New England IPA: Great out of fermenter, terrible after kegging

[AlexKay]

Here are some cold side thoughts:

1) Spunding. Transfer the beer towards the very end of fermentation into your keg. Cap the keg and let the CO2 build naturally. This is the absolute best for eliminating O2 as transferring fermenting beer has active yeast which scavenge any O2 that gets in. More time consuming and tricky to "catch the spund".

Any reason this would work better than doing a closed transfer into a keg that contains priming sugar, and letting it carbonate via "keg conditioning"?

 

[Bassman2003]

Well, you would not get the benefit of having the active yeast during and directly after your transfer. Also, getting the sugar in the keg might be a small challenge without adding O2. I have used priming sugar by injecting it into the fermenter, waiting 30 minutes for activity then transferring. Just using the already active yeast is the easiest and best. But in the end, having active yeast involved at all is the most important part.

 

[Bobby_M]

Thought from a newbie. 4 packs of yeast for 12 gallons seems high to me. I use one pack for 5 gallons, so maybe three at the most. Not sure that would have anything to do with what you are experiencing, but I am going to follow this as I do a lot of IPA's and am trying to learn the pressure transfer stuff. Rock On!!!!!!!

Without knowing the age of the packs you can't really even guess how much yeast was needed. However, with a 1.082 OG, I'd say 4 fresh packs is about right.

 

[Bobby_M]

You're definitely picking up oxygen. Hazy NEIPAs find the ***** in everyone's no-oxygen armor.

1. You pulled in air during the cold crash, no doubt about that. Keep CO2 applied at 1psi during crashing.

2. Fill the keg to the tippy top with water. Add 1oz of starsan. Apply lid and roll the keg around to mix. Push all that sanitizer into your second keg via CO2 pressure by making a liquid to liquid jumper hose. Lock the keg's vent open so it will fill. Once the second keg is full, push THAT out with CO2 pressure also.
Now vent the CO2 out of the keg through the hose you're going to attach to the fermenter, then attach it. Note that the keg that is being filled should have a gas QD attached with a hose going down into a bucket of starsan. Stop the flow when beer overflows the gas hose. Move the black QD to your second keg AFTER you've vented the pressure. Fill that one the same as the first.

It uses a lot of gas, but welcome to golden hoppy hazies.

 

[wdavis2003]

This is a tough style to hit. I'm a big fan of using ascorbic acid in the mash on NEIPA's. Just be sure to adjust any other acid's you typically use in your water. Speaking of water.. you have all that great equipment but are trusting tap water with your NEIPA's? When it comes to NEIPA's, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong

 

[redrocker652002]

Without knowing the age of the packs you can't really even guess how much yeast was needed. However, with a 1.082 OG, I'd say 4 fresh packs is about right.

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