NEIPA (IPA) Advanced Techniques, Processes, Concepts, and General Thoughts

[HopsAreGood]

I'll start this by saying that I primarily brew NEIPAS and other IPAs. Like most everyone here I'm always trying to improve, experiment, and gather as much knowledge as possible with the end goal being the best beer possible. It also goes without saying that we're all at different levels when it comes to experience, skill, knowledge, equipment, etc...What I hope to do here is share some more "advanced" concepts that I have either implemented myself, or am planning to try out in the future. Any concepts, experience, thoughts, suggestions are welcome. I am by no means an expert and would love to hear any tips or tricks that work well for others. I should also state that what may be considered advanced for some is clearly not for others.

Also, I'm aware that there is a giant thread all about northeast IPAs, but it can be difficult to read through all 200+pages at times.

1. Water Chemistry: The common suggestion is approximately 2:1 chloride to sulfate with people usually targeting 200:100, 175:90, 150:75, etc...I've played with ratios and found that higher chloride tends to give me a slick kind of mouthfeel, and on occasion a mineral type quality. I have found that I personally prefer going higher on the sulfate. I find that it really makes the hops pop a bit more and brightens up the beer. High chloride tends to dull the hop presence for me. This is obviously just my preference but I feel it's worth mentioning because it seems everyone just agrees higher chloride is better.

The other thing I'd mention is that because most people simply focus on the chloride and sulfate additions, they're not rounding out the beers enough. What I mean is that typically only gypsum and calc chloride are used to achieve the target numbers. By doing so Calcium is typically elevated to around 100 or more, because both contain calcium. I've seen a few places having great results with extremely low levels of calcium in the 30-50 range...presumably because lower levels of calcium make the water "softer." Also by using only these 2 salts both magnesium and salt are being completely ignored. Here is the water profile that I've been using that I really like a lot..again, this is just my preference.

8 gallons of distilled water
4 grams gypsum
9 grams Epsom salt
3 grams canning salt
1.125 grams calcium chloride

Calcium: 41 ppm
Magnesium: 29 ppm
Salt: 39 ppm
Chloride: 78 ppm
Sulfate: 190 ppm

2. Mash PH: I shoot for 5.1. I find that the beers tend to be much brighter and less muddled when I mash this low. It's also been proven that large dry hop additions raise your PH, so starting low helps to ensure that after all the dry hops have been added, you will more than likely be in your desired range of 4.2 - 4.5. There are obviously other factors that come into play but starting low helps in your quest to not finish too high. If you don't account for this and do massive dry hop additions, you're destined for a pretty high final PH which will lead to potential harshness, astringency, etc..

3. To whirlfloc or not? I brewed about 20 batches of NEIPA and never once used whirlfloc as common wisdom will tell you you don't need to because they're supposed to be hazy. The beers all came out fine but I've started using it recently and I feel like the end result is just a little more polished. I know many brewers who always use whirlfloc and this is in no way advanced, but it is a simple tweak that I've recently made that has had a positive impact on the final product.

4. Polyclar (PVPP): Polyclar is a chemical that binds to polyphenols. One of the main culprits to hop burn, astringency, and that extremely unpleasant hop burn sensation is polyphenols. Some of the Australian and NZ hops are extremely high in polyphenols, more so than many American varieties. As of now most people will tell you that in order to get rid of hop burn, you simply have to wait for everything to drop out of suspension, which can take quite a while depending on what hops you've used and your setup. I haven't used polyclar but I've seen people claming it works really well. A common way to use it is to put in the last 10 minutes of the boil, and then do a very large whirlpool. Stir the whirlpool aggressively and because polyclar works by binding to polyphenols, they will clump or coagulate and be left behind. Think of it as a way to put in a ton of hops, yet remove all of the hot, unpleasant polyphenols. Seems very promising to me.

There used to be a product called BrewBrite I believe that was a mixture of whirlfoc and pvpp. I'm pretty sure it's discontinued though.

5. Carbonation with CBC-1: I typically force carb my kegs with CO2. The results are predictable and easily obtainable. With that being said ever since I learned about Treehouse likely carbonating and conditioning there beers with CBC-1 it has really got me interested. I've always heard people say that they can absolutely, without a doubt tell the difference between a beer that has been naturally carbonated versus a beer that has been force carbed. They claim the mouthfeel is definitely softer, more velvety, and has softer and smaller bubbles. Then there are the people that say CO2 is CO2...period. I'm going to be using CBC-1 to carb my next keg and am excited to see if I can perceive any difference.

At the risk of making this WAY too long, I'll stop there. One of the reasons that I love brewing this style of beer is because there are so many little tweaks you can make..it's a never ending pursuit of perfection that will likely never be attained.

If anyone has any tips, tricks, tweaks, or just things that work well for them, I'd love to hear them.

Cheers!

 

[Jag75]

Dude, IPAs should be clear
I kid Ikid ....couldnt resist .

 

[Jag75]

I'd have to look at my water profile . I was a little high on sodium but I gave it a shot . Used gypsum , lactic acid and cal chloride.
2 row
Flaked oats
Flaked wheat
White wheat
Corn sugar

Whirlpool at 170
Day 2 of fermentation dry hop
Then last 5 says dry hop again then keg

I use whrilfoc

Never heard of cbc1

My IBU in NEIPA try and keep 30ish
Mash ph is 5.2 15 min into mash

I really like em

 

[thehaze]

I agree and have experienced it myself many times, that high Ca and Cl levels can lead to harshness. Dropping the Ca levels under 40-50 ppm in the mash works much better for me and others, that have tried it since.

 

[couchsending]

You don’t need that low of a Mash pH. You realize you can add acid at many times throughout the process to adjust correct? Do some research on that to also see what affects pH jas on certain aspects of the boil. While mash pH is important there are other times to measure/adjust pH that in my opinion are even more important.

 

[thehaze]

Some yeast will self dictate the final pH, no matter what your process delivers in terms of pH ( mash and boil ), but the mash pH is important in so far as it is in range, so somewhere between 5 and 5.5. You will certainly not produce a worse beer by having a slightly elevated mash Ph, than say 5 or 5.1. And from exprience (limited as it is), that applies to some degree to a lot of beer styles.

 

[hezagenius]

You don’t need that low of a Mash pH. You realize you can add acid at many times throughout the process to adjust correct? Do some research on that to also see what affects pH jas on certain aspects of the boil. While mash pH is important there are other times to measure/adjust pH that in my opinion are even more important.

Any targets you suggest for other times in the brewing process?

 

[SanPancho]

Before bittering charge added, before any late/flameout massive hop additions that can raise ph into astringency territory.

A pound/bbl of hops adds about .15 ph units. Thats about 1/2oz per gal. You can use mash calculator to figure out acid amounts, but i use an equation thats pretty on the mark. Add acid to counterract the hop creep.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/calculating-acid-when-adjusting-boil-ph.571500/

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

i concur with the 5.1-5.3 range

 

[Rob2010SS]

You don’t need that low of a Mash pH. You realize you can add acid at many times throughout the process to adjust correct? Do some research on that to also see what affects pH jas on certain aspects of the boil. While mash pH is important there are other times to measure/adjust pH that in my opinion are even more important.

Do you have any links to information on this? I've never tried or heard of adjusting pH at different points other than the mash. I'm very interested in this...

 

[HopsAreGood]

You don’t need that low of a Mash pH. You realize you can add acid at many times throughout the process to adjust correct? Do some research on that to also see what affects pH jas on certain aspects of the boil. While mash pH is important there are other times to measure/adjust pH that in my opinion are even more important.

I agree with you here..but because I'm not doing anything to alter the ph after the mash, I feel like mashing low is the way to go. I've read some people saying that adding acids to lower ph later in the brewing process can lead to tasting a tangy or acidic quality in the finished beer. I'd obviously be hesitant to do this post fermentation, but perhaps during the boil or whirlpool might make sense. I'm not sure.

 

[couchsending]

I agree with you here..but because I'm not doing anything to alter the ph after the mash, I feel like mashing low is the way to go. I've read some people saying that adding acids to lower ph later in the brewing process can lead to tasting a tangy or acidic quality in the finished beer. I'd obviously be hesitant to do this post fermentation, but perhaps during the boil or whirlpool might make sense. I'm not sure.

Issue is the mash pH might not be optimized for the enzymes. And you’re choosing that mash pH to control other variables down the line that you could easily adjust with acid at any time.

You never know you might be just fine but you might want to check pH at the beginning of the boil and end of the boil as well, especially for hoppy beers. I know a lot of great hoppy beer breweries that are making sure the pH at the end of the boil falls within a certain spec and adjusting if necessary. Lactic acid, citric acid, sauergut, etc.

Also might want to research adding salts to the kettle as well. When you add them can have certain affects on the perception of the finished beer.

 

[HopsAreGood]

If I can control the ph by mashing low, provided it's optimized for the enzymes (I've had no issues with efficiency) then why wouldn't I want to do it that way? I'm certainly not suggesting adding acids later is of no use, but if it's not necessary then it's just an additional step that doesn't need to be done.

In terms of adding the salts, I typically put them all in at once prior to the mash at room temp. I brew in a bag, and have experimented with putting half in prior to the mash, and then the other half after the mash, right before bringing it up to a boil. I can't say I noticed much of a difference. Would be interested in hearing what you suggest..will also do some digging on my own.

 

[snarf7]

I haven't messed with water chemistry yet since I'm blessed with well water that seems to work really well for several styles that I like but I'm sure even with good water it plays a role. For example, one of the reasons that NY pizza is so awesome and unique, that perfect crispy, foldable exterior but soft and pliable inside is the water chemistry.

 

[SanPancho]

So i kind of forgot about this thread, but after getting some astringency in a recent brew that went sideways i remembered the op talking about polyclar. Anybody else have experience using a similar polyphenol removal tool?

 

[Genuine]

Currently on Batch 2 of using Raw unmalted wheat in my NEIPA's. On my 2nd attempt, I milled them 3 time by themselves before doing the rest of the grain. Just kegged batch number one and it's currently carbing. I'll report back my thoughts on that VS white wheat malt.

Also, the first batch I used S-04 because I love the potential of that yeast and wanted to compare it with batch #2 which is currently being fermented with 1318.

 

[Hopalong]

Here's a tip, skim off the hot break as it forms and continue to remove hot break until it stops forming or drastically reduces before adding bittering hops. The wort is cleaner and less hops are needed.
Here's a tip that reduces hot break. When the bottom of the boiler is covered with extract stop adding extract and fire the boiler. When the extract begins to boil add a small amount of hops or a handful of crushed black malt and very slowly add extract without stopping the boil. Skim off hot break as the boiler fills. It's a trick from way back. Less worry about boil over and the boiler can be filled higher. Hops and black malt reduce surface tension and that's about all there is about first wort hops.
Try Weyermann light and dark floor malt for base malt in ale and lager. The malt is under modified and low in protein. Under modified means the malt is rich in enzyme content and low protein means the malt is high in sugar content. To take advantage of the high quality malt the decoction method or the step mash method should be used, preferably, the decoction method. Soaking the malt in hot water at a single temperature won't take advantage of the malt. It's better to use high modified malt for single infusion home brew, it's less expensive.
Certain enzymes say nay to low pH. Reducing pH below 4.6 makes enzymes not too happy, but, low pH tartness from sour malt works when an overly sweet wort is produced, which happens when mash is rested at high temperature. The pH of fermenting and conditioning beer is around 3.5. Ale is lower in pH than lager by a few points. The low pH causes staling issues in dry hopped beer. Purchase a Randall instead of dry hopping. The farther apart the Alpha, Beta percentage the more imbalanced the hops are. It's difficult to find balanced hops because breweries buy them up.
Mash pH is adjusted to be optimum for an enzyme before the enzyme is activated. A single pH that favors Alpha would work well with a single temperature brewing method because at temperatures in the 150F range and up Alpha is the active enzyme in charge of liquefaction and saccharification. When the step mash method is used which produces pseudo ale and lager, pH is adjusted to be optimum for Proteinase during the low temperature albuminus rest and adjusted for Beta during the 145F conversion rest. A low temperature acid rest is used to initially establish mash pH because enzymes are in low speed. The inherent pH of malt is usually indicated on the spec sheet that comes with malt. Ale malt is around 5.7pH and lager malt is around 5.8pH.
Tannin extraction shouldn't be an issue because mash isn't boiled in infusion methods. However, during a long, high temperature recirculation period used to maintain rest temperature, over sparging occurs. Vorlauf is limited to 10 minutes for a reason.
Isn't CBC-1 ale yeast? For beer to naturally carbonate conversion has to take place, otherwise, the sugar needed for natural carbonation won't form. Yeast is involved, but as long as the yeast are healthy and the sugar is present any yeast will work. Lager yeast works better than ale yeast because it works at a slower pace and does things with certain types of sugar that ale yeast doesn't do. When issues with yeast arise beer is krausened during secondary fermentation and conditioning. When a diacetyl rest is used beer is krausened. The problem is that the conversion rest is left out of homebrew recipes for convenience because only primary fermentation is required when the rest is skipped. Secondary fermentation takes place when conversion occurs. Purchasing an extra fermenter and adding a few more weeks for secondary fermentation and waiting months for carbonating and conditioning to take place changes things.
The issue started with the term starch conversion which leads brewers to believe that conversion happens every time malt is soaked in hot water for an hour. Starch has nothing to do with conversion, simple sugar, glucose does. Beta converts glucose released by Alpha during liquefaction and saccharification into fermentable, complex types of sugar that are needed in ale and lager at optimum temperature 145F. During secondary fermentation yeast absorbs complex sugar starting with maltose a di-saccharide. An enzyme in yeast converts complex sugar back into glucose. The glucose is expelled through the cell wall and it becomes yeast fuel. Gravity falls close to expected FG and malt character develops during secondary fermentation when conversion takes place caused by yeast.
Here's the thing, when liquefaction, saccharification and conversion occur beer overly dries and thins out during fermentation and conditioning. To counteract the issue dextrinization and gelatinization are forced to occur. The steps are left out of homebrew recipes because the steps require a lot of time. The hard, heat resistant, complex starch, amylopectin, that contains tasteless, nonfermenting types of complex sugar responsible for body and mouthfeel is thrown away with the spent mash. The temperatures used with infusion methods aren't high enough to burst the starch before Alpha denatures. Mash is boiled to take advantage of the rich starch.
When conversion, dextrinization and gelatinization are eliminated it's pretty difficult to produce ale and lager. It requires more than amylose, Alpha and glucose to make ale and lager. To shorten the brew day and make things more convenient steps were removed that are needed to make ale and lager.

 

[ihavenonickname]

I'm interested in using a step mash appropriate for a NEIPA that would help give a full body, mouthfeel but also help me get better efficiency. Most write ups out there that talk about step mashing seems to emphasize using the steps to get maximum fermentability but that's not my aim here.

(for reference: The Science of Step Mashing - Brew Your Own
https://beerandbrewing.com/step-mash-your-way-to-a-dry-finish/)
I feel pretty comfortable with predicting FG based on a single infusion temp (1048 low fg, 155 high fg) but it seems too complex to predict FG when using a multi step mash. Based on come anecdotal recommendations I'm thinking of trying:

145 for 30 minutes
155 for 20 minuts
162 for 10 minutes
168 for 10 minutes

Looking to start at 1.075 and finish at 1.018 or so using verdant IPA yeast. Running the steps should be fairly easy (assuming I have decent flow thru the wort) using a brewtools system.

looking for a sanity check here OR does anyone have a step mash program they have had good luck with for NEIPA? and what was your OG/FG or attenuation?

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I'm interested in using a step mash appropriate for a NEIPA that would help give a full body, mouthfeel but also help me get better efficiency. Most write ups out there that talk about step mashing seems to emphasize using the steps to get maximum fermentability but that's not my aim here.

I would be curious if anybody has success with step mashing for NEIPAs or have read about professional brewers that have (though it seems like very few pro brewers have setups that allow for more than a single temp mash). The only times I see step mashing recommended is to drive fermentable wort. There seems to be some debate on the impacts of a mashout step.

I have read of different approaches on the professional level about mashing lower (say 149F) to produce a more drinkable NEIPA (likely due to the body added by the high protein grains and a less attenuative yeast) vs mashing higher (say 155F) to produce a more full bodied NEIPA. I tend to look at mash temp as just one small piece of the recipe puzzle. If you are tweaking mash temp you might need to also tweak the grain bill, water chemistry, OG, yeast, etc.

I have only brewed 5 or 6 batches that push into the NEIPA territory. I feel like I have been having good results with a 152F mash (no mashout) using Verdant dry yeast. There are several brewers on the epic Northeast IPA thread with 100+ batches that are still tweaking and learning how to best make the style.

The biggest issue I had with my last NEIPA (which I ramped up the hop load) was an astringency that took 3 weeks to fade. I am curious about Polyclar. I was thinking I should try dry hopping with 50/50 Cryo hops to reduce the vegetative mater in the fermenter. Also, I run my wort through a coarse strainer into the fermenter, but I have wondered if I transfer too much hop matter from the kettle into the fermenter.