Rye and Wheat IPA's

[LostBoy]

I've looked at several recipes for these styles of IPA, and seem to find that either the rye or wheat only compose of ~10% or so of the grist... I am curious as to why not more? Shouldn't we want the character of those grains to come out more? Why call it a wheat or rye p.a. if not? I mean, I can add 1# of C10 to a regular American IPA, but I don't feel that I should call this a caramel IPA... I don't think the lack of these grains should be due to haze production, as a lot of hops will and should cause this in a good IPA. Or is it that we don't want the hops to be muted/confused with the malt flavor?

[BDawg]

Try it! No reason not to.
(I'd suggest a protein rest, though).

Go for it!

[spiderwrangler]

Doesn't Little Sumpin Sumpin come in just under 40% wheat?

[Ozwald]

Doesn't Little Sumpin Sumpin come in just under 40% wheat?

I think it's right around 50%. Either way, it's definitely sumpin'. I just killed my last bottle of it last night... hopefully there's still some available around here. Such a damn tasty beer.

[Bugeater]

I was talking with the brewery folks from Wasatch Brewing the other day about their Ghost Rider White IPA (also drank quite a few during that conversation). This one runs about 25% wheat. Damned fine IPA.

My own rye IPA comes in at about 20% rye and really doesn't need more than that. It's nice and chewy with lots of hop flavor and aroma. I went through 5 gallons of that in less than an hour at a beer fest yesterday. Now I need to make it again.

You can go much higher levels with specialty grains like that but you need to think about the flavor you get from adding at "normal" levels and then consider what it would be like if that flavor was that much more intense. I did a 100% oat beer a couple of years back that I ended up having to dump. The cloying flavor of that much oats was too much to handle. Fun experiment though. Use whatever % you want, but you might want to plan to brew it a couple of different times during the next year, increasing the amount of wheat or rye each time. This will be a safer guide as to the maximum amount you can use.