diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 32eccfecc..3188912fa 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -422,8 +422,11 @@ Custom IPA images
 Bifrost supports the ability for a user to build a custom IPA ramdisk
 utilizing the diskimage-builder element "ironic-agent".  In order to utilize
 this feature, the ``download_ipa`` setting must be set to ``false`` and the
-create_ipa_image must be set to "true".  By default, the playbook will build
-a Debian based IPA image, if a pre-existing IPA image is not present on disk.
+create_ipa_image must be set to "true".  By default, the install playbook will
+build a Debian jessie based IPA image, if a pre-existing IPA image is not
+present on disk.  If you wish to explicitly set a specific release to be
+passed to diskimage-create, then the setting ``dib_os_release`` can be set in
+addition to ``dib_os_element``.
 
 If you wish to include an extra element into the IPA disk image, such as a
 custom hardware manager, you can pass the variable ``ipa_extra_dib_elements``
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/bifrost-create-dib-image/tasks/main.yml b/playbooks/roles/bifrost-create-dib-image/tasks/main.yml
index e077bf7d6..485be87ef 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/bifrost-create-dib-image/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/bifrost-create-dib-image/tasks/main.yml
@@ -104,6 +104,10 @@
   set_fact:
     dib_packages_arg: "-p {{dib_packages}}"
   when: dib_packages is defined and dib_packages != ""
+- name: "Set default of Debian Jessie if building debian and not explicitly set, overwride with dib_os_release setting"
+  set_fact:
+    dib_os_release: "jessie"
+  when: dib_os_element == "debian" and dib_os_release is undefined
 - name: "Set the DIB_RELEASE environment variable if set"
   set_fact:
     dib_env_vars: "{{dib_env_vars | combine({'DIB_RELEASE':dib_os_release}) }}"