Hazy NEIPA Pineapple failure

[Raven_BC]

Ok so this beer was to be a hop monster! But at the first dry hop it said to add in pineapple concentrate. I couldn't find any at all so I added in crushed pineapple after talking to my buddy. What I should have thought about was to put it into a hop sock.

But no what could go wrong with just tossing it in? Apparently crushed pineapple clogs everything, from auto siphons and bottle wands. I did think to try to put a hop sock around the auto siphon but it kept clogging. So i kept trying to get it started again and again.

Long story short out of 5.5G I managed to get about 4.5G of probably well oxygenated beer (After so much re-starting the auto siphon)

Then comes bottling first bottle start 1,2,3 .... um where the heck is the beer? Wand is clogged, so I had to go to bottle directly using the tube and kinking it to slow and stop. So now there is pineapple in many of the bottles. And the sugar for priming will hit at least 2.8 versus the 2.5.

So long story short will my pineapple, oxydized beer have a hope?

 

[kevink]

I hate to say it, but bottling a NEIPA is going to oxidize it even if things go as planned.

 

[IslandLizard]

Drink it fast and when it starts to taste less interesting, even faster.

When you have "chunky beer," either from crushed pineapple, or a half pound of dry hops, after cold crashing all that trub should be on the bottom. Although some may be floating on the top.

I don't understand why everyone feels the need to stick their cane all the way on the bottom of the fermenter, right into the trub/yeast layer.

• Start siphoning the clear beer from the middle of the fermenter, half way down between the beer level and the trub layer.
• Then slowly lower the cane as the level drops. A bucket clip helps with that on buckets, as does a carboy cap on carboys.
• When the level drops to near the trub, say, when there's a gallon or 2 of beer left, start tilting the fermentor to keep the beer "well" you're siphoning from deep.
• An extra set of hands comes in handy at those times, or some rehearsing with a bucket of water first.
• Stop the siphon before you start sucking trub, yeast, or air.

A hop bag tied around the bottom of the cane helps to keep the few pieces of stray hops and other larger trub from entering the cane or siphon. A little weight (a few stainless washers or glass marbles) inside the bag helps keeping it from sucking tight, or use a perforated tube.

 

[IslandLizard]

Ok so this beer was to be a hop monster!

To retain that clean, in your face hoppiness, you really need to study up on and implement techniques to prevent oxygen exposure after fermentation has started, in every which way. This applies to the fermentation, dry hopping, cold crashing, racking/transfer to keg or bottles, etc.

There are many threads on that topic (search for NEIPA). There's one where the member claims he found the best way to bottle NEIPAs without exposing the beer to O2 during the bottling process.

 

[Raven_BC]

Ok so I tried the beer after 4 days in the bottle super early, and it was pretty good with good hops aroma and really juicy. i was surprised as most of my beers aren't great that early. Thanks for the comments. I was siphoning out of the top middle but I hadn't done a cold crash and there was still pineapple floating everywhere.

Things I learned out of this

1) Beer can be forgiving
2) Pineapple int he bottle is a bit weird but it still tasty beer
3) I should always cold crash!
4) Crushed pineapple should go in a hop sock

If I make this again and i probably will i will make sure I look up the best bottling technique, in fact I should figure that out anyways as it would help pretty much all beer styles I'm sure.

I'll upload a picture next time i open one.