Another go at the IPA for my dream brewery, Grid. This one did not turn out well but I learned a lot!
The base recipe is a similar template to what I have used for IPAs in the past. I like West Coast style IPAs more than NEIPAs but I really like both the old school citrus/dank style hops (cascade, centennial, CTZ, nugget) as well as the new big tropical hops (citra, mosaic, azacca, simcoe, el dorado). Nice dry clean base beer but no attempt at clarity although they tend to drop clear after a few weeks. So not trying to create haze but not trying to prevent it either.
Using some ideas from Scott Janish’s recent book on hop schedule with CTZ at 60 mins to give a bit of a spicy note and a heavy hand of Citra in whirlpool and dry hop as well as CTZ in whirlpool and Simcoe in dry hop.
Full notes below but I had similar hop creep and diacytl issues as the APA I just brewed so I’ll rebrew but with a very different dry hopping schedule to try and clear that problem up.
Recipe Info
Recipe: ipa grid v1_0
Style: American IPA 21A BJCP 2015
Date: 09-20-2019
| Recipe | Guideline Min | Guideline Max | |
|---|---|---|---|
| OG | 1.069 | 1.056 | 1.070 |
| FG | 1.015 | 1.008 | 1.014 |
| Color | 4.7 | 6.0 | 14.0 |
| ABV | 7.0 | 5.5 | 7.5 |
| IBU | 70.0 | 40.0 | 70.0 |
Brewery Info
Efficiency: 72 %
Attenuation: 78 %
Mash Info
Weight: 24.5 Lbs
Thickness: 1.25 Qt per Lb
Deadspace: 2.0 G
Strikewater: 9.66 G
Volume: 11.62 G
Temp: 32.0 F
Boil Info
Kettle Gravity: 1.059
Predicted Mash Run-off: 7.45 G
Target Starting Boil Volume: 11.0 G
Boil Duration: 60 min
Evaporation Rate: 1.5 G per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 9.5 G
Fermentables
| Weight | % by Weight | Name | Yield | SRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22.000 Lb | 90.0 % | Brewer’s Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) | 80.0 | 2.0 |
| 1.250 Lb | 5.0 % | Vienna Malt (Great Western) | 80.0 | 3.5 |
| 1.250 Lb | 5.0 % | chit malt (BestMälz) | 78.3 | 1.4 |
Hops
| Weight | Name | AAU | Time | Use | IBUs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.75 Oz | Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) | 15.5 | 60 mins | Boil | 21.0 |
| 4.0 Oz | Citra | 13.9 | 20 mins | Aroma | 31.0 |
| 2.0 Oz | Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) | 15.5 | 20 mins | Aroma | 17.0 |
| 4.0 Oz | Citra | 13.9 | 6.0 days | Dry Hop | 0.0 |
| 2.0 Oz | Simcoe | 14.1 | 6.0 days | Dry Hop | 0.0 |
Yeast
| Amount | Name |
|---|---|
| 0.200 L | Flagship Imperial A07 |
Misc
| Amount | Name | Time | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.000 tablet | Whirlfloc Tablet | 15 mins | Boil |
| 1.000 tsp | Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast) | 10 mins | Boil |
Water
Predicted Mash Ph: 5.56
| Ca | Mg | Na | Cl | So | Bicarbonate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water | 7 | 3 | 21 | 30 | 24 | 30 |
| Mash | 55 | 3 | 21 | 90 | 59 | 30 |
| Sparge | 70 | 3 | 21 | 108 | 69 | 30 |
| Final | 98 | 5 | 33 | 155 | 100 | 47 |
| Target | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Water Profile Name: carrboro
Target Profile Name: standard
Mash Water
Total Water Treated: 32.176 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 8.500 G
Mash Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 2.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 4.0 g
Lactic Acid: 4.0 ml @ 88.000 %
Sparge Water
Leftover Mash Water Used: Yes
Total Water Treated: 6.500 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 6.500 G
Sparge Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 2.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 4.0 g
Notes
Ferment two weeks at 68f
Two dry hops 3 days each
Brewing Notes:
11/19/19 standard 3V brewday. pitched 400mL of slurry from Blonde @ 66F @ 1:30pm
7pm already slow steady bubbling
11/20/19 very strong bubbling
11/22/19 slow steady bubbling
11/23/19 ~8 sec
12/3/19 dry hopped all of it. did not drop yeast. left @ 68F
12/5/19 blew 10 psi into cone to get everything back in suspension
12/6/19 ~7 sec -> hop creep or hop sugar? definitely refermenting
12/7/19 ~16 sec
12/10/19 ~35 sec
12/11/19 ~27 sec
12/12/19 ~90 sec -> 9 days of refermentation after dry hop!
pulled sample for diacetyl test
FG 1.010
tastes and smells really good. a little yeasty and a bit green but no real off flavors. promising.
unfortunately d-test warm sample is positive. cold sample was clean so yeast is cleaning up converted diacetyl but acetolactate is still being formed. will re-check in a few days
12/14/19 another diacetyl test
cold sample – none
warm sample – definitely diacetyl
raised temp to 70F and let it sit
12/17/19 another d-test. still warm positive 🙁
12/20/19 another d-test. still warm positive 🙁
12/23/19 another d-test. still warm positive 🙁 officially very worried!
12/24/19 dropped cone to harvest yeast but 99% hop debris so bought WLP001 and did a 1L starter to kreusen the beer. waited 10 hrs when foaming hard (seems to be high kreusen) and pitched the whole thing into the beer
12/25/19 ~12 sec
12/26/19 ~28 sec
12/27/19 ~20 sec
12/28/19 ~40 sec
12/29/19 ~36 sec
1/4/20 D-test Cold – clean Warm – Butter 🙁
1/10/20 D-test Cold – maybe low butter? Warm – Butter
1/15/20 D-test cold – maybe low butter? Warm – Butter
Giving up on this beer. I’m going to keg it and see what happens. Cold crash.
1/17/20 dropped cone and cleared racking arm. racked to keg and put on high carb
1/19/20 put on draft. yup. it’s got noticeable diacetyl. ugh.
Ended up dumping the beer and going back and researching hop creep and how i can modify my hopping schedule to try and never have this issue again. very frustrating but I’ve also learned a lot. i’ve had a few dry hopped beers including a best bitter and other pale ales and IPAs that had diacetyl but i really didn’t want to admit it. Now that I’m figure it’s due to unhealthy refermentation from hop creep its actually a bit of a relief since i *think* i know what the problem is and can try a few different approaches to fix it. In my mind, i think one of the reasons NEIPA work well is that the first hop addition tend to be quite early which gives the enzymes more time to work and be cleaned up by healthier yeast so I’m going to chew on that and come up with an approach that will hopefully lead to diacetyl free but also not astringent or overly green.