WeldWerks Juicy Bits Clone (NEIPA)

Interesting. I've never heard of ramping down a temp during fermentation.

 

That's the only time I have seen a recommendation of a temp change that early in the process.

 

I hear you. I'm not claiming it is making anything better. Sometime I'll try a batch holding temp constant during ferm.

 

Where can I get these water adjustments (asks a water noob)?

• NaCl
• CaCl
• Gypsum
• Epsom

Is this your standard adjustment for the NEIPA style?

NaCl 2.045 g
CaCl 10.770 g
Gypsum 1.212 g
Epsom 6.524 g

 

Are you asking where you can buy them? If so...

NaCl - Non Iodized Table Salt - probably in your kitchen
CaCl2 - Calcium Chloride - Homebrew store
Gypsum - CaSO4 - Homebrew Store
Epsom - MgSO4 - Drug Store or Homebrew Store

 

I play around with the mineral adjustments but for this one, I went with the ppm numbers listed. I try to keep Calcium around 100 and then play with the Sulfate and Chloride numbers. I'm settling in on a 2:1 ratio of Cl:SO4. For this one, I did 200 and 100. Maybe I'll do 150 and 75 next time. The sodium and magnesium numbers probably aren't as critical but you don't want them super high. Jon Palmer has some upper limits but I can't recall them of the top of my head. I can look them up.

There is a table (table 17 I think) in the book Water (Palmer and Kaminski) that shows how many ppm a gram of each mineral adds per gallon of water. If I know my starting water profile (for me it is essentially 0ppm for everything since I start with distilled water) and my target profile, then I can calculate how many ppm I need to add. I have a spreadsheet to calculate these numbers based on that table in Water. The grams I listed are what will give me my target profile for 8.5 gallons of distilled water.

 

Non iodized salt is key. I buy canning salt which is non iodized. Grocery stores carry it.

 

Is this a good water 'recipe' for most NEIPA styles?

 

A lot of NEIPA recipes I've seen gravitate towards a 2:1 ratio of chloride:sulfate with the values being around 150:75 to 200:100. Higher sulfate is supposed to make hops "pop", while higher chloride is supposed to give a smoother mouthfeel. I've tried chloride:sulfate ratios of 150:100, 100:150, 150:150, 150:75 and they all were good. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell the difference between them, but there are other things going on like different grain bills, hops, yeast, etc. I've never done a controlled experiment keeping everything the same except the water chemistry.

A good baseline would be something like 100 Ca, 150 Cl, 75 SO4. That will definitely put you in the ballpark and then you can tweak the numbers based on what you like. I went with 200:100 just to see if I thought it was noticeably better than my prior beers. I think Palmer recommends a max chloride around 200. He didn't list a max sulfate number. The 2 minerals I focus on are Cl and SO4. I keep Ca at 100 for all my beers. I tweak Na and Mg to get the other numbers to work out. I try to keep Na and Mg between 15 and 30 if I can.

 

Another thing to consider is these minerals affect pH so sometimes you might want to add the minerals that lower pH during the mash and the rest during the boil. According to Bru'n, if I add all mine during the mash, I should be around 5.3 or 5.4. I've had good luck doing it this way but I bought a pH meter to make sure I'm in the ballpark.

 

There is a neipa thread that goes more in depth into process and recipe formulation in this forum.

 

Are you adjusting the total water (mash & sparge + top-off if needed) amount?

 

@ultravista
My process is BIAB with no sparge and no top off. I start with 8.5 gallons and end up around 5.5-6.0 in the kettle, so I end up with 5.0-5.5 gallons in the fermenter. When I calculate my water additions, I get the grams per gallon amount and then multiply it by 8.5. I plug my numbers into Bru'n Water as a double check and also to get an estimated pH. According to Bru'n, I'm usually in the 5.3 range for pH.

I squeeze the hell out of the bag after the mash and I routinely get 80%+ kettle efficiency. I used to sparge and would get about 85% kettle efficiency but it added about 45 minutes more to the brew day. I just assume 80% efficiency in my calcs and bump up the grain bill if I want to hit a specific OG.

 

@ECCS

Personally, I haven't noticed any harsh flavors but yes, I am aware that some people say you can extract tannins by squeezing the bag. I've also heard that if your pH is in line, this is less of a concern. I don't know the correct answer but I can say that I squeeze it pretty hard and haven't noticed any harsh flavors.

 

I have been mashing in a bag and squeeze the hell out of the grain bag. I usually drain the first runnings, add the full batch sparge water, drain second runnings, then prop the grain bag on a large (collapsible) strainer above the tun.

While the wort is in the kettle, the bag is draining into the tun. I'll put the kettle lid on top of the bag and push/squeeze as much out as possible - about 1 gallon.

For some reason, my recent beers have always resulted in more pre-boil kettle volume than expected. Some calculation in Beersmith is throwing the 'kettle' volume off. So ... I boil that 1 gallon of wort on the stove and make a syrupy slurry and toss it into the kettle around flame out.

For your NEIPA receipe ... is the following per gallon or for the batch? If for the batch, then divide by 5.5 to get the gram per gallon?

NaCl 2.045 g
CaCl 10.770 g
Gypsum 1.212 g
Epsom 6.524 g

 

@ultravista

Good question. Those values are what are required to get the desired ppm concentrations and pH of ~5.4 for 8.5 gallons of distilled water. On a per gallon basis, they are:
NaCl: 0.2405g
CaCl2: 1.2662g
CaSO4 (Gypsum): 0.1450g
MgSO4 (Epsom Salt): 0.7635g

You would scale that up by however many gallons you use in order to keep the ppm concentrations you desire.

The mash pH is very critical so it's important to make sure your additions keep the pH in check. Lots of different theories on what the ideal pH is. Some say the range should be 5.2-5.4, others 5.2-5.6, others 5.4-5.8. I target 5.2 to 5.4. Based on my additions and my grain bill, Bru'n Water says if I do a full BIAB no sparge and add all the minerals to the mash, I should be around 5.4 and that's worked well for me.

When I used to do BIAB with a 6.0 gallon mash and 2.5 gallon sparge, I'd calculate the mineral amounts I'd need for 8.5 gallons and add them all into the 6.0 gallon mash. That would knock my mash pH down to like 5.25. And then I'd add nothing to the sparge. Not sure if that was a good idea to have no minerals in the sparge but the beer turned out fine.

If you still can't get a low enough pH, you can always add acid or acid malt to the mash. I've never done this so I can't speak to how much you need but Bru'n Water can figure that out for you.

For my next batch, I plan to take some pH measurements to see how close Bru'n Water is in its estimate.

 

Another note. You base your additions on the amount of water you use, not your batch size.

 

A rough ballpark for grain absorption is 1# of grain absorbs about 0.08 gallons of water so 12# of grain absorbs around 1 gallon of water. For my recipes, my grain bills are around 12.5-13.5# of mash grain so I assume I will lose about 1 gallon in the mash.

I also lose about 1.50 gallons during the 60 minute boil and I assume 0.5 gallons will be left in the kettle after I drain.

So if I want 5.5 gallons in the fermenter, I need 5.5 + 0.5 + 1.5 + 1 = 8.5 gallons of mash/sparge water.

I think if you squeeze the hell out of the bag, you might get a lower absorption amount and end up with a bit more water than you planned.

 

The absorption rate is 0.12gallons/lb, or more, in all the literature I am familiar with.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Batch_Sparging_Analysis