Need advice on malt and hop substitutions

[jayjay]

Hi
So i am just about to order the ingredients for my third batch (a New England IPA) and i would like some advice considering hop and malt substitution as the recipe i follow use some ingredients that can't find in my home country (denmark)

The recipe i plan on following is this:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/363082/avg-perfect-northeast-ipa-neipa-

However i can't seem to find Galaxy and citra hops as well as the american 2-row malt here.

Would you consider it doable to follow this recipe with substitution hops and malts?

Cheers

 

[jayjay]

btw. i have looked up some possible substitutions from charts online and was thinking about using:
Amarillo instead of Citra
Simcoe instead of galaxy
Pilsener malt (castle malt) instead of 2-row

 

[FloppyKnockers]

You can use Citra, Simcoe, Mosaic, Centennial, or even Cascade in place of Galaxy. The first few being the best options. For the base grains I would go pale or pilsen to sub 2-row.

 

[smata67]

Never done it myself, but apparently, Simcoe and Amarillo are hops that are often used together.

 

[MrPowers]

There are very few hops that have the raw intensity of Galaxy and would work as a substitute. Mosaic, Citra, Vic Secret, Nelson Sauvin, or Enigma would probably work, but would each provide a fairly different character. That said; Mosaic, Simcoe, and Amarillo makes an awesome NEIPA!

Also, definitely go with Pilsner malt (I prefer Weyermann Barke Pilsner) in place of 2-Row.

 

[z-bob]

What about Columbus or CTZ hops? It's pretty popular for IPA's isn't it? (I don't know it's not one of my styles, but I bought some Columbus to play with)

Pils malt, pale ale malt, or a mixture of the two.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Amarillo, simcoe and mosaic work nicely together and should give a great beer, but will be completely different to galaxy, citra and mosaic.
For the grain, Castle pils probably (I haven't used it) has a lot more flavour than American 2-row. From what I've heard, Viking pils malt is more bland, can you get it? Castle pils would probably give a good beer, but IMO if you use it, drop the honey malt (you won't need the extra flavour).

 

[jayjay]

Amarillo, simcoe and mosaic work nicely together and should give a great beer, but will be completely different to galaxy, citra and mosaic.
For the grain, Castle pils probably (I haven't used it) has a lot more flavour than American 2-row. From what I've heard, Viking pils malt is more bland, can you get it? Castle pils would probably give a good beer, but IMO if you use it, drop the honey malt (you won't need the extra flavour).

Alright i'll try using Amarillo, simcoe and mosaic
- also "luckily" i can't get the honey malt either so i reckon that using castle malt would compensate for this as you say

Thanks for the help - Looking forward to taste the final product

 

[jayjay]

Also - this might be a rookie question but is it strictly necessary to follow the ingredients for the water profile (gypsum, calciumchloride and phosphoric acid)
In other words - do these compounds impact the beers flavour in a noticeable way?

 

[eric19312]

Also - this might be a rookie question but is it strictly necessary to follow the ingredients for the water profile (gypsum, calciumchloride and phosphoric acid)
In other words - do these compounds impact the beers flavour in a noticeable way?

Water is pretty key in NEIPA. That recipe assumes starting with distilled or RO water and building up. Getting the salts right will depend on the base water you will be using. Goal should be to hit similar water profile which looks something like 100|100|200 Ca|SO4|Cl. In any case for NEIPA you want relatively high Chloride ions (usually from CaCl2) and low to moderate sulfate (so probably not much gypsum or epsom salts).

 

[eric19312]

Adding...

I think in NEIPA and IPA in general the salt profile including the total amount of salt and the ratio of sulfate to chloride are both highly noticeable in flavor profile. Think about difference in the taste salted food. The other water ingredients are for pH adjustment which is going to be less noticeable and not verifiable if you don't have a pH meter.

As a beginner I think you can ignore worrying about pH for now but....the acids (phosphoric, lactic) are in the recipe to drive mash pH to designers target of 5.3. This is reasonable target and in the range of where mash conversion will be optimized but that is a large range and I'd say might be less important. If you have some acid go ahead and use it, if not you might mash a bit longer.

One thing the recipe doesn't mention since writer is using DI/RO source water is treating the water with campden. I'm detecting a bit of chlorine in my tap water these days and speculate my local authority might be going heavier than usual with the chlorine due to coronavirus. If you are using tap or even poorly filtered water, a crushed up campden tablet in mash and sparge water is good insurance. One tablet is enough to treat 20 gallons so probably you want a quarter tablet in mash water and strike. Really this is CRITICAL if you have any chlorine in your water. Any chlorine really means any chlorine or chloramines...even below taste threshold...chlorine at sub taste threshold levels interacts with yeast to make flavor compounds called chlorophenols which come across as medicinal, band-aid flavor that are noticeable and objectionalble in low parts per billion range (Bru's water says 10-30ppb).

 

[jayjay]

Right then - thank you guys for all the help