Knights Who Say NEIPA
Style: 21B - Specialty IPA - New England IPA
I've made this a few times before and it has always been tasty and a short-lived keg. This time I'm attempting to take it to the next level with the addition of salts to modify the water chemistry.
Since I have yet to have my water tested, I used a standard Denver profile from BeerSmith as well as a few numbers from the Arvada city website.
My experience with modifying water chemistry so far has been to boost sulfates by adding gypsum to hoppy beers which seemed to have helped. The modified beers seem cleaner with more 'hop pop.' It certainly didn't hurt.
For the NEIPA I followed Neil Fisher (WeldWerks)'s advice from the Juicy Bits recipe which is:
Use calcium chloride and calcium sulfate additions to adjust water profile to about 175–200 ppm chloride, 75–100 ppm sulfate, and 125–150 ppm calcium.Assuming my base profile, I added 2g gypsum and 9g CaCl. We'll see how it goes.
In the past I have used the recommended Wyeast 1318 (Boddington's strain) but this time I'm trying my house yeast S-04. From what I've heard/read, S-04 should do the trick for a NEIPA and I have lots of it around.
The full recipe is on Brewer's Friend, but here's the TL;DR:
- Brew day: 2018-6-2
- grains: 80% Maris Otter, 20% oats or one 2lb box of Quaker Oats
- hops: [Magnum] {(Mosaic, Citra, El Dorado)}
- yeast: SafAle S-04
- OG: 1.062; FG 1.011; ABV 6.7%
- kegged: 2018-6-16
Big box of oats
Oats and milled Maris Otter (Simpson's)
Brewing salts: gypsum and CaCl
2g gypsum
Mash
120g Citra/Mosaic/El Dorado
Brewday Beer. Making a hazy IPA? Have a hazy IPA! I wasn't a big fan of this though I usually enjoy Burial's offerings. Granted it's 4% which is a nice session brew but unfortunately it tasted like it.
Brewing Assistant/Floor Manager
Chilling
Rehydrating some S-04
Wort sample
Brix 15.2 which worked out to 1.062 OG
And away we go!
2018-6-3: Roughly 24 hours after yeast pitch some thick foam had formed on top so I tossed in the "biotransformation" hops: 60g of Mosaic/Citra/El Dorado. This will get another big dry-hopping about 4-5 days before kegging.
2018-6-12 (morning): dry-hops added
2018-6-16: FG reading before kegging - pretty much agreed with brix after adjustment: 1.011 which gives us 6.7% ABV
2018-6-17: And just 18 or so hours after kegging and burst carbonating with 42psi, this is ready and tasting nice! The water adjustments seem to have made a big difference. The body and mouthfeel are much smoother and creamier than previous untreated batches.
2018-7-15: final pour. Keg kicked. This tasted great all the way to the end I thought. It smoothed out a bit and some Maris Otter nuttiness started to come through with the juicy hops. Can't think of anything I would change about the recipe, it's a keeper!
2018-6-12 (morning): dry-hops added
2018-6-16: FG reading before kegging - pretty much agreed with brix after adjustment: 1.011 which gives us 6.7% ABV
2018-6-17: And just 18 or so hours after kegging and burst carbonating with 42psi, this is ready and tasting nice! The water adjustments seem to have made a big difference. The body and mouthfeel are much smoother and creamier than previous untreated batches.
2018-7-15: final pour. Keg kicked. This tasted great all the way to the end I thought. It smoothed out a bit and some Maris Otter nuttiness started to come through with the juicy hops. Can't think of anything I would change about the recipe, it's a keeper!
