Bottling a Triple NEIPA

[BasementArtie]

Day 27 8day fridge and these carb levels are hit and miss. No colour change no sulfur smell or taste and this being the second highest SMB dosage that's great news (3ml solution bottle). However if the the no SMB bottle that is currently sitting at room temp with the 4 other variables isn't oxidised when I crack it then I think I'll skip the SMB and just fill high with heavily hopped beers. I'm so surprised I'm not drinking some from brown purple skunk cardboard water as my methods are extremely basic. We sometimes win, unless you're Scotland at the euros!

 

[BasementArtie]

Just a quick update today. 1ml/SMB solution Bottle 28days Carb time and 18days in the fridge. There was no difference IMO apart from what I believe to be a running theme the SMB solution bottles have struggled to carb (as quickly..maybe it's a time thing) as the powdered SMB and no SMB bottles. Good thing for me to remember if I ever use SMB again, however, that may be unlikely as it seems like currently filling the bottles to the top is the job ticker!

Only the last 5 bottles to go (one of each style) sitting conditioning at 46 days and I'll crack them soon periodically leaving the no SMB til last. Hopefully to no oxidisation.

 

[Beermeister32]

Time to brew another batch, this one’s almost gone...!

 

[BasementArtie]

Time to brew another batch, this one’s almost gone...!

Yeah it is, I've planned one and keep postponing it because of house renovations. Hopefully soon... it's going to be a hazy session neipa 3.8%. I've had too many of these high abv brews!

 

[BasementArtie]

52days and 1 day in the fridge.

This was the 1ml SMB solution. So 1) it's dark and grey outside and I found it hard to take picture of to truly reflect the colour 2) the beer has changed in flavour slightly due to longer conditioning.

So I think this has got a little darker but it was extremely hard to tell as I haven't see it in this kind of light before. Flavour is very much more alcohol forward now!

 

[BasementArtie]

61 days in total! Double whammy today! First two picture are the 0.01g SMB (3 days in fridge) and the second two are the 3ml solution (2 days in fridge). No oxidation at all. If anything both take and smell better than ever. This may be the placebo effect as I haven't had one in a while and I'm cooking a BBQ but seriously no detrimental effect yet! Go figure! However I think as it has done all a long either the SMB in some bottles, filling high or the alcohol strength have caused some to delay carbonation massive, these two were carbed but not hugely. Only two more bottles to go! The most SMB Vs nothing but bottling high! Let's see how it goes.

 

[Beermeister32]

61 days in total! Double whammy today! First two picture are the 0.01g SMB (3 days in fridge) and the second two are the 3ml solution (2 days in fridge). No oxidation at all. If anything both take and smell better than ever. This may be the placebo effect as I haven't had one in a while and I'm cooking a BBQ but seriously no detrimental effect yet! Go figure! However I think as it has done all a long either the SMB in some bottles, filling high or the alcohol strength have caused some to delay carbonation massive, these two were carbed but not hugely. Only two more bottles to go! The most SMB Vs nothing but bottling high! Let's see how it goes.

Yum..!

 

[BasementArtie]

Day 69 (2 days in fridge). Not much else to say but the 3ml SMB solution was still great. Again not completely carbed as I've had issue all along. But flavours great and smell is great. It's such a shame I only have one left (no SMB so the real test). I don't know what I have done right but this bottled triple NEIPA has not had a single sign of oxidation . I personally thing it's to do with bottling high.

 

[BasementArtie]

On to the last one! I know you're all bored because nothing has happened. I'm sorry to inform you nothing has changed there.

Last bottle no SMB just filled high day 76 (9 days in fridge). More carbonation. More Hop and stone fruit smell. More alcoholic taste but more fruity flavours. The two no SMB bottles were the best. No oxidation in any bottle and I truly believe it's all down to just filling high not the SMB. I think going forward I will just fill high.

Considering I'm new to brewing with no fancy equipment with basic methods and bottling a NEIPA is supposedly impossible, I am truly happy and have enjoyed drinking this bad boy!

 

[Chinmay Nayak]

The SMB ratio is off my friend. You are not supposed to add more than 0.3g of SMB per 20 liter batch. That’s 0.00975g per 650 ml bottle. Since I have had my time with “wild” experiments in my 19 years of brewing career I have learned to first listen to the wise.

Also with my experience, beginners luck doesn’t work in home brewing affairs. It’s the more you brew and more you tune in kind of a deal. Hope you brew more and learn too.

To be honest I am not impressed by your track of updates. Also a bit suspicious since I have been using KMB with all my IPAs - yeah tipa dipa neipa included, for the past two years. For the record on average I brew a batch every week. So I can say I have some experience and also failures that helped me learn.

I wish good luck to you though. Hopefully the first few disappointments won’t discourage your zeal.

 

[Dgallo]

The SMB ratio is off my friend. You are not supposed to add more than 0.3g of SMB per 20 liter batch. That’s 0.00975g per 650 ml bottle. Since I have had my time with “wild” experiments in my 19 years of brewing career I have learned to first listen to the wise.

Also with my experience, beginners luck doesn’t work in home brewing affairs. It’s the more you brew and more you tune in kind of a deal. Hope you brew more and learn too.

To be honest I am not impressed by your track of updates. Also a bit suspicious since I have been using KMB with all my IPAs - yeah tipa dipa neipa included, for the past two years. For the record on average I brew a batch every week. So I can say I have some experience and also failures that helped me learn.

I wish good luck to you though. Hopefully the first few disappointments won’t discourage your zeal.

I’ve been seeing this every so often pop back up for me. I don’t mean the OP any disrespect here, but like @Chinmay Nayak, I think the lack of oxidation experience in your beers is either, your unable to identify the flavor and aroma impacts of it (the absolute most serious effect is darkening of color and that is the last thing that occurs) or you had some pure dumb luck. Big ipa breweries spend absurd amounts of money of low D.O. Capabilities in equipment. They also fine tuned their process to reduce it even further.

I take great pride in the process and the modification I’ve made to equipment to minimize o2 pick up at all cost. In your original post you say you did not take any sort of special attention or care to your process, so it really makes me wonder lol

 

[BasementArtie]

I’ve been seeing this every so often pop back up for me. I don’t mean the OP any disrespect here, but like @Chinmay Nayak, I think the lack of oxidation experience in your beers is either, your unable to identify the flavor and aroma impacts of it (the absolute most serious effect is darkening of color and that is the last thing that occurs) or you had some pure dumb luck. Big ipa breweries spend absurd amounts of money of low D.O. Capabilities in equipment. They also fine tuned their process to reduce it even further.

I take great pride in the process and the modification I’ve made to equipment to minimize o2 pick up at all cost. In your original post you say you did not take any sort of special attention or care to your process, so it really makes me wonder lol

I understand your scepticism and I take no offence in what you say. I agree with your statement about it all potentially being all down to dumb luck as I can assure you myself and two of my work colleagues (who have tried this beer on occasion throughout the process) who regularly buy and drink quality DIPAs, TIPAs and QIPAs from breweries in the UK like cloudwater, Pomona island, wander beyond, verdant and others such as trillium, whiplash that we would have definitely noticed any strange and subtle effects of oxidation or off-flavours from other sources.

I personally don't think this brew of mine was up there with some of my favourite Pomona Island and Verdant DIPAs and TIPAs (that's always to be expected really) however it would have held its own against professional craft brewery brews based on the feedback I've have received externally. I think a quote from my friend Tom "that's better than a lot of £8.00 TIPAs I've had recently" sums up the quality of this brew, basically very good still not the best he's had, which is to be very expected.

Again I think all of this information leads me to definitely think it was a pure off chance of luck that this brew worked and lasted so well and the non-SMB brews were the best. However I think because I'll be brewing other NEIPAs in the future I will try and replicate my non-SMB filling high bottling processes to try my hardest to get them to a similar standard. If it doesn't work, then so be it but we can only try with limited equipment I have.

Thanks for taking the time to reply and follow the thread it's much appreciated

 

[BasementArtie]

The SMB ratio is off my friend. You are not supposed to add more than 0.3g of SMB per 20 liter batch. That’s 0.00975g per 650 ml bottle. Since I have had my time with “wild” experiments in my 19 years of brewing career I have learned to first listen to the wise.

Also with my experience, beginners luck doesn’t work in home brewing affairs. It’s the more you brew and more you tune in kind of a deal. Hope you brew more and learn too.

To be honest I am not impressed by your track of updates. Also a bit suspicious since I have been using KMB with all my IPAs - yeah tipa dipa neipa included, for the past two years. For the record on average I brew a batch every week. So I can say I have some experience and also failures that helped me learn.

I wish good luck to you though. Hopefully the first few disappointments won’t discourage your zeal.

The information I could find online and think brulosophy also did this was 0.3g per 5 US Gals. Which I thought was 18.927 litres. The way I worked out the SMB was 0.3/18.927 = 0.01585037248
Per 1 litre so for a 500ml bottle would be 0.00792518624g. My scales only work to the 0.01g after being calibrated to a 200g weight. So that's the reason I chose 0.01g SMB for the lowest dry amount. With the solution I was able achieve the 0.0079g amount by pipetting 1ml of the solution I made into the each of the bottles.

For the higher quantities the 0.03g dry SMB and the 3ml solution which worked out as 0.024g my rationale was based of another brulosophy experiment in which they used a higher dosage (much higher they used 0.3g SMB Vs 3.0g SMB per 5 us gallon batch Impact Higher Dosage Rates Of Sodium Metabisulfite (SMB) Have On Beer Character | exBEERiment Results! ) I however didn't want to put that much in so I went down the route of tripling dosage rather than X10. Hopefully this explains my rationale a bit better.

However I do think there was a subtle difference in flavour of the no SMB bottles to all the SMB bottles and I didn't perceive any difference in the SMB bottles taste although this I very anecdotal.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy my posts however thank you very much for taking the time to read through the thread and commenting. Your points have been taken on board and hopefully as I go and can improve as you and any experienced home brewer have along the way

 

[Chinmay Nayak]

The information I could find online and think brulosophy also did this was 0.3g per 5 US Gals. Which I thought was 18.927 litres. The way I worked out the SMB was 0.3/18.927 = 0.01585037248
Per 1 litre so for a 500ml bottle would be 0.00792518624g. My scales only work to the 0.01g after being calibrated to a 200g weight. So that's the reason I chose 0.01g SMB for the lowest dry amount. With the solution I was able achieve the 0.0079g amount by pipetting 1ml of the solution I made into the each of the bottles.

For the higher quantities the 0.03g dry SMB and the 3ml solution which worked out as 0.024g my rationale was based of another brulosophy experiment in which they used a higher dosage (much higher they used 0.3g SMB Vs 3.0g SMB per 5 us gallon batch Impact Higher Dosage Rates Of Sodium Metabisulfite (SMB) Have On Beer Character | exBEERiment Results! ) I however didn't want to put that much in so I went down the route of tripling dosage rather than X10. Hopefully this explains my rationale a bit better.

However I do think there was a subtle difference in flavour of the no SMB bottles to all the SMB bottles and I didn't perceive any difference in the SMB bottles taste although this I very anecdotal.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy my posts however thank you very much for taking the time to read through the thread and commenting. Your points have been taken on board and hopefully as I go and can improve as you and any experienced home brewer have along the way

Maybe joining a local homebrewers club is in order? I suggest performing the same xbmt again and asking a group of experienced brewers to give their opinion.

Good luck with brewing again, sorry if my response came out a little harsh. Hope it didn’t affect your spirits.

 

[Chinmay Nayak]

I’ve been seeing this every so often pop back up for me. I don’t mean the OP any disrespect here, but like @Chinmay Nayak, I think the lack of oxidation experience in your beers is either, your unable to identify the flavor and aroma impacts of it (the absolute most serious effect is darkening of color and that is the last thing that occurs) or you had some pure dumb luck. Big ipa breweries spend absurd amounts of money of low D.O. Capabilities in equipment. They also fine tuned their process to reduce it even further.

I take great pride in the process and the modification I’ve made to equipment to minimize o2 pick up at all cost. In your original post you say you did not take any sort of special attention or care to your process, so it really makes me wonder lol

Agreed... everything you said!

Can you also please explain your setup? For me, I purge my kegs and lines with CO2 five times. The beer is pressure transferred using a CO2 tank from fermenters.

 

[Dgallo]

Agreed... everything you said!

Can you also please explain your setup? For me, I purge my kegs and lines with CO2 five times. The beer is pressure transferred using a CO2 tank from fermenters.l

So I’ve modified a solid cap for the fermonster. I put a liquid a gas post on the lid, essentially I turned it into a low psi bright tank.

I’ll use fermentation to liquid purge a serving keg. I’ll cold crash/dryhop under low pressure and then I’ll close transfer to that purged keg. Here is my thread on building it. If you read through the comments/replys you’ll see a few different processes on being extremely low o2

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...lete-closed-transfer-system-for-cheap.680992/

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Maybe joining a local homebrewers club is in order? I suggest performing the same xbmt again and asking a group of experienced brewers to give their opinion.

Personally, I'm very OK with anecdotal stories and honestly don't see a need for 'verification' by anyone's local homebrew club.

After all ...

• anecdotals can lead to
• curiousity .... which can lead to
• experimentation ... which can lead to
• confirmation (or not) ... which can lead to
• better home brewing

 

[Dgallo]

Personally, I'm very OK with anecdotal stories and honestly don't see a need for 'verification' by anyone's local homebrew club.

After all ...

• anecdotals can lead to
• curiousity .... which can lead to
• experimentation ... which can lead to
• confirmation (or not) ... which can lead to
• better home brewing

I don’t disagree in theory but when anecdotal evidence goes against recent scientific research which has many cross references, that’s when anecdotal fall to the back burner

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

when anecdotal evidence goes against recent scientific research which has many cross references, that’s when anecdotal fall to the back burner

Agreed.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

But also, for those of you who are willing to spend the money on the research papers, please understand that many of us don't do that with home brewing. I'll suggest using some amount of caution with regard to quoting research behind a paywall (but feel free to ignore the suggestion).

A good path forward may be to use those research papers as a tool to improve your processes, then share your processes.

 

[BasementArtie]

Sorry guys to reboot an old thread (of mine) but I brewed a Session Hazy IPA using the same process (no method of O2 avoidance other than being careful), bottled filling normal Vs filling high both with no SMB in 450ml and 500ml bottles (4 variables) and I've just crack the first bottle (albeit too early) and it's delicious and hoppy like Amarillo + Citra Dry Hopped IPA should be. Lets see how this one does over time.

 

[BasementArtie]

If any of you want to follow how my Hazy Session IPA does in the face of oxidation here is the link to the thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/bottling-a-hazy-session-ipa.695287/#post-9164231