WeldWerks Juicy Bits Clone (NEIPA)

You are absolutely right, there are tons of factors to consider, not just when scaling from commercial brewing to homebrewing, but even factors that change from one homebrew system to the next. Another major difference is that our beers boil around 203-205 F because of our elevation (4,700 ft), which also affects hop utilization, especially at flame-out and whirlpool. Lots of variables at work, but your advice is spot on-- if you want more hops, add more hops.

 

Oh man, i'm at 6300 ft and boil at around 198. There's no chance for me to make this clone then.

 

I'm at 6700' haha.

When I brewed a similar beer last year, I did 3oz of hops at flameout, ran the chiller down to 160, and threw in another 3oz of hops for a 30 minute whirlpool. The beer turned out really good fresh, but it went downhill fairly quickly after about 3 weeks. Also, tons of "hop sludge" from all the hops and dry hops, so I need to work on my process a little bit.

 

I bag my hops for that reason usually. This go round I am going to modify my pickup a bit and use my pump to whirlpool the shit out of this.

 

First, I'll just say that I've never tasted WeldWerks Juicy Bits. You could ask the brewery what they recommend.

As for the APNEIPA, carbonation was never polled, but personally I'd recommend about 2.3 volumes. If in doubt, I'd err on the side of a little less than a little more. I think keeping the CO2 levels reasonable/low-ish helps with the soft mouthfeel for this style.

 

@ultravista
For my first attempt, this is my planned hop schedule. All amounts in ounces.
FWH: 0.25 El Dorado, 0.25 Mosaic (I left the Citra out here because I'm not a fan of boiling Citra)
Flameout: 1.00 each of El Dorado and Mosaic (whirlpool for 5 minutes, then drop temp to 180F; left out the Citra here, too)
180F: 1.00 each of Citra, El Dorado and Mosaic (whirlpool for 30 minutes)
After 30 minutes, add 1.00 each of Citra, El Dorado and Mosaic (whirlpool another 30 minutes)
Chill and transfer to fermenter
Dry Hop on Day 3: 1.00 each of Citra, El Dorado and Mosaic
Dry Hop on Day 6: 1.00 each of Citra El Dorado and Mosaic (I typically do the 2nd dry hop in a keg)

14.5oz total which seems to be in the range of hops for a 5g batch of NEIPA

 

My clone of double sunshine had 19oz of hops involved... For ten gallons. Most of my NEIPA beers come in around 12oz. You can smell them across the room.

 

We target 2.4-2.5 volumes for Juicy Bits but you could certainly try lower. We reached our target with crowler filling in mind so for draft only, 2.3 might be great.

 

Here's a NEIPA that's at Day 6. 0.5oz FWH, 10oz whirlpool hops, 5.5oz dry hops so far. I have 6oz planned for tomorrow when I rack to a dry hop keg. 22oz total for 5.5g. Probably overkill since a lot of hops are just floating on the surface. I swirl it around every once in a while to break things up.

 

Just picked up one pound of each cultivar.

 

@ECCS
I've never gotten oxidation flavors. I swirl very gently. I basically just hold the fermenter by the lid and gently swirl it. Just enough to get the surface to move a little. That helps loosen up hop clumps.

My picture from above got jacked up. Here's the picture of the fermenter.

 

Also, it's a good idea to only swirl it while fermentation is happening. That way, the CO2 getting created can help scrub out some of the O2.

If you are sloshing it around, you are agitating it too much.

 

hezagenius - mind posting the recipe/process?

 

BIAB method, no sparge
9.75# Golden Promise
1.25# 2-Row
1.25# Flaked Wheat
0.75# Dextrose (added with 10 min left in the boil)
0.5# Maltodextrin (added with 10 min left in the boil)

1L 1318 starter pitched when the starter is about 18 hours old

Ca 100
SO4 100
Cl 200
Mg 20
Na 25

Started with 8.5gal distilled water
Additions:
NaCl 2.045 g
CaCl 10.770 g
Gypsum 1.212 g
Epsom 6.524 g

Mash at 152F for 60 min
Boil for 60 min

FWH: Apollo 0.5oz
Whirlpool started 10 minutes left in the boil to sanitize
Flameout: Mosaic 1.0oz
My outside faucet was frozen so I let this whirlpool until it hit 180F. Took about 15 minutes since it was super cold even in the garage.
180F: Citra 4.0oz (whirlpool for 60 min)
180F: Mosaic 4.0oz (whirlpool for 60 min)
180F: Simcoe 1.0oz (whirlpool for 60 min)

Temp was about 145 after 60 min

Chilled to 65F (took about 10 minutes), transfered to fermenter, aerated with O2, pitched yeast

Ferm temp schedule:
0-24hr: 63.5F
24-48: 64F
48-72: 66F
72-96: 68F
96-120: 70F
Remove from temp control after 120 hours

Dry hop schedule:
Day 2: Citra 2.0oz
Day 3: Apollo 1.0oz
Day 3: Mosaic 1.5oz
Day 3: Simcoe 1.0 oz
Day 7: Citra 2.5oz (in dry hop keg)
Day 7: Mosaic: 2.5oz (in dry hop keg)
Day 7: Simcoe 1.0oz (in dry hop keg)

When FG is achieved, transfer to serving keg, crash and carb.

OG: 1.069 (actual kettle efficiency 80%)
Target FG: 1.014 (expected attenuation 80%)

Today is Day 7 so I'll be doing a closed transfer (or at least my best attempt) to the dry hop keg this afternoon. I will put the 6oz of hops in a stainless mesh tube to try to control the sediment in the keg. I'll suspend the tube from the PRV post on the bottom of the keg lid.

I think that covers everything. The one thing I haven't really monitored yet is pH. I just bought a meter so from now on, I will be checking it. Based on Bru'n Water, I'm in the 5.3 range.

 

@hezagenius what's up with the .5 degree difference after 24 hours of fermentation?

 

Good question. No specific reason and it probably doesn't make much of a difference. I saw a recipe that started at 63.5 and said to raise it to 70 over several days. I just wanted nice whole numbers so I do 63.5 for 1 day and then bump it to whole numbers after that.

There's no secret in that 63.5.

 

I ask because ramping temps up during the most vigorous part of fermentation simply defeats the purpose of temp control. I am sure half a degree doesn't matter, but I feel it's a bad practice to get into.

 

I ramp mine just as a precaution so the yeast don't crap out prematurely. And during the first few days (when ferm is most vigorous and most off flavors occur), I'm on the low side of the recommended range.

 

What I am addressing is more of a principal and generality I see happening more and more in the brewing community. People see something or read something in a recipe and adopt it as their own without so much as questioning why they are doing it. Case in point is the step here where you are ramping during the first 24 hours of fermentation. It's pretty common to start a beer warmer during the lag phase of fermentation and then step the temperatures DOWN during growth phase and bring them back up for conditioning. Taking a bad practice, perpetuating it for the sake of complacency is simply perpetuating bad beer.