I love Tired Hands beers. Particularly Hop Hands. Jean preaches about creating "dry, expressive beers." I've made a couple IPAs but never got that dryness out of them. I know adding sugar is one way to do so. Just looking for some insight on how to create and hopefully perfect a beautiful, dry, hop saturated ale.
From my brief homebrewing knowledge, a higher mash temp gets you a thicker, more creamy mouthfeel. So if I mash down at say 148-150, would that mess that up? Also, can you elaborate on a more adequate pitching rate?
Low mash temp, yeast selection, ferment health, simple sugar additions, water chemistry, and carbonation is where I would focus.
Not sure I agree with the low mash temp Idea. For all the beers I brew I shoot for the most fermentable wort possible. I have read somewhere that 153 degrees is the sweet spot. Picking a yeast that ferments to 80% will give you the best chance at a drier beer. Also a little sugar would not hurt. Take care.
Here's what John Palmer says in How To Brew: "A lower mash temperature, less than or equal to 150°F, yields a thinner bodied, drier beer. A higher mash temperature, greater than or equal to 156°F, yields a less fermentable, sweeter beer. This is where a brewer can really fine tune a wort to best produce a particular style of beer."
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, the grist is pretty important, too...don't overload with caramel and other less-fermentable grains. To dry a beer out relatively, replace some of these dextrinous grains with simple sugars...don't simply add sugar on top of the dextrins or you'll end up with a bigger beer than you intended.
Several years ago Greg Doss, at the time working at Wyeast, presented data on attenuation for different yeast and mash temperature with Pilsner malt. The maximum attenuation was at 153F for the mash experiments. Kai had similar results in his tests, again using Pils malt. Now that does not say what the mouthfeel was, or if a different result would happen for a different type of malt with different levels of DP and Alpha and Beta Amylase. Mash time is also important, IIRC, 75 minutes was the best for Pils malt. That is probably because the Beta has been spent, but the Alpha will last at that temp and start to add body and sweetness.
Jeff, I have had similar thoughts. I was wondering if North American two-row would behave differently? Your memory is correct here. Does it make sense to you that the 90 minute mash yielded less attenuation? Cheers!
So lower mash temp yields a drier finished product, but I definitely like a creamy mouthfeel for my IPAs. So how do I go about drying it out but keeping the mouthfeel?
What can be added to the grain bill to provide a creamy mouthfeel are adjuncts such as flaked oats. Whether you will obtain both creamy and dry by adding flaked oats to your grain bill I am uncertain. Cheers!
Degass a hydro sample of HopHands to determine the FG. Some brewers claim they make dry beer, but they don't really make dry beer. If you know the FG, then you can brew accordingly.
The Alpha was still working, making more dextrins, the Beta was done making maltose, so it tipped to less fermentable by a little.
I was just going to say, I don't think Tired Hands IPAs are particularly dry. I very well could be wrong, but that hasn't been my perception.
