Category Archives: American IPA batch #2

August 17, 2011 · 2:47 am

Homebrew Review: American IPA – batch #2

This American IPA is redo of a prior batch. During that first trial the brew came out horrible. It had an astringent character reminiscent of phenolics with strong grassy notes. Having an opportunity to improve on my technique, I brewed almost the same beer to focus on my approach. In the last batch I identified two potential problems:

  1. Fluctuating fermentation temperatures (Wyeast 1056; 65°F to 73°F).
  2. Significant amount of hop trub in fermentor.

The first possibility was the obvious culprit. Changes in fermentation temperature, even as little as 7-8°F will cause a relatively clean yeast, such as Wyeast 1056, to throw off some unwanted metabolites and probably contributed to off-flavors. For option one, I managed to keep fermentation temps at 63°F – 64°F for 6 days of fermentation.

Whether hop trub present in the fermentor can affect fermentation is up for debate. Most homebrewers feel that hop particulates do nothing in terms of yeast off-flavors while there are some dissenters. Pro-brewers favor the elimination of hop material in the primary fermentation. I decided to eliminate the hop trub since leaf matter is a surface that yeast can cling to and alter floculation characteristics. Whether this has a perceptible taste difference is hard to tell.

The review:

Appearance:
Pours slightly hazy with a golden orange color. Big fluffy two inch head that sticks around and leaves some nice lacing. All of my heavily dry-hopped beers (this one has 2.5 ounces) have a slight haze and a big rockin’ head.

Smell:
Fresh ripe stone fruit covered in citrus. Pine resin follows and gives way to bready notes. The combination of Simcoe and Cascade really brings out the hop character of the beer.

Taste:
Surprisingly malty at first reminding me of lightly toasted bread. Serious hop flavor then hits the palette followed a subtle bitterness that lingers throughout. Peach, apricots with zesty pine comes to mind. Light in body with no harshness while holding an above average carbonation. Finished dry on the palette.

Overall:
Best IPA I’ve made yet. The beer is very drinkable at 6.7% ABV and a finishing gravity of 1.012. The bitterness is less than the last batch and around 55 IBUs. I think the biggest help to this beer was the stable fermentation temperatures. The lack of hop material in the primary may have contributed to the soft bitterness, but this is all speculation. Overall I’m really happy with this beer and can see the keg kicking soon.

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July 11, 2011 · 1:57 am

American IPA – Batch #2

Often while doing HIV research I need to repeat an experiment. Not only do I make sure that a result is not a fluke but there is an opportunity to better the experiment by adding more controls, more samples, etc…, to get a more meaningful result. I learn more by repeating the experiment in small ways. The same holds true for brewing beer.

Part of brewing is repeating the same batch in order to improve your technique. In this case, I brewed an American IPA last year that I was not happy with and it suffered in score during a homebrew competition. The major complaint was a phenolic character, however my impression of the fault was an astringency that gave the beer some harsh notes. I suspect this could have been due to the hopping but its hard to tell. Here is where I possibly went wrong with the beer:

  1. Fermentation temperatures fluctuated wildly. Pitched at 61°F but it jumped to 73°F on the second day due to an active fermentation. Brought it back down 64°F but it ramped up to 68°F.
  2. There was significant hop trub in the fermentor. In trying to collect enough wort, almost 50% of the hop debris from the kettle made its way into fermentation.
  3. Hopping schedule was off. I either used too much hops, or I selected for a hop varietal that was pretty harsh.
  4. Recipe design was flawed.

Of these options I think #1 and #2 are probably the culprits, with the huge swings in fermentations temps probably being the biggest contributor. In brewing beer, pro or amateur, controlling temperature of fermentation is critical. Wild swings (even as little as 5°F) will cause a change in yeast metabolic activity and they will begin to secrete compounds into beer that would be considered off-flavors. For me, temperature control has always been a problem since I can’t fit another temperature controlled refrigerator in my small Bronx apartment. This is the main reason I tend to brew by the seasons, mostly in the winter for strong ales and saisons in the summer.

As for the hop trub being present in the fermentation, it definitely can have effect on the beer though there is some debate as to how. Some say there is no difference, while other brewers say the opposite. Brewer’s yeast has the ability to bind minute hop material and thus alter its flocculency. This change could be enough to change the metabolic profile of the yeast and produce off-flavors.

As for reasons #3 and #4, I doubt that they had an impact on the beer. I’ve known plenty of other brewers (pro and amateur) that use more hops than I did. I also feel the recipe design was pretty solid, focusing on a simple malt profile that would give me great attenuation.

To fix the temperature problem I assembled an easy system to keep my beer cooled. I used an empty rubbermaid bin and filled it with about 4 inches of ice-cold water. I then placed my fermentor in the bin wrapped in a towel with a fan directly aimed at the carboy. The towel acts like a wick and as water travels up it evaporates with help from the fan. Any heat generated from the yeast gets transferred to the towel and evaporates along with the water. I keep the water cool by changing out two frozen water bottles, twice a day. With this protocol, the beer stayed at a constant 64°F. As for the hop break I had a simple solution. I scaled up the recipe by a gallon and left about a gallon of trub and wort in the kettle.

The recipe (6 gallon batch):

  • 10 lbs of Pale Ale malt (Briess)
  • 3 lbs of Munich malt – 10L (Briess)
  • 1 lb flaked wheat (Briess)
  • 6.7 ozs of Crystal malt – 20L (Briess)
  • 6 grams of Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)

Mashed in at 152°F and held at this temperature for one hour. Increased temperature to 168°F for mashout, vorlaufed, and batch sparged as usual. Collected 7 gallons of wort at 1.054 with a mash efficiency of 72%. Boiled and added:

  • 1 oz of Chinook (11.2% AA) at 60 minutes.
  • 0.5 oz of Centennial (8.8% AA) at 20 minutes.
  • 1 oz of Centennial (8.8% AA) at 10 minutes.
  • 1 oz of Simcoe (12.2% AA) at 5 minutes.
  • 0.5 oz of Simcoe (12.2% AA) at flameout.
  • 0.5 oz of Cascade (5.5% AA) at flameout.
  • 1.0 oz of Centennial (8.8% AA) at flameout.
  • 1 oz of Simcoe for dry-hopping.
  • 1 oz of Cascade for dry-hopping.
  • 1 whirfloc tablet (15 minutes)
  • 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient (15 minutes)

Cooled by immersion chiller and whirlpooling to 76°F and transferred wort to ice bath – cooled further to 64°F. Pitched a total of 300 billion cells of Wyeast 1056 and Wyeast 1764 (Rogue’s Pacman strain) and aerated with pure O2 for 30 seconds.

OG: 1.062
IBU: 55 (Tinseth)
Color: 6.9 SRM

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