Help with my NEIPA

If you want to make good NEIPA, you need to have ability to do anaerobic transfers and bottling. I would not recommend bottling bucket or bottle conditioning for this style.

 

This^^^^^^^.

After 3 uneven NEIPA attempts, the best being the first, the last two perceivably oxidized, I gave up till I had a kegging system set up and was comfortable with it.
My first attempt with a NEIPA this year is much better, with juicy hop goodness without oxidation, off colors, etc. Transferring to a purged keg, dry hopping in the keg, seemed to make a big difference. I still have room for process improvement, as I am still using an auto siphon to transfer from primary to purged keg. I am looking into anaerobic transfer from primary(carboy) to keg with co2.

 

If you are a production facility that doesn't c02 purge in 2017. You should not be packaging beer. Period.
I don't keg at home. And I don't plan on starting to anytime soon.

 

This is opinion, fact is you can use a bottling bucket and a racking cane and win medals with the beer.

 

Imho, NEIPA is no different than any other style when it comes to oxidation. If your homebrewing racking/draining/packaging technique is solid, your beer should be very quaffable just like a kegged beer...just more work.

 

Semantics... You CAN of course, but why handicap yourself? I don't think it's opinion that anaerobic atmosphere post dry hopping is best practice and yields the highest quality product. That is pretty common knowledge in the industry.
If you want to give yourself the best chance to make the best NEIPA, you need anaerobic setup, no bottling bucket or bottle conditioning.

 

I am not saying that a 0 IBU IPA do not have bitterness. This is just what everyone is calling them, so everyone knows, what the hell I'm talking about. Hence the name, that a lot use, which makes communication clear. I have proof that it worked. You guys knew what I was talking about even if it is the wrong term.

So until I hear a better name that people understand 0IBU IPA it is.

 

@honkey, who works "in the industry" previously posted:

"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."

Cheers!

 

I'll keep my eye out for bottle conditioned NEIPA from Tree House, Trillium, Tired Hands, Alchemist, Monkish and Hill Farmstead then...

Not even worth arguing. If you want to go make bottle conditioned NEIPA, go do it.

 

And I will keep my eyes open as well.

Pleasure discussing this with you.

 

I bet @honkey would agree that a closed transfer results in less O2 in the finished beer than an open transfer.

 

Well then reply to his post vs. mine.

 

honkey is a commercial brewer...their beers are almost always closed xfers...I haven't tasted any bad commercial beers lately

 

Barry, that is indeed the case yet for homebrewing he recommended:

"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."

Cheers!

 

It's funny that the two people on the thread with commercial brewing experience prefer bottle conditioned beer.
Think about that.

 

I have 5 years of commercial brewing experience and I recommend against bottle conditioning NEIPA, for the record.

 

Why? You're quoting him out of context to support your argument against @hoptualBrew's position. I'm pointing that out, lest anyone be led to believe that @honkey meant that a properly executed closed transfer results in as much or more oxygen in the final beer as a properly executed open transfer. @hoptualBrew was speaking specifically about O2. @honkey was not.

 

Point blank, OP ask for help with his NEIPA. Best improvement that I thought and think he can do is keg and anaerobic transfers.

You CAN make good NEIPA with bottle conditioning, but at the risk of unnecessary O2 pickup and the dramatic degradation of the hop character. If you want a 50/50 shot to make a good NEIPA because you don't want to keg, that's something you have to weight pro vs con on.

Anaerobic transfers and serving reduces that risk exponentially and will reduce the number of bad batches in your attempt at the style, thus leading to better success brewing this style.

NEIPA is not hefeweizen or stout... hops are THE feature of the beer and do not play well with O2 post-fermentation. At this point, I don't even know how or why this is a debate lol

 

Yes, in general I would. As always in brewing, the answer to any question is always "it depends." One thing that I have never seen is someone measure DO levels when using normal homebrewing techniques. Does anyone here know if that is a study that exists?

This is a complex discussion we have going on here because if what we are comparing is how to create beers in the same manner that the best regarded breweries in the world are creating NEIPA's, it's not going to happen without some investments that the majority of homebrewers would not want to make. Mainly, primary fermenters that are rated for enough pressure to carbonate the beer in them.

The argument in favor of bottle conditioned beers is that there is a fuller mouthfeel. Before people jump on the "carbonation is carbonation no matter where it comes from" train, maybe that is true, maybe it isn't, but what is true is that when you put pressure on yeast, it behaves differently and creates different compounds which can enhance the mouthfeel. In addition to that, at Doemens Academy where my class was being taught mostly by teachers that had completed a 7 year program at Weihenstephan, even there we were taught that bottle conditioned beer resulted in a finer carbonation which scrubs the tongue better than force carbonated beer. I personally have never seen studies that have measured the size of co2 bubbles, but for those of you that argue bubble size, at least those master brewers from the most esteemed brewing school in the world agreed with your argument. I'm not going to touch that part of the argument, but I will say that the compounds from natural carbonation enhance the mouthfeel.

Now, the next part of this is: No, for the most part you won't see breweries that are bottle conditioning their beers. For my brewery to get the same type of mouthfeel, we spund our fermenters and we get 2.0-2.1 volumes of co2 from the end of primary fermentation. We then touch it up with force carbonation to 2.5-2.7 depending on the beer.

If I was homebrewing, I would probably invest in 7 gallon corny kegs and use them as primary fermenters so that I could cap the fermentation in the same manner I do now and I would be able to dry hop under pressure, which I have found to be very important for keeping the most delicate hop aromas (as verified by 12 person tasting panels and gas chromatography). If I was using a carboy or buckets for fermentation, I would probably try to skip the bottling bucket and prime the fermenter, or transfer into a closed keg with priming sugar and let the beer carbonate in the keg. Either of those would be good options in my opinion if the DO levels are kept reasonably low. The industry standard is to shoot to be under 50 ppb total DO in packaged product. However, the most common canning lines being Cask and Wild Goose frequently test at much higher levels than that and still have reasonable shelf life of their IPA's. One mobile canner that I am friends with has 5 Wild Goose lines that he has modified to be under 50 ppb consistently with his tweaks and good packaging conditions. He mentioned that although he regularly has his lines running that low, they have had times when they've seen 200-250 ppb and the beers were still fine because they were drank quickly enough. Which brings me to the next point...

How long are your NEIPA's lasting? If you bottle condition, you have some oxygen scavenging from the yeast in suspension. If you are doing a good job bottling, I would be willing to bet that your levels would be under that 200 ppb that my friend mentioned as being typical for unmodified lines and with the yeast in suspension they will help to protect against a little bit of that oxygen degradation. Normally, my bottle conditioning experiments have been well carbonated in under a week. If the beer is drank within a few weeks, than there shouldn't be enough time for degradation.

So at the end of the day is kegging "essential"? Absolutely not. Is it better? It depends. Can bottle conditioning make an equal product or better product? It sure can. Is all of this technique and process dependent? 100% absolutely.

 

Yes, therefore heavy oxidation should not be a concern