Northeast Pales/IPA/DIPA

I didn't learn crap about homebrewing in my freshman economics course.

 

Now that my recent attempt at a NE IPA is carbonated (and I have been drinking it for a while), I can make a few remarks on how it turned out. Aroma is as expected -- nice and fruity (grapefruit and pineapple). Still quite murky, with no signs of clearing up. Mouthfeel is quite substantial. However... the malt character is pretty pedestrian, sort of blah, really; not much hint of even an underlying malt sweetness as one has in the best (IMHO) IPAs (at least the West Coast versions I have purchased and brewed). A different malt bill might help, but I'm guessing the malt character is at least partially hidden behind whatever is responsible for the murkiness. As you can see below, chloride and sulfate are balanced, but the finish is rather dry (as if dominated by sulfate). Overall, though, this beer is quite refreshing -- quite a lot like drinking a mildly carbonated glass of grapefruit juice with a bit of pineapple juice thrown in. The murkiness certainly supports this perception. I don't know how often I'll brew this style, but I'm glad I gave it a try. Cheers!

A picture of the beer and a summary of the beer's details are provided below. BTW, no Irish Moss was used even though the log sheet indicates otherwise.

 

This is basically my conclusion of my attempt, malt bill needs a little tweaking for mine as well. Cheers for the feedback.

 

Ive been pitching my yeast at 68f to 70f just to get the yeast going, then dropping the temp control to 65f for a few days then back up to 70f ambient temp.

Got the pitching idea from Carton Brewing.

 

wait...you're not applying supply-demand curves for your hb...?

carapils and/or carastan and/or mashing high. I'm currently mashing in the 158-160 range and am happy with the results.

Lawson's Double Sunshine, still a standard for the style, it comes in at 6.6% oats, 5% carapils, 2.5% caramunich, 6.6% corn sugar. Trillium Fort Point is 12% wheat malt, 6% carapils, 2% UK pale crystal.

 

I've never intentionally mashed that high, so can you provide some expected results besides body? Higher F.G.? I don't have my notes, but I used GP and/or 2-Row, Wheat and Flaked Wheat. Think it would improve with the tiniest of crystal additions.

 

This is a great place to start: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...ity_and_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing
Here was a thread from earlier this year:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/high-temperature-mashing.290692/

 

Carapils, carastan or I also find small amounts of caravienne and carawheat help to fill out the malt backbone a bit

 

Nah, we only learned how they apply to manufacturing widgets.

 

That finished a bit high for mashing at 152. I don't see any acidification listed, which might account for this.

I've now brewed 5 batches trying to make something that approximates Edward. Edward is listed at 85 IBU on HF's website, so for that beer at least, there is a significant bittering addition to balance out. I've tried many different treatment regimes, and the best in my experience has been the last one I tried - 50:200 sulfate to chloride. I didn't have the beer finish as high as I wanted, so I need to adjust my mash temp up to about 158, and my pH target up to about 5.6, from 156 (which I missed low this last time) and 5.5. I think mash pH and temp are critical parts of brewing beers like these. For a double I'd mash low with pH around 5.2, and play with the sulfate:chloride ratio, but for a pale, you really have to get a lot of help balancing the bitterness without a ton of malt. I tried 100:100 with this beer and the bitterness was a bit too harsh. The only time I ever got it to finish high enough was when I didn't adjust pH at all and it was up over 5.7.

 

I brew a very similar beer to this grain bill with slightly less oats and more wheat, its always turned out great. I got the chance to brew it at a local brewpub and it was really well received based on the online reviews of it.

http://www.alesoftheriverwards.com/2015/01/riverwards-ipa-brewing-on-commercial.html

 

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it as much as I do. But your description is spot on to what I have brewed and its exactly what I am going for, specifically the bit about a glass of grapefruit and pineapple juice. When Iv'e brewed it without whirlfloc or irish moss its looked exactly like that, I dont fine post boil but I do try to use kettle finings and it does result in a more attractive hazy character instead of being murky or turbid.

Cheers!

 

I did use 3 oz acidulated malt (it is listed on the sheet in the fermentable section). Mash pH was calculated to be 5.37; I don't measure this, though. Cheers!

 

Indeed, I intentionally left out the Irish moss in order to enhance the turbidity, as this seemed to me to be a characteristic of the style. My disappointment in the malt character is probably partially due to the results vs my expectations, which were based on my experience with other types of IPAs; I've not had any of the commercial versions of this style. Overall, I am certainly enjoying drinking this beer. I don't think the keg will last all that long.

BTW, your blog was quite helpful in learning about the style and putting together the recipe I used.

Cheers!

 

I recently brewed my latest iteration of an ongoing project of mine to make something similar to Edward. This requires a large bittering addition, as Edward clocks in at 85 IBU according to HF's website - this latest was .75 oz. Shaun has said that he uses a bittering addition, so I am doing the same. To counteract this, I've gone 50:200 sulfate to chloride. I think HF's hoppy beers tend to be a little more bitter than some other of this style of hoppy beer, so this seems appropriate. Treating the water this way has eliminated the harshness from the bittering hops. I finished low on gravity, so I don't have quite the mouthfeel I wanted, but the bitterness has been smoothed out.

 

Here's my latest iteration, a looker it is not (thanks to 33% wheat, 13% oats, and three additions of dry hops, including one prior to fermentation): http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2015/10/softer-juicier-and-uglier-apa.html

 

@OldSock , that truly resembles the Orange Julius from my childhood!

 

What's the thinking behind multiple dry hop additions for a low alcohol pale ale? I ask because Edward is only dry hopped once, and because Tree House says they use 8 oz. of hops per 5 gallons of Julius (well, they say 1.6 oz. of hops per gallon, I just did the math), and the second round of dry-hopping pushes your brew to 13.8. Is there really a noticeable difference in flavor/aroma, or was this more along the lines of trying to make it hazier?

 

I like the staying power that keg hops provide. Usually I'm finishing up a hoppy beer 8-10 weeks after brewing, without keg hops I find that it is fading by then.

I honestly don’t worry too much about exactly what commercial breweries are doing because I’m a homebrewer. It’s great to get ideas and inspiration from craft brewers, but I think it’s a bit silly to go to great lengths to copy exactly what they are doing when you can’t imitate the entire process. There are all sorts of dynamics at play, including, but not limited to: differences related to scale (adding 100 lbs of hops to 1000 gallons isn’t the same as 8 oz to 5 gallons), dry hopping under pressure (both in terms of hydrostatic and head pressure), hop selection (breweries get to go to Yakima and pick their favorite lots), high quality hop extract (which might lead to less actual hops in the beer) etc.

My recent push is to encourage homebrewers to embrace being homebrewers, rather than try to operate like small-scale craft breweries. There are so many things we can do that they can't! One of those is brewing exactly what we want, without regard to efficiency.

 

As a follow-up to what Michael (@OldSock) mentioned, the scale of a homebrewery is significantly different from commercial breweries.

In the context of dry hopping this was illustrated in the article that Dave Green (@telejunkie) wrote for BYO:

“Only two of the seven pro brewers I spoke to didn't add their dry hops in stages. One that was surprising was John Kimmich who adds all his dry hops in one big charge for his Imperial IPA. Jamil Zainasheff pointed out an important nuance to me: "The main reason is that we're dry hopping into cylindroconical fermenters. The bottom is a narrow cone, which means that when the hops drop to the bottom, it results in a smaller surface area." He said not to worry about layering in dry hops on a small scale. Peter Wolfe also weighed in on the topic saying especially if a homebrewer is using a flat bottomed fermenter, there is little reason to layer in your hops, the surface area to volume ratio is much greater on a homebrew scale.”

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3187-advanced-dry-hopping-techniques

It does not make sense to directly replicate the way that commercial breweries produce beer since our homebreweries are significantly different.

Cheers!