Help with my NEIPA

I bottle on day 14.
I put the bottles at room temp for two weeks to carb up.
once carbbed I put the bottles in the fridge.
They hit their peak @ 4-6 weeks.
I don't use a secondary.

 

Never did a milkshake ipa so I can't help you there. I usually do half my dryhop addition on day 4 and day 7 with bottling on day 14. I use corn sugar to carb with.

 

Get a kegging setup.

All my single NEIPAs, I keep around 1.060 OG, ferment 5.5 gallons with 2 packs of US05. I dry hop 24 hours after pitching, and 48 hours after pitching. 72 hours later, fermentation starts to slow. 96, it's usually done.

I brew on Saturday; dry hop Sunday; dry hop Monday; let it rest until Thursday. Cold crash it Thursday, keg it Friday. Crank it to 40 psi, give it a little shake, let it sit... lower to serving psi, and it's good to go for brew day the following Saturday.

Been doing this about a month now and have zero issues. All my beers are fresh, hazy, carbonated, taste good, not grainy. I am sure I'm breaking a ton of rules, but I don't care. It's working out great for me and you can't argue with results.

Cheers.

 

Agree with all of the above. Primary only, my dry hops go in loose the whole time until kegged. Easiest style I have ever brewed.

 

I disagree with the kegging advice... I prefer bottle conditioned beers, especially for the NEIPA's. Kegging is easier, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better.

1. The day you bottle should depend on your batch and process. With perfect fermentation, your beer should hit terminal gravity in 3-4 days. Typically, I recommend a warm conditioning period of 3-5 days before cold crashing. At the homebrew level, cold crashing normally doesn't take long for solids to settle out, so day 10 could be a reasonable time frame for bottling. I personally like to give the beer a little bit extra time cold crashed and bottle around day 12.

2. If you bottle right from primary, just be very careful to not disturb the sediment too much when you stir in the priming sugar. The beer should be hazy, not muddy. I like to transfer into a bottling vessel, but for me, I transfer into a purged keg to avoid oxygen pickup. If I didn't have that ability, I would at least try bottling from primary a time or two and see how it goes.

3. You can't cold crash right away and expect them to carbonate. I prime crash cooled beer, let the bottles sit in a room that stays at about 65 degrees, and normally I find the beers to be fully carbonated in a week.

4. You can drink anytime that the beer tastes good to you. With my timeline, I normally would start drinking 3 weeks after brewing and the beer is all gone with in a few weeks. The stability of the flavor will depend on your process though... How good are you at avoiding oxygen pickup? Once the beer is all carbonated is it all kept cold? Quality of hops is important and even using higher quality malts can make a pretty big difference in flavor stability. The only person that can determine the beer's flavor stability is you.

 

I also bottle my beers because I have a preference for bottle conditioned beers.

The rationale, as I understand it, for why folks 'push' kegging here is because of the notion that kegging hoppy beers yields 'better' beer stability. Do you agree with this?

Cheers!

 

I think it's all process dependent. Properly filled bottles will have better stability than improperly filled kegs. Clear beers that are dosed with yeast at bottle conditioning also could be better stability than clear beers in kegs because the bottle conditioning yeast provides a little bit of protection against small amounts of oxygen.

I think kegging is easier to do properly, but when bottles are filled properly, they are superior, but it's all personal preference. The best compromise in my opinion is to have a fermenter that can be pressurized and capped at the end of fermentation allowing natural carbonation during fermentation and then can be touched up with small amounts of co2 if needed. I really love using my fermenters as unitanks at work.

 

I very much agree with you here. It is indeed process dependent which makes discussion on this topic a bit challenging since each homebrewer has their own unique process in their homebreweries.

Cheers!

 

Check out Zymurgy pg 32-40 May/June (Vol 40, No. 3) 2017

 

From the standpoint of oxygen exclusion:
Closed Transfer Kegging > Keg and Purge > Bottling

There are reasons that those who switch from bottling to kegging almost never go back, and this is one of them.

 

Yes, unless krausening, kegs are just one big bottle that conditions just as in a bottle..even with forced carbonation...hmmmn...might have to try krausening a keg http://www.winning-homebrew.com/krausening.html

 

Except kegs can have much less O2 than bottles or even virtually no O2.

 

What is not being explicitly being discussed is process control. If a transfer is not being conducted 100% precisely problems can result. This is the topic that @honkey introduced to this thread discussion.

Cheers!

 

I keg for that very reason, but a krausened bottle will scavenge oxygen and have similar properties if you are willing to perform the extra work...I'm not so inclined usually

 

Yes, xfering/racking beer is an art/process for homebrewers and can easily be fucked up...bottles or kegs

 

Zymurgy is a journal of the American Home Brewer's Association (AHA)...join ($43) and you get the digital and print copy for free. HomebrewersAssociation.org

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/