I have another question because questions are all I have at this point. It will be a long time before I can contribute anything useful to this site. My first brew was an IPA that was half grain and half extract. It had a really nice color - clear, dark copper, nice white head... My last two beers - failed NEIPA and a recently-bottled Nelson clone - have had a kind of dull brownish gold color. Nothing vibrant about them. I am waiting to see what the Nelson clone looks like after it bottle conditions. What could I be doing wrong? They were both all grain. The NEIPA got ruined by oxygen during the second dry hop addition (while not robust, the color was more golden before removing first hop bag and adding second). For the Nelson clone, I dry hopped on day three and didn't open it again. Its color was better, but still not great. Thanks
Oxidation. You have to be more careful during the cold side to avoid oxygen. Kegging is also a massive help in this area . Truth be told new England ipas are kinda just known to do this sometimes with bottling.
Can attest to @Prep8611 post. I bottle and a few of my NEIPAs came out fantastic. I've come to conclusion that was pure fucking luck. The many others were copper colored, stale, hop-less seltzer water or malt bombs. Only conclusion I could come to was NEIPAs are not meant for bottles.
Yeah, it was weird. Mine smelled fruity and hoppy - the Mosaic came through big time. However they were purple-brown seltzer water, as you said, with a strange watery, yeasty taste. Most bottles fizzed over when I opened them. It was sadly the last time I will attempt to brew this style, at least until I can really upgrade my system.
@butterygold - another thing you can try is to add an antioxidant at bottling time such as sodium metabisulfate (you can grab it at your homebrew shop). A gram or so could go a long way to reducing the oxidation of your NEIPA. Add it in with your priming sugar, and do everything else as gently as possible. Adding a small amount of fresh bottling yeast at this time could help to speed up your bottle conditioning as well, while also scrubbing oxygen more effectively. Kegging with closed transfers is for sure the best way to package this style of beer, but it can be done bottling.Just need to take some extra precautions, and drink em quick.
Interesting. I will look into that. I would like to get to the kegging level some day, but it's still a ways off.
Well... after two weeks the Alpine Nelson clone is a failure. It has no hop aroma (smells yeasty), faint hop flavor (used Simcoe and Nelson - no Simcoe at all and faint white grape of Nelson) and that dreaded dull brownish color. It is also very fizzy. What's up with the fizz? I found sodium metabisulfate at an online brewshop and have a 9 gallon kettle located to help avoid these problems in the future. I think I might just drainpour it (second in a row) and start again. Based on the good advice I have received here I will maybe buy a little more grain than the recipe calls for, mill it finer, and dunk sparge it in my old kettle. It is worth nothing that the clone recipe I used said no sparge. It says 9 gallon mash, 7.5 gallon pre boil size and 5.5 gallons in the fermenter. We'll see. Thanks for all the advice.
This indicates to me that you might have a wild yeast or bacteria infection in your beer. Have you tasted it again? Is it tart on the tongue? If you take a hydrometer reading you might find the number approaching down to 1.000 because the bacteria or wild yeast are eating all of the non-fermentable sugars and creating excess carbonation. If this is the case, you'll need to review your sanitation procedures before your next brew.
I didn't get any tartness, but I will have to taste it again. I was so disappointed that I don't know what I was tasting. Besides the fizz, what really surprised me was the almost total lack of hop character on both the nose and tongue. I used about 7 ounces of hops, both in the boil and dry hopping, which is not a ton but should give a little oomph. I am pretty good about hygiene - scrub with oxyclean and then starsan everything - but I have a lot of animals running around so who knows... Thanks for the reply.
My experience with the only infected batch that I brewed was that the overwhelming tartness and bubbly carbonation burning my tongue prevented me from tasting much of anything else about that beer. Since you are likely to dump this batch, be sure to get another gravity reading which might confirm there is an infection.
Gravity reading was 1008 (with priming sugar already added, obviously). Target FG was 1018. Doesn't taste as yeasty today and there is more hop characteristics. Today is exactly two weeks after bottling. I watered it down too much (recipe called for all kettle of 7.5 to 5.5 gallons with no sparge) and it may or may not live on as a session IPA. Thanks for the advice. In general, folks on this forum are incredibly helpful.
