IPA/NEIPA off flavors

When I was pitching the 220B cells of Wyeast 1318, not only would it finish quick... it would chew the gravity down further than I wanted. I had a predicted FG of 1.016, but the 220B cella would finish it at 1.012. That’s a bit thin for my preference with the style. I used to ferment around 68F with those 220B cells.

Now with my base NEIPA recipe, I do 170B cells of Wyeast 1318 fermented at 64F in 1.060 wort. I also add 2oz of lactose in a 5 gal batch for a bit of sweetness and body.

How was the mouthfeel on the beers where you experienced those flavors? Part of the “vodka-like” finish I experienced was a thin mouthfeel with a very present alchohal taste.

 

Jason, if some business is selling water that is labeled as being distilled water that is not just H2O then they are misrepresenting the product.

Are there businesses out there that do this? The answer is they should not be but...

Cheers!

 

There is debate over whether or not distillation removes chloromines.

 

I'm with Jack on this. I guess we'll never be able to prevent some random people on the interwebs from misunderstanding or misconstruing facts.

 

Now that I am not sure about. Good point.

 

Seems like this should be fairly easy to verify. Boil the water and permit the water vapor to condense and measure if there is any chloramine in the resulting condensed water. I am not a professional chemist but I am pretty certain even I could do this.

Cheers!

 

Okay, I am a chemical engineer (yep, 4 years at Michigan Tech, Class of 1997), and I've formed a conclusion on distilled water and whether it can have chloramine...

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloramine) says: "The time required to remove half of the chloramine (half-life) from 10 US gallons (38 l; 8.3 imp gal) of water by boiling is 26.6 hours". That's pretty damn slow, especially compared against regular bleach, where the half-life is just 1.8 hours. So, chloramine is quite stable, not very volatile.

Now consider the average stay time of an average molecule of H2O or chloramine in a commercial water distillation facility. I don't work at such a place but my better judgment figures the stay time isn't going to be much longer than about an hour, and probably much less. So for conservatism, let's say it's 2 hours. Fair?

With a bit of math [1-0.5^(2/26.6)], I would thus expect a maximum of 5% of the chloramine to make it into the vapor phase with the water, leaving 95% of the chloramine concentrated and left behind as waste in the process. And this assumes just one stage of distillation. If they use several stages of distillation, this would get knocked down much further to the tenths or hundredths of a percent. Not all of this will necessarily re-condense and fall back into the distilled water, but for conservatism, let's say that a whopping 5% does.

So... if a single-stage distillation facility is using city water with chloramine as their main source (dumb IMO), then as much as 5% of the city water's dose might end up in your little jugs that you pick up at your local grocery store or whatever.

In my opinion, I seriously doubt an amount 5% as strong as standard city water would affect the flavor of your finished beer. Maybe it will, but I have some doubts. But I was being extremely conservatively high in this estimate. A more realistic number I think is probably closer to like 1% or maybe down to 0.001% or someplace in between, which... no, it's not hurting anything at that point!

One more possibility is that they might add chlorine to the distilled water on purpose AFTER they distill it. If they do... friggin jerks. I doubt they do, there's nothing in that water for any critters to eat. But, anything is possible. Only way to know for sure is to know somebody who works there. Sorry, I don't.

 

Are you whirlpooling at low temps? I had a great conversation with a few headbrewers at a small brewery in Montana recently. They might not make full on haze bombs but they make wonderful, bright, modern hoppy beers that are some of the better executions I’ve had in the rocky mtns. I’ve had all the great stuff from NE many many times.

Anyways we were discussing whirlpool temps as I always thought it would be really difficult for a large pro batch to get to such low whirlpool temps that homebrewers always talk about. He said they tried everything from 200-170 by running wort through the heat-Ex before whirlpool. He said they started to develop these plastic type notes with large WP additions less than 200*... 200 is what he said they settled on and thought worked the best.

Great interview with Noah Bissell recently on The Session and they did studies to find no benefit to dropping their whirlpool temp to 190 vs. 212 and it simply wasn’t worth the time and effort it took to do it which means to me they definitely wouldn’t go lower than 190. Granted utilization can be much different on a homebrew scale but Noah’s recommendation for WP and DH additions for the beer they were discussing weren’t that big.

I would suggest either moving some of your late additions maybe back into the boil or just cutting the huge WP amount down and see what it does. I have a hunch you might see a difference.

I don’t think your issue is sanitation or water based at all. That being said I would spend the money on a dope PH meter and calibrate it every time you use it and try not to dip it in hot wort, which is hard to do sometimes when laziness takes over. I have been really trying to dial my PH in throughout the process and I think my beers are becoming more refined. Still a lot more work to do though...

 

Would love to see these studies as there should be increased isomerization at the higher temperatures and increased oil preservation at lower ones.

Should just listen to the interview, but do you remember if they did HPLC/MS or GC/MS?

 

I don’t believe he mentioned the exact testing other than there was only a 2 IBU measured difference between roughly 210 and 190. They were working with their local university who was doing the testing. I’ll have to go back and listen. I would highly suggest the podcast it’s a great one... and yet another producer of the “NEIPA” style that doesn’t use 1318. I would say the last 1/3 of the interview was where the best info came from.

 

I was as shocked by their house yeast selection as I was the whirlpool temp information. I think he suggested they are using Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II) or WLP051 (California V) based on the info provided on the BSI website.

Seems crazy for such hazy beers

 

I would be interested to see if you do try it what you get especially if you’re leaving them in throughout all that cooling. Maybe try a FO addition and let it go for 30 or cool to 200 and let that go, then pull the hops instead of letting them sit for so long in wort that is cooling way down. At my elevation I boil at 202 so I start at around 200 without even chilling. If I just let them sit i’m down to about 180 in 30 minutes. Then I run off through a CFC which can take another half an hour to get all the wort into FV. Remaining wort is usually around 150 when all said and done (temp is 65ish when it lands in the conical.)

 

It is a shame that you tossed these hops because you could have conducted your 'exBEERiment' of not whirlpooling these hops at lower temperatures and see if that made a difference.

Cheers!

 

However you fail to mention that chlorophenols are perceptible in beer at a rate of parts per BILLION. So even if 5% made it to his water then it stands to reason the off flavor could still be chlorophenols.
looks like 1ppb is a flavor panel dosing rate for off flavor testing.

 

You may very well be correct. I did not look up the thresholds. Also true is that each individual has their own threshold. We do not all perceive things identically. Some are much more sensitive than others.

Cheers.

 

Gary Glass picks up chlorophenols from a mile away.