NE-IPA Time Lines

I was actually thinking about this the other day when reading the brulosophy article about biotransformation. Most homebrewers will not be following the same timelines as a commercial brewery. I was thinking if I wanted to mimic my process from work at the home level, I would allow the beer to stay in primary for 3 days (or until the beer is about 2 degrees plato from terminal gravity) and transfer into a keg with dry hops, allowing pressure to build as fermentation finishes. Allow to sit for 4 days and do a keg to keg transfer with a purged keg to limit oxidation. Cold crash that keg and allow to settle for 2-3 days before drawing off the first pint or 2 and serving.

 

@TooHopTooHandle
1)How long did you leave in the primary (including time with 1st dry hop)
5-7 days. And I do my first dry hop around Day 3. Sometimes I will do additional dry hops during the first week.

2)Once you transferred to the keg after primary, did you do second dry hop right away?
Yes, and attached a gas QD with a tube into sanitizer solution for any additional fermentation. I also purge the keg several times immediately after transfer to try to push out as much oxygen as I can.

2-1) If so did you leave the dry hops until keg was kicked or remove them before serving?
I've done both. Lately I just leave them in so I don't have to do an additional transfer. I've never noticed any grassiness and my kegs usually last a few months. And they keep their haze the whole time.

3)If you did not add the 2nd dry hop right away, how long did you wait after you transferred to keg to add them?

3-1)Did you leave the hops in the keg or remove before serving?

4)Once transferred to the keg how many days was it before you served the beer?
I find that my beers are very raw for a few weeks in the keg. Lots of fine hop particles that give it an astringent taste. I just let them carb up for 2 weeks before I really start drinking significant amounts from the keg. By then, the particles have mostly settled to the bottom and the raw flavor smoothes out. I find my kegs hold their flavor for quite some time.



Most recent batch around Day 5 or 6. Still lots of suspended hop sediment. At this point, there are about 5.5oz of dry hops. I transferred to a keg with an additional 6oz on Day 7. It was at 1.014 at this point.


Here is the FG sample on around Day 9. Still at 1.014. It had been in the keg with dry hops at room temp for 2 days at this point. After this pic, I put it in the kegerator and it has been chilling and carbing for 9 days so far.


I don't have a pic of what it looks like yet but the last sample I pulled had an amazing color.


Here is a pic of a previous one I did following more or less the same regiment. I held a flashlight above it try to bring out the glow and give a sense of the opacity. This beer pic will probably be a little lighter in color than my current one.


I plan to pull a sample tonight of my most recent one so I will post a pick.

 

@TooHopTooHandle

Yes 1318 with a 1L starter. I make the starter the night before and put it on a stir plate. I pitch the whole thing. The starter is usually like 18 hours old when I pitch.

I've also used WLP007 with similar results. Still lots of haze. WLP007 tore through my beer super fast. It was terminal by Day 6 at the latest.

The one thing I haven't done but might try next time is to cold crash before I transfer. I tend to pick up a lot of particles so I'm looking to cut down on that. But since I dry hop in the keg, I don't know how critical cold crashing prior to transfer is.

 

Honestly, it was hard to tell. I used different hop and grain combinations but all my beers tend to have a grapefruit-y quality to them and both the 007 and 1318 beers had that. I wouldn't say there's a huge difference for me between those 2 yeasts. The WLP007 was more of an experiment to see if I could get haze. I wouldn't have any hesitation to use it again for this style. I've read a lot of speculation that Trillium uses it so that was also part of my reasoning. I went with the grains Trillium lists on their website for Congress Street but used X331 and Citra for hops. Unfortunately I don't have access to Trillium so it was hard to do a side by side but I really liked my beer and I think it had a good amount of haze and mouthfeel so I'll consider it a success.

One downside to 1318 is that it makes a wicked krausen that can be hard for the hops to drop through. I've used FermcapS before and that makes the krausen drop usually within a day.

 

@TooHopTooHandle
That color looks nice. You're sitting at 1.022 by then which is why I like to dry hop by day 3 at the latest. For my latest, I actually dry hopped on day 2 and day 3 and then once again on day 7 in the keg.

 

$18.99/ 1/2 lb at Morebeer...I must say though the packaging was much better than the one time I bought them at my LHBS.

 

Actually same price at Morebeer @ $35.99/ lb if you buy 2 lbs and get free shipping...time to take out a mortgage to buy hops

Edit: 13.4%AA makes me think they might be last years' hops...unless they are coming from two different growers/fields in AU. Anyone from down under here that would know?

 

+1 for YVH. I predominantly use them because they usually ship the same day you order. The other place I use is Farmhouse Brewing Supply. Their shipping is a little slower for me but sometimes they have hops that YVH doesn't.

 

That's nothing! I ordered from MoreBeer Sunday night/Monday morning and had my ornately packaged, hermetically sealed Galaxies by Tuesday noon along with an awesome army of cool liquid Gold...GigaVermont...but I'm not pimping for them as much as FedEx, who braved a massive storm to get me my precious Galaxy over the mountains that killed some of the Donner Party...true sacrifice for this cannibal

 

Here's my latest (the same beer in the fermenter and graduated cylinder above). It's based on a Swish clone recipe. I amped up the hops to 22oz total.

Not the greatest picture and it's not fully carbed but it tasted pretty good. Still kinda raw but it's mellowed out quite a bit over the last week.