Extended the shelf life of IPA

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

Hi All

I have the question about hot to extended the shelf life of IPA, and prevent oxidation. For the current process, what I did is as follows.
However, it didn't go well which the taste did have big degrade after only 1 months into the keg.

1. Added the hop during the mesh to decrease the iron ions as per the Scott Janish concept
2 Added the ascobic acid 4g during the mash
3. Keg close transfer (Before doing this, fill the star san in the keg, and pump the star san out to make sure no oxygen in the keg)

I am thinking about to add brewtan B ? However, I did do some research that it might not good for the IPA.
Any suggestion or process which I can do.

Thanks

 

[kevin58]

One month in the keg for an IPA is a long time. Hop character is going to fade over time no matter what you do.

 

[HM-2]

One month in the keg for an IPA is a long time. Hop character is going to fade over time no matter what you do.

Strongly disagree.

3+ weeks of cold conditioning in keg is basically mandatory for extremely heavily dry hopped IPAs. I've stored IPAs in keg at room temperature for up to 12 weeks with no significant degradation in aroma or flavour.

If you're experiencing significant degradation of your IPAs after four weeks, then it's likely down to some element of process.



Areas I would be considering:

Dry hopping: how are you dry hopping to minimise exposure?

Getting beer of trub/hop matter: are you dropping yeast, transferring to secondary, or just letting beer sit on the hops and for how long?

Closed transfer: is your keg absolutely full to the brim of starsan, or did you leave head space? Did you purge your transfer lines too?

 

[jdauria]

3. Keg close transfer (Before doing this, fill the star san in the keg, and pump the star san out to make sure no oxygen in the keg)

With a closed transfer system, instead of Star San, I recommend using Five Star's low foam product Saniclean. Star San will leave some foam behind in the keg and I did hear a podcast (forget which, but probably Brulosophy) one time where they were questioning if the air in the foam bubbles could lead to oxidizing a beer and the recommendation was to use Saniclean instead.

 

[HM-2]

With a closed transfer system, instead of Star San, I recommend using Five Star's low foam product Saniclean. Star San will leave some foam behind in the keg and I did hear a podcast (forget which, but probably Brulosophy) one time where they were questioning if the air in the foam bubbles could lead to oxidizing a beer and the recommendation was to use Saniclean instead.

One workaround to this is adding your starsan once the keg has been filled to basically the brim and then gently shaking to mix, which seems to largely suppress foam creation.

 

[wepeeler]

I add 1/2 tablespoon of ascorbic acid to every keg, and I have fresh IPA for months. Currently on the last few pours of an all Nectaron hazy that's 3 months in the keg. Still plenty of hop punch.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

Hi All

I have the question about hot to extended the shelf life of IPA, and prevent oxidation. For the current process, what I did is as follows.
However, it didn't go well which the taste did have big degrade after only 1 months into the keg.

1. Added the hop during the mesh to decrease the iron ions as per the Scott Janish concept
2 Added the ascobic acid 4g during the mash
3. Keg close transfer (Before doing this, fill the star san in the keg, and pump the star san out to make sure no oxygen in the keg)

I am thinking about to add brewtan B ? However, I did do some research that it might not good for the IPA.
Any suggestion or process which I can do.

Thanks

You mentioned pumping the starsan out. Hopefully, you used CO2 to purge the lines and push the starsan out. And you mentioned adding hops to the mash, but you didn't mention adding any hops to the kegs for dry hopping. If that is the case I'm guessing the hoppy flavors degraded after a month, since you didn't say the beer tasted bad. Oxygenated beer will have an off flavor and turn darker over time. Maybe you need to add more hops to your recipe next time? I say this because I'm drinking a beer that I brewed on March 6th, and after six and a half months, it still tastes fresh, and the color is the same.

 

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

Strongly disagree.

3+ weeks of cold conditioning in keg is basically mandatory for extremely heavily dry hopped IPAs. I've stored IPAs in keg at room temperature for up to 12 weeks with no significant degradation in aroma or flavour.

If you're experiencing significant degradation of your IPAs after four weeks, then it's likely down to some element of process.



Areas I would be considering:

Dry hopping: how are you dry hopping to minimise exposure?

Getting beer of trub/hop matter: are you dropping yeast, transferring to secondary, or just letting beer sit on the hops and for how long?

Closed transfer: is your keg absolutely full to the brim of starsan, or did you leave head space? Did you purge your transfer lines too?

Thanks for the comments

Dry hopping: I used tri clamp with dry hopper to do the dry hop
Getting beer of trub/hop matter : Yes, I did dropping the yeast ; However, we use the wine cooler to do the fermentation, and the temperature can be reached around 6 degree C. The temperature might not that cool to drop the yeast completely.

When I do the cold crashing, I did purge the CO2 to around 5 psi make sure O2 not suck into the fermenter.
During the dry hop process, I did keep around 5 psi.

For this batch of IPA, I did do the kep hopping. I do close transfer to the beer from fermenter to 15L keg. After 1 weeks of keg hopping, I transfer it to the several 3.6L minikeg. (I just have only one 15L keg)

Closed transfer: Yes, the keg is completed to fill the star san.

 

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

I add 1/2 tablespoon of ascorbic acid to every keg, and I have fresh IPA for months. Currently on the last few pours of an all Nectaron hazy that's 3 months in the keg. Still plenty of hop punch.

Thanks for the information ! I will try it next time !

 

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

With a closed transfer system, instead of Star San, I recommend using Five Star's low foam product Saniclean. Star San will leave some foam behind in the keg and I did hear a podcast (forget which, but probably Brulosophy) one time where they were questioning if the air in the foam bubbles could lead to oxidizing a beer and the recommendation was to use Saniclean instead.

Thanks for the information! I will try it next time !!!

 

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

One workaround to this is adding your starsan once the keg has been filled to basically the brim and then gently shaking to mix, which seems to largely suppress foam creation.

Kind of shake that the foam will lead the oxidation !

 

[Indian_villager]

I add 1/2 tablespoon of ascorbic acid to every keg, and I have fresh IPA for months. Currently on the last few pours of an all Nectaron hazy that's 3 months in the keg. Still plenty of hop punch.

Second this. I also add 0.2g of kmeta to every IPA keg. The ascorbic and the kmeta are added to boiled and cooled water which is then injected into a purged keg using a syringe and ball lock disconnect.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I started injecting 1 teaspoon of AA mixed in 30 ml of water into my purged and filled kegs almost a year ago and have been enjoying kegs as old as 5 months that are still original color and delicious. Would not brew without it now...

Cheers!

 

[kevin58]

Strongly disagree.

3+ weeks of cold conditioning in keg is basically mandatory for extremely heavily dry hopped IPAs. I've stored IPAs in keg at room temperature for up to 12 weeks with no significant degradation in aroma or flavour.

If you're experiencing significant degradation of your IPAs after four weeks, then it's likely down to some element of process.



Areas I would be considering:

Dry hopping: how are you dry hopping to minimise exposure?

Getting beer of trub/hop matter: are you dropping yeast, transferring to secondary, or just letting beer sit on the hops and for how long?

Closed transfer: is your keg absolutely full to the brim of starsan, or did you leave head space? Did you purge your transfer lines too?

If you ferment for 7+ days and dry hop during that period of time then spend 10 to 14 days carbing in the keg (low and slow method) and then let the beer sit in the keg for another month (the OP is talking about a 3 to 4 month shelf life) you are certainly going to notice a decrease in hop character. An old school English IPA can withstand long periods of conditioning but a modern day, hop bomb IPA (none of that hazy ****) will experience hop degradation. No two ways about it.

 

[HM-2]

No two ways about it.

There are absolutely "two ways" about it.

As the numerous posters above who have been keeping IPAs in keg for three, four, five months without noticeable decline in quality all seem to testify.

At very high hopping rates, both Hazy and West Coast IPAs benefit from conditioning times of four weeks plus. I recently brewed a Mosaic heavy DIPA that didn't properly hit its stride until ten weeks post kegging.

 

[day_trippr]

Man, some folks are stubborn to learn new stuff

 

[BasementArtie]

Since starting to keg about 14 months ago I actually haven't noticed any decline up to 6 months. Maybe I'm just no sensitive to the degradation but I and everyone else still seems to enjoy these hopping DIPA and hazy NEIPAs until the keg kicks.

I just noticed the last pint before it kicks always is immense. I have no idea why!

 

[wepeeler]

If you ferment for 7+ days and dry hop during that period of time then spend 10 to 14 days carbing in the keg (low and slow method) and then let the beer sit in the keg for another month (the OP is talking about a 3 to 4 month shelf life) you are certainly going to notice a decrease in hop character. An old school English IPA can withstand long periods of conditioning but a modern day, hop bomb IPA (none of that hazy ****) will experience hop degradation. No two ways about it.

Or you could do some of the methods described in this very thread Build a hop bong, close transfer and try some ascorbic acid in the keg.

 

[kevin58]

Or you could do some of the methods described in this very thread Build a hop bong, close transfer and try some ascorbic acid in the keg.

I still think the OP is expecting more than he should. If you want long shelf life make a porter or stout.

 

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

Second this. I also add 0.2g of kmeta to every IPA keg. The ascorbic and the kmeta are added to boiled and cooled water which is then injected into a purged keg using a syringe and ball lock disconnect.

I did do some research. I plan to add 3.5g Ascorbic acid and 0.2g Campden table when I doing the dry hop!
Hope it can work.

It is difficult to me to add in the keg.
That's because I did fill StarSan in the keg, and pump them out to make sure no O2 in the keg.

 

[Hsuan-Tso Shen]

fwiw, I started injecting 1 teaspoon of AA mixed in 30 ml of water into my purged and filled kegs almost a year ago and have been enjoying kegs as old as 5 months that are still original color and delicious. Would not brew without it now...

Cheers!

Thanks for the information!　 I will add the process. Big thanks

 

[BasementArtie]

I did do some research. I plan to add 3.5g Ascorbic acid and 0.2g Campden table when I doing the dry hop!
Hope it can work.

It is difficult to me to add in the keg.
That's because I did fill StarSan in the keg, and pump them out to make sure no O2 in the keg.

Make a syringe injector with a ball lock

 

[Indian_villager]

I did do some research. I plan to add 3.5g Ascorbic acid and 0.2g Campden table when I doing the dry hop!
Hope it can work.

It is difficult to me to add in the keg.
That's because I did fill StarSan in the keg, and pump them out to make sure no O2 in the keg.

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/syringe_60_kegdosekit.htm

Here you go

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the information!　 I will add the process. Big thanks

I did do some research. I plan to add 3.5g Ascorbic acid and 0.2g Campden table when I doing the dry hop!
Hope it can work.

It is difficult to me to add in the keg.
That's because I did fill StarSan in the keg, and pump them out to make sure no O2 in the keg.

Remember that the campden tablet isn't pure k-meta. It's got binders, etc, in it. For example, in winemaking, you add one crushed tablet per gallon of wine- yet with the straight powder you use like 1 grams of the powder in 6 gallons! So I'd recommend using the k-meta powder for this, not trying to figure out the dosage of a campden tablet.

 

[MaxStout]

I did do some research. I plan to add 3.5g Ascorbic acid and 0.2g Campden table when I doing the dry hop!
Hope it can work.

It is difficult to me to add in the keg.
That's because I did fill StarSan in the keg, and pump them out to make sure no O2 in the keg.

3.5g of ascorbic? That's an awful lot. Did you mean to say .35g?

 

[day_trippr]

I just weighed a level teaspoon of AA powder (what I use per keg) and it came to 5.46 grams.

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

3.5g of ascorbic? That's an awful lot. Did you mean to say .35g?

I've been using a gram per gallon. Seems to help and no flavor that I can discern.

 

[MaxStout]

I've been using a gram per gallon. Seems to help and no flavor that I can discern.

Never knew you could add that much. I always added ~0.4g for 5 gal (20ppm). Good to know I can add more w/o adverse effects.

 

[James_AZ]

I fill my keg with water. Then add star san. Stir. Put the lid on. No Foam. Purge the tiny bit of head space left with CO2. It makes a ton of foam. The foam sprays out of the PRV holes when purging. I put a wet rag over the PRV to keep it from spraying all over the place. I put the keg in a bucket to collect the star san spray that is pushed out. The headspace fills with CO2 foam bubbles. I then pressure transfer the the starsan out. Turn the keg upside down. Let it sit a a few minutes. Then unscrew the gas in ball lock post a bit and loosen it over a sink and drain the remaining couple tablespoons of star san out. Tighten it all back up and top off the CO2.

I purge all the lines, including CO2, when I transfer. I fill my transfer line with star san and then connect loosely to the TC fitting on my fermenter. Slow purge the line so it makes a ton of CO2 star san bubbles in the TC connector space on the fermenter.

I’m over the top on purging. I regularly have highly hopped beers not loose hop flavor and aroma for 6+ months. Like others, for the first 3-4 weeks in the keg the beer improves.

 

[worlddivides]

Never knew you could add that much. I always added ~0.4g for 5 gal (20ppm). Good to know I can add more w/o adverse effects.

It's just Vitamin C, so I'm not sure what adverse effects there would be, considering a single Vitamin C powder serving is typically around 1 gram, which would mean there's about 1 serving in about a gallon (3.8 liters) of beer, so even if you sit down and drink 8 US pints of beer, that'd still only be 1 serving of Vitamin C.

I've never felt the need for ascorbic acid in anything I've kegged so far, but I have been wondering whether it might be a good idea to dissolve ascorbic acid in priming sugar when bottling a super hoppy beer. I have an imperial IPA I'm planning to brew soon that comes out to something like 16 grams per liter of hops (both dry hopping and kettle hopping combined), but it's too strong for me to want to put in the keg, but I'm a bit worried about the hoppiness deteriorating in the bottles. I'm always super careful about avoiding oxygen exposure, but the headspace in the bottles, and the oxygen in the bottling bucket has me wondering if ascorbic acid might be a good idea (maybe mixing it with the priming sugar, though I know that heat can degrade Vitamin C, so definitely after the priming sugar solution cools down - either that or added to the fermenter together with dry hops?). I also have a hazy IPA that will be dry hopped at levels I've never done before that I think might be a good idea to try ascorbic acid with (but that will be going in the keg). It's not a problem I've experienced yet, but it is one I can definitely see happening if I don't try to avoid it, so I've started to consider what would be best to do.