Another winner in my book! This beer had a beautiful 14 SRM color that fell within the very upper limits of an English IPA beer style. There was a nice carbonation level that produced a creamy head of foam that lasted through the entire beer. The hops were prominent but not too overpowering, the IBU were about 5 points higher than the classic IPA style, and there was a nice biscuit finish. All in all this recipe gets my 2 beers up award and has earned a place in my standard recipe library as one to brew again.