New England Esque IPA

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Vogt52

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What ingredients do you guys use to emulate a New England style IPA? I'm talking about the cloudy, smooth, sweet ipas with great aroma and bitterness.

I was thinking about adding wheat and/or oats to increase the cloudiness and head retention. Also looking for a lower flocculating yeast strain.

Suggestions?
 
I think a couple different yeast labs offer a Vermont ipa type yeast strain as well as the English strains that don't floc out very well.
 
I've had good luck with increased levels of chloride than you would see in a west coast IPA when brewing this style. It seems to lend to that soft mouthfeel.

Also +1 to London Ale III or Conan.
 
As others have said Wyeast 1318 is key. ~150ppm of SO4, Cl and Ca. I've seen oats or wheat in a grain bill. Juicy hops.
 
I use London 3, 17% oats, more or less the water gatorbeer mentions, and slightly lower carbonation than normal. Gotta be on point with avoiding oxidation too. I do primary fermentation->dry hop in a keg->transfer to a serving keg, and carbonate. Works pretty great.
 
I used conan + trois in a sort of northeast style DIPA recently. I also used a half pound of oats and the rest Maris Otter. Double dry hopped, first at high krausen, then racked onto the second round of hops a week later. 17 oz total hops in that beer. I thought it was up there with the stuff I've had from Vermont and Massachusetts.
 
Lots of dry hop! My Congress Street clone had 6oz of Galaxy. I skipped the oats though, only used wheat.
 
I'm actually getting ready to brew an IPA today using Omega Vermont DIPA yeast and a couple pounds of white wheat in the grain bill. Will report back with results.
I apparently got a dead package of Conan yeast. 5 days in and no activity. I dumped a cup of Nottingham yeast slurry in there last night and it's ripping away. Topaz, Galaxy, and Mosaic hops...smells like a peach and pineapple farm.
 
Can we talk about this? Let's talk about this...
Hill Farmstead Twitter Machine said:
@dontdrinkbeer we stopped boiling our beer because we realized the hot break was making our beer too clear.
This started as a convo about the appearance of a Hoof Hearted Konkey Dong DIPA.

Srs?
Troll?
 
Can we talk about this? Let's talk about this...

This started as a convo about the appearance of a Hoof Hearted Konkey Dong DIPA.

Srs?
Troll?
Definite Troll. The equivalent of saying 'we stopped doing things right altogether in order to achieve a certain effect'. A little science in the ribbing regarding the protein coagulation/hot break. Only 'no boils' I have ever heard of are Berliners/ light and tart brews.
 
Definite Troll. The equivalent of saying 'we stopped doing things right altogether in order to achieve a certain effect'. A little science in the ribbing regarding the protein coagulation/hot break. Only 'no boils' I have ever heard of are Berliners/ light and tart brews.
I think Slovenian farmhouse beers, too?
 
IPA's get kegged and consumed onsite for the time being. I need to invest in a beer gun.
No you dont. Not even close to being worth the money. buy a picnic tap, plastic racking cane and a #2 stopper for less than $10.

I thought it was worth the $ for the co2 purging feature but that thing leaks like a cive no matter how many times I've cranked down all the connections.
 
My attempt at week old toilet bowl water...

V5ldYLz.jpg
 
I'm about to rock my New England esque IPA again this weekend if all goes well. I've gotten it to where results are somewhere between HF, Trillium and TH. Can't wait, I might split this batch to do two dryhop treatments.

I have a very specific water profile I aim for to finish with crazy sulfide/chloride levels to get close to that of lab analysis of Heady Topper. Involves dechlorinated water (I usually mash with 10 gallons to collect 6.5) and adding 16 g Gypsum, 7g CaCl, 4 g Epsom salt to the mash, and using a bit of acidulated malt.

Mostly 2Row/Marris Otter Blend (I might sub a little pilsner this time, but Marris is a key part of the recipe)
Little flaked Wheat and Rolled Oats
Little Carapils
Little C10
Little Honey Malt
Little table sugar

Most importantly, 1318 YEAST

Mash 154*
75 minute boil

.4 Columbus @ 45
.3 Columbus, .5 Mosaic, .7 Citra @ 5 (I would be careful with quantity of things like Equinox or Galaxy)
.5 Mosaic, .5 Galaxy @ 0
Whirlpool 3 combined ounces of aroma hops at 190-170* for like 20 minutes (above or whatever you are going to dry hop with - Nelson, Amarillo, Equinox, whatever)

Dry hop on days 3 or 4 at the end of primary and again in the keg after racking on day 9 or so when a good amount of yeast has dropped. The amount you dry hop is dependent on the hop you use and your tolerance for garlic/green onion vegetal flavors. I stick to about 4 oz total split evenly. Let it sit at 68-70 with the hops and then pull the mesh hop bag out of the keg and force carb for a week. It'll look like juice, smell like juice and it will taste like muddafuggin juice.
 
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Considering the amounts of minerals I'd be a bit careful with the acid malts. From experience it's easy to end up with a mash pH slightly lower than ideal, and this coming from someone with very soft water. Still, better to end up slightly lower than slightly higher.
 
Considering the amounts of minerals I'd be a bit careful with the acid malts. From experience it's easy to end up with a mash pH slightly lower than ideal, and this coming from someone with very soft water. Still, better to end up slightly lower than slightly higher.
Thanks and I agree. This is a tried and true recipe. Definitely not my first run of it, so I got to tinker along the way. My water in central ct is almost totally soft so it works out ok. I recommend using a water calculator spreadsheet like EZ water for any first run and then tweaking recipes based on PH pen readings or at least PH test slips.

Edit: Sorry I didn't type this all at once, I kind of peicemealed the post between my phone and work.
 
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Considering the amounts of minerals I'd be a bit careful with the acid malts. From experience it's easy to end up with a mash pH slightly lower than ideal, and this coming from someone with very soft water. Still, better to end up slightly lower than slightly higher.
Elaborating further on your great observation here, I should mention that balancing salts and acidulated malts is key to end up with the right mineral content and PH (both mash and final). The salts I mentioned are based on an elaborate calculation for my water supply, quantity of water used, typical mash thickness, etc, etc. Feel free to PM me if anyone wants to talk about actually spring boarding off the skeleton above, as it is definitely not one size fits all.
 
Come to think about it, cold break from rapid cooling after whirlpool is important, too. Big thing for keeping proteins in suspension that will hold onto the tasty hop oils. So many interrelated factors!
This sounds counterintuitive to me. A good cold break is going to drop protein out of suspension and leave it at the bottom of your kettle. Desirable for many beers but not for a beer like this. If you want that haze I'd think you would want to chill more slowly to avoid cold break, no?
 
This sounds counterintuitive to me. A good cold break is going to drop protein out of suspension and leave it at the bottom of your kettle. Desirable for many beers but not for a beer like this. If you want that haze I'd think you would want to chill more slowly to avoid cold break, no?
Good point, and one I have considered many times (also, very appropriate given your TB handle!).
Edit: feel free to take or leave this post-I'm happy with my results but I am far from a scientist.


Seems counter-intuitive, yes, but some very experienced homebrewers as well as people in the industry have explained it to me like this; when you do flame out and whirlpool additions, you are releasing a huge number of volatile oils into suspension. Since the hop oils do not go through isomerization, rapid chilling is important to lock the hop oils into the beer since they wont naturally bond. Sure, some hop oils probably lock onto the coagulated proteins that drop out, but plenty lock on to stuff that sticks around in the beer, too. My beers end up hazy as all hell, despite the efforts I put into cooling (I made a rib cage double chiller that I pump ice water through in a closed circuit). I was told by a professional that I really respect that using a heat-exchanger or something of the like to get temps down as quickly as possible after a nice whirlpool is important to lock in flavor.
22839453120_63c592d706_b.jpg


Also, I am using oats, flaked wheat, Marris Otter and Carapils. There is plenty of sticky and rich stuff in there where I am not too worried about losing some haze.
 
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Good point, and one I have considered many times (also, very appropriate given your TB handle!).
Edit: feel free to take or leave this post-I'm happy with my results but I am far from a scientist.


Seems counter-intuitive, yes, but some very experienced homebrewers as well as people in the industry have explained it to me like this; when you do flame out and whirlpool additions, you are releasing a huge number of volatile oils into suspension. Since the hop oils do not go through isomerization, rapid chilling is important to lock the hop oils into the beer since they wont naturally bond. Sure, some hop oils probably lock onto the coagulated proteins that drop out, but plenty lock on to stuff that sticks around in the beer, too. My beers end up hazy as all hell, despite the efforts I put into cooling (I made a rib cage double chiller that I pump ice water through in a closed circuit). I was told by a professional that I really respect that using a heat-exchanger or something of the like to get temps down as quickly as possible after a nice whirlpool is important to lock in flavor.
22839453120_63c592d706_b.jpg


Also, I am using oats, flaked wheat, Marris Otter and Carapils. There is plenty of sticky and rich stuff in there where I am not too worried about losing some haze.
I'm going to assume you are somebody's hobby account and that I foolishly took your bait earlier.
 
I'm going to assume you are somebody's hobby account and that I foolishly took your bait earlier.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I did actually go back and look at my post before and as stated it was very confusing. I revised it below. Sorry about that.
Come to think about it, [cold break from rapid cooling after whirlpool is important, too. Big thing for keeping proteins in suspension that will hold onto the tasty hop oils.Big thing for locking in tasty hop oils that do not isomerize. So many interrelated factors!
Take it or leave it, I am definitely not an expert. I have, however, made the beer depicted above and others with similar complexions that went through rapid cooling. Cheers.
 
Brewing an IPA of this sort on Wednesday, great thread with lots of info!

GuzzleMcBrew or anyone else who has had success with this style: do you deliberately lower your kettle ph to some target number, specifically one that's lower than what a "typical" beer shoots for? I've heard rumors of some brewers doing this, most notably Shaun Hill.

I'm working on my recipe now, I'll post it when complete for thoughts/criticism.
 
Brewing an IPA of this sort on Wednesday, great thread with lots of info!

GuzzleMcBrew or anyone else who has had success with this style: do you deliberately lower your kettle ph to some target number, specifically one that's lower than what a "typical" beer shoots for? I've heard rumors of some brewers doing this, most notably Shaun Hill.

I'm working on my recipe now, I'll post it when complete for thoughts/criticism.
I shoot for 5.15-5.3 pH hoping to finish the product at around 4.4. i balance the mash contents and thickness with acidulated malt and minerals in my process to try and achieve this. I know way less about malt and the extraction process than the next guy, but it's gotten better with each tweak I have done to try and get this down. I recommend looking up some of th wardlabs analysis that are out there on HF and other hoppy beers.

No idea what Shaun does, but I would guess he has a sweet spot he targets for his hoppy stuff. I wonder if he adjusts acidity beyond just scaling it up or down for different beers; i.e. preferring one specific recipe be more acidic than another within a style for some effect.
 
Brewing an IPA of this sort on Wednesday, great thread with lots of info!

GuzzleMcBrew or anyone else who has had success with this style: do you deliberately lower your kettle ph to some target number, specifically one that's lower than what a "typical" beer shoots for? I've heard rumors of some brewers doing this, most notably Shaun Hill.

I'm working on my recipe now, I'll post it when complete for thoughts/criticism.

What's your source water look like?
 
What's your source water look like?

According to the city (in ppm):

Ca: 2 Mg: 2 Na: 4 Cl: 4 SO4: 3 HC03: 24,

and 6.4 ph (??? this sounds low to me for some reason, but it's what my friends who own a brewery got in the water report they paid for - my cheap home ph meter reads it at closer to 7.0...). Based on some reading and discussions, I'm aiming for something like Ca: 110 Mg: 5 Na: 10 Cl: 125 S04: 125. Happy to take advice/be told why that's a bad idea. :)
 
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