Figured I’d leave this for Beersk.
Thanks for the comments, gents.
Interesting take on the harder boil. My evap rate is usually around 15% so I think that is better than average. I used to regularly get 20% with my 200k BTU torch burner, but my beers weren’t noticeably better, plus I am saving a TON of propane and no soot (SQ14 now). I DO think it is possible other brewers might have this problem though.
Although I would like to try citric acid for a saison, I would be surprised if it did the trick in my IPA. I can imagine it would provide some nice fresh undertones. Not saying I won’t try it…
Bru’n water summary for this one attached. I have tried making beers without the sulfate bump to see if it did the trick and no dice. That, and the fabled the 50:50 sulfate:chrloride ratio.
I also tried 1272 even with higher temps and no big difference. Once I saw some posts online that referenced Founders using 1056 I went back to using it. Now using 1056 at low 60s.
Seems as though the consensus here is that I am talking fruity esters of the yeast and NOT the hop flavor. Don’t think that is the case, BUT if there is particular yeast that doesn’t “strip” a beer from hop flavor, we might be on to something. This is the basis of my test here: trying to keep some dextrins/hop flavor. WL007 looks like a good yeast. I am impressed with WL site and that is not easy to do. I will say I am always optimistic tasting my hydro sample prior to pitching AND when I dump the yeast it smells incredible, so maybe there is a yeast that will eat less of my hop flavor?
Any of you guys claiming you CAN actually pull this off as good as Beersk’s referenced beers?
That’s some damn hard water! I certainly don’t think a sulfate:chloride ratio of 15 is going to get you what you’re after. But I could be wrong. And with that much gypsum, how are you still getting a pH of 5.6? I don’t see any additions to raise alkalinity, unless your water is just crazy hard to begin with.
The hardness figure is with the gypsum addition. I don’t have the hardness figure off hand since I focus primarily on alkalinity (90ppm), but I don’t think my water is excessively hard. With something like a 2ml acid addition I can hit 5.2, or a little less 5.3-5.4. I only load up on the gypsum for the IPAs. It was quite surprising to see my water strategy to be almost identical to some of the recipes in Steele’s IPA.
I still have to add lots of phosphoric to get my bicarb down when I do water like that. :lol: Of course I’m starting with 300 ppm of it. Been fairly happy with my beers and I’ve played around with different sulfate:chloride ratios but I’ve never gone that extreme, I’m usually bringing the Cl up to 50 at least. Pretty sure I’ve seen that Firestone Walker goes 1:1 with both at 100 ppm, followed that with a pale I made for a friend and used way less hops that I have been doing recently in my beers and was impressed by how much hop character there was. Perhaps there is something to that?
Well, I guess it’s not that bad. The bicarbonate isn’t bad. I overlooked that. I guess that would be the difference between temporary hardness and permanent hardness, huh? I get those confused sometimes. I guess I prefer my water fairly soft. I never go above 100ppm sulfate or calcium. But that’s just my preference. To be honest, I’ve never taken it higher. I feel like my beers have enough bite to them already that I don’t need to raise those ions.
With your existing water, I’d probably only add about a gram each of gypsum and calcium chloride to my mash and call it good and phosphoric to get my pH where I want it. But that’s just me. I’m not saying that my IPAs are awesome by any means though, so maybe I should just shut up.
This is an interesting read so I will add my thoughts on something for you to try and I am by no means an expert as I"m trying to get what you are talking about…getting that commercial flavor and mouth feel of an IPA and I also am failing at this time, but I have a test batch ferming now with 50/50 water from the tap and distilled. Won’t know for a few weeks if I did any good or not.
Here are some water things for you to try.
Start with RO water. You can either RO your tap water or go get some. Assuming the water is not off the charts hard add the following and brew up a test batch.
1 tsp calcium chloride per 5 gallons
2% (3-5 ounces) acid malt per 5 gallons
1 tsp gypsum per 5 gallons
I also believe temp control is a large item as well that I do not do well. I believe there are many beers that start fermentation at 64 for a few days and then they step that up to 68-70 to finish it out. Another thing to do when dry hopping is to raise the temp to 70-72 I hear.
Good luck !
Good input guys.
Starting looking at the water info in Steele’s book. 300ppm sulfate is in these beers. It’s tried and true. If you’ve never done it, do it. Thank me later. Also, none of these guys are touching the chloride levels. I think the sulfate:chloride ratio is bunk. Not sure if I would call the sulfate boost a “bite”, but I can tell you it will get you alot closer to what I am trying to do than many other things… I have tried lower ions and using acid to bring it down and it was a step backward.
The more I’ve read about WL007 the more I like it. Can’t say I ever used a english yeast on an AIPA before.
I have used WLP013 (London Ale) in an AIPA before and it was great. Hop bill was:
0.75oz Simcoe at 60min
2oz Simcoe/Cascade blend at 10min
2oz Simcoe/Cascade blend at 0min
2.5oz cascade dryhop
This was an extract brew with no added sulfate so it kinda throws all the water chemistry stuff out the window but it had a nice fruity/estery charatcer to it that I feel complimented the cascade really well. I believe this is the same strain that Great Lakes Brewing uses in their ales.
I think British yeast are somewhat common in commercial AIPA. The first one that comes to mind is Zombie Dust. Another one I like is the Crooked Tree IPA, from Darkhorse in MI. Both very American in hop and grain bill but with Brit yeast strains. I’m sure there are others. Pretty sure Surly brews with English yeast too.
Firestone Walker Union Jack uses an English ale yeast. The clone I’ve made uses 1968 and the beer is excellent. It did require a long, low mash (145f for 75 minutes, 155 for 15) but it went from 1.073 to 1.015 with no added sugar. I did raise the temp at the tail end of fermentation and roused the yeast. The higher fg than I’m used to with AIPA worked well with the load of hops in this beer.
They do, WLP-007
Starting to see a pattern emerging here… :lol:
I just kicked a simcoe/amarillo IPA that had Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire. It was okay, but not all that great. Could just be me though. I’ll be trying the 300ppm sulfate on my next IPA for sure. I don’t brew that many IPAs anymore.
I should add that I kept the temp with 1968 initially pretty low (63-64F) to limit ester production.
zwiller
i think your chloride could be a little higher and your calcium and bicarb are a lot different than mine. will try to remember to message you my IPA water profile.
Took the wife out and was fortunate the place we went to had Edmund Fitz on tap. Wife was delighted. They also had a pils on tap. Staropramen. OMG, it was fresh and the bomb. Crisp, bitter, and dry too. Might be bumping the porter for a hopstanded NGP. What is the driest lager yeast on earth??? :cheers:
After a pair of them I went with a bottle of Headhunter IPA. Boy, the bottled version of this beer is nothing like the fresh stuff but isn’t that the case for most good beers…
Last time I added more chloride (100ppm) I didn’t notice any difference. I have never done 300ppm of chloride and sulfate though. I once did 300ppm chloride in a mild and it didn’t help with body IMO. I think the effects of chloride are overstated.
Anyway, the beer is being crashed cooled. I might rush it into the tap (purely for scientific reasons, of course)
300 ppm chloride is a pretty high level. I’m not surprised that it wasn’t better. I can imagine that somewhere up to 100 ppm might be OK. In delicate styles, it appears that something around 30 ppm chloride is pleasing.
There are at least two factors relating to dryness in beer. First is the fermentability of the wort and the second is sulfate content.
Not sure, but Wyeast 2035, 2042, 2104, 2206 and 2633 are all rated to get to 77% attenuation, which seems to be around the top of the listed ranges.
That said, I think fermentability of the wort is a much bigger factor than lager strain. I’ve been brewing with 2308 lately, which is not suppose to be quite as dry as the other ones above, but I’ve been getting attenuations between 74 and 80%. I’ve got a helles on tap now that is exceptional: 79% attenuation due to a very long (two hour) mash at 150. Dry but doesn’t come across as dry; it has an amazingly soft maltyness. I used the Bru’n Water “malty yellow” water profile, and the pH was 5.4.
Here it is. This beer was a step back BUT not a fail. Gotta love it when a beer doesn’t turn out the way you want but still is at least good. I will tell you the beer is uncommonly smooth… Even my wife commented about it. Something I might consider for english beers. In any event, it didn’t magically make the hops more forward or anything. I plan to try WL007 on next IPA and will likely target 5.4. I am also planning on large 15 minute addition with the hopstand. Seems like the dry hop is not critical with the heavy hopstand that I do. Thanks for the comments :cheers:
