New England IPA "Northeast" style IPA

[isomerization]

No wait until your tilt reads the same for 48-72 without any change, then start your soft crash. You want the beer to clean up any VDK or acetaldehyde prior to crashing

I’d also add that this is precisely the key feature the Tilt is built for. Absolute values, not so much, but general trends with no wasted sampling or O2 exposure is great.

 

[aaronm13]

Perfect, thanks guys. In fairness to the Tilt I do find it gets more accurate towards the end of fermentation but at the start it's just all over the place.

Going to do both rounds of dry hopping in kegs to totally eliminate oxygen pick up.

 

[couchsending]

Perfect, thanks guys. In fairness to the Tilt I do find it gets more accurate towards the end of fermentation but at the start it's just all over the place.

Going to do both rounds of dry hopping in kegs to totally eliminate oxygen pick up.

How are you dry hopping in kegs with no O2 pickup?

 

[aaronm13]

How are you dry hopping in kegs with no O2 pickup?

I do closed transfer from fermenter to keg. Completely purge the kegs beforehand. Can't push out starsan so just have to purge as best I can. That's been my process for a good while and have been fairly successful in little to no oxidation.

 

[aaronm13]

I do a closed transfer from fermenter to keg under co2. Completely purge the kegs beforehand. Can't push out starsan so just have to purge as best I can. That's been my process for a good while and have been fairly successful in little to no oxidation.

Sorry, it's new year's Eve and I've been drinking.

 

[couchsending]

I do closed transfer from fermenter to keg. Completely purge the kegs beforehand. Can't push out starsan so just have to purge as best I can. That's been my process for a good while and have been fairly successful in little to no oxidation.

What’s your purging process if you don’t mind me asking. It takes a ton of Co2 to actually purge without pushing a liquid out.

 

[aaronm13]

What’s your purging process if you don’t mind me asking. It takes a ton of Co2 to actually purge without pushing a liquid out.

It really does take a lot of co2. The way I've been doing it is I usually have about a half keg or so of star San which I push out. When empty I open and drop the hops in as quickly as possible. I know oxygen is going to get in. I then fill the keg to 20 psi and empty 4 times. Then transfer beer. It's far from perfect but it's all I can do. When I transfer to the serving keg this time I will fill fully with star San and empty.

My water turns star san cloudy straight away and leaves a bit of a film on anything it's been sitting on for a few days so going to start getting RO water for that too to see if it helps.

 

[Dgallo]

Does anyone know specifically what Other Half is stating/doing with there High Density Hop charge (HDHC)? My guess is just marketing a higher dryhoping rate but does anyone know if it is a new process?

 

[Noob_Brewer]

No clue- does sound a bit of marketing hype. It definitely sounds catchy, more so than just saying they are “single dry hopping” if that’s what they are doing. Hop heads would probably just stick with the DDH

Just read on their website HDHC is equivalent to 15lbs/bbl of hops and they are combining that process by taking various forms of the same hop ie their own “experimental” citra, citra cryo, and citra pellets.

 

[ihavenonickname]

I can't imagine a sustainable efficiency at that hopping rate (15lbs/bbl ~= 35-40oz per 5 gallon batch). You would lose so much liquid to hop absorption! Now if they have a way to to serve all that liquid out of the hops I'd love to know how!

 

[Dgallo]

I can't imagine a sustainable efficiency at that hopping rate (15lbs/bbl ~= 35-40oz per 5 gallon batch). You would lose so much liquid to hop absorption! Now if they have a way to to serve all that liquid out of the hops I'd love to know how!

I have a feeling they are using that new hop extract oil product and the the T45 pellets are twice as concentrated as the typical T90. So it’s a theoretical 15lb/bbl

 

[couchsending]

Isn’t the “experimental” hop product just Incognito? Or maybe it’s produced using the same process as Incognito but by another manufacturer so they do t actually use the “Incognito” name.

Whatever it is that beer sounds horrible.

 

[couchsending]

It really does take a lot of co2. The way I've been doing it is I usually have about a half keg or so of star San which I push out. When empty I open and drop the hops in as quickly as possible. I know oxygen is going to get in. I then fill the keg to 20 psi and empty 4 times. Then transfer beer. It's far from perfect but it's all I can do. When I transfer to the serving keg this time I will fill fully with star San and empty.

My water turns star san cloudy straight away and leaves a bit of a film on anything it's been sitting on for a few days so going to start getting RO water for that too to see if it helps.

Another option is to bag the pellets, throw them in the keg and hook up the liquid out on the keg to the blowoff on your fermenter then put a blow off on the gas in on your keg. Do this after active fermentation has begun and ideally if you have enough head space or use a yeast that doesn’t produce a huge krausen... don’t want yeast clogging the poppets and creating a bomb...

Fermentation will quickly purge the keg way more effectively than your present process. To fully eliminate O2 you need 13 full purges at 30 PSI. Pushing half a keg of Star San out and 4 purges at 20 still leaves a ton of O2 in the keg.

Don’t worry the pellets won’t degrade while they’re in the keg before you transfer beer onto them.

 

[Loud Brewing]

Very interesting claims from Other Half. I would tend to agree with Dgalllo as far as their equivalent dosages and presumed use of extracts. I have used several of the distilled hop oils from different vendors and found them to be very one dimensional even in conjunction with pellets etc. Has anyone here used the Haas incognito product with success?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Just thinking out loud, I guess you could invert some containers over a burning candle (or less smokily a gas flame) to burn up oxygen, then a quick blast of CO2... Not sure it's practical but would be one way to reduce CO2 consumption...

Don't forget most of the top breweries are using centrifuges to wring beer out of hop waste to keep their yields commercial.

 

[aaronm13]

Another option is to bag the pellets, throw them in the keg and hook up the liquid out on the keg to the blowoff on your fermenter then put a blow off on the gas in on your keg. Do this after active fermentation has begun and ideally if you have enough head space or use a yeast that doesn’t produce a huge krausen... don’t want yeast clogging the poppets and creating a bomb...

Fermentation will quickly purge the keg way more effectively than your present process. To fully eliminate O2 you need 13 full purges at 30 PSI. Pushing half a keg of Star San out and 4 purges at 20 still leaves a ton of O2 in the keg.

Don’t worry the pellets won’t degrade while they’re in the keg before you transfer beer onto them.

I'd like to do it this way but unfortunately I don't have the space to set it up. My fermentation fridge is just a small under counter one and just about fits my fermenter. To do what you mention I'd have to drill a hole in the fridge somewhere to run a hose out and connect into the kegs outside. Was looking at getting a Fermzilla but that is a few inches too tall to fit into my fridge too. Think this is the best I can do with the space and set up I have.

I use a SS Brewtec bucket with the dome lid and 3" TC gas post and PRV on top. So what would be the lesser of two evils in regards to oxygen pick up. Open the TC and drop the hops in then purge headspace in the fermenter or transfer to a keg with the dry hops as outlined by my process above?

I've never lost a batch to oxygen as the keg usually kicks before that has time to fully happen. So my process must be ok. Some guys in my club have shown me some of their samples after only a few weeks and they're so dark looking.

 

[couchsending]

I'd like to do it this way but unfortunately I don't have the space to set it up. My fermentation fridge is just a small under counter one and just about fits my fermenter. To do what you mention I'd have to drill a hole in the fridge somewhere to run a hose out and connect into the kegs outside. Was looking at getting a Fermzilla but that is a few inches too tall to fit into my fridge too. Think this is the best I can do with the space and set up I have.

I use a SS Brewtec bucket with the dome lid and 3" TC gas post and PRV on top. So what would be the lesser of two evils in regards to oxygen pick up. Open the TC and drop the hops in then purge headspace in the fermenter or transfer to a keg with the dry hops as outlined by my process above?

I've never lost a batch to oxygen as the keg usually kicks before that has time to fully happen. So my process must be ok. Some guys in my club have shown me some of their samples after only a few weeks and they're so dark looking.

Ah gotcha.

I ferment in SS Conicals so I can dump hops/trub before transferring but otherwise my setup is somewhat similar.

If you’re beer is turning dark you’ve done something seriously wrong. I’ve literally never had that happen. However hop aroma is the first thing to go with O2 exposure. Your beer might never darken but the hop aroma/flavor could be lessened.

Since you have a TC fitting with a gas post and a PRV this is what I would do (my process)

Pull the blow off and install that fitting right before terminal. That PRV releases around 3 psi so you should build up enough head pressure where you won’t necessarily need to attach Co2 when doing a soft crash. After diacetyl rest and ideally a forced VDK test soft crash to 55/60 depending on the yeast you’re using. Leave it there for 24-36 hours. Attach gas to TC fitting and turn it on before pulling the clamp and leave it on while the TC fitting is removed. I use a funnel to pour in the pellets as I find it’s the easiest/fastest way. IMHO they need to be loose. Bagging them will only entrap more O2, reduce utilization, and it takes longer to get the bag in there. Although if you have a 3” opening that’s different. I have a 1.5” opening on my lids. I used to have a few 3” lids but I swapped back to 1.5. Felt it kept O2 exposure down.

After hops are in I purge maybe 5 times and ideally leave it with as much head pressure as the PRV can handle.

After 4 days at 60-63 I’ll slowly step down to about 42. I’ve found this is as low as I can go and still maintain positive head pressure without having to keep Co2 hooked up and go through a bunch of it. It’s low enough to get most of the hop particulate to settle so you shouldn’t clog a transfer. This might be an issue for you if you can’t remove hops first but I’d bet if you rotate the racking arm vertical and pull a bit of beer you should be able to transfer without clogging a poppet. I rarely ever get a clog. 1 in 20 maybe.

 

[aaronm13]

Ah gotcha.

I ferment in SS Conicals so I can dump hops/trub before transferring but otherwise my setup is somewhat similar.

If you’re beer is turning dark you’ve done something seriously wrong. I’ve literally never had that happen. However hop aroma is the first thing to go with O2 exposure. Your beer might never darken but the hop aroma/flavor could be lessened.

Since you have a TC fitting with a gas post and a PRV this is what I would do (my process)

Pull the blow off and install that fitting right before terminal. That PRV releases around 3 psi so you should build up enough head pressure where you won’t necessarily need to attach Co2 when doing a soft crash. After diacetyl rest and ideally a forced VDK test soft crash to 55/60 depending on the yeast you’re using. Leave it there for 24-36 hours. Attach gas to TC fitting and turn it on before pulling the clamp and leave it on while the TC fitting is removed. I use a funnel to pour in the pellets as I find it’s the easiest/fastest way. IMHO they need to be loose. Bagging them will only entrap more O2, reduce utilization, and it takes longer to get the bag in there. Although if you have a 3” opening that’s different. I have a 1.5” opening on my lids. I used to have a few 3” lids but I swapped back to 1.5. Felt it kept O2 exposure down.

After hops are in I purge maybe 5 times and ideally leave it with as much head pressure as the PRV can handle.

After 4 days at 60-63 I’ll slowly step down to about 42. I’ve found this is as low as I can go and still maintain positive head pressure without having to keep Co2 hooked up and go through a bunch of it. It’s low enough to get most of the hop particulate to settle so you shouldn’t clog a transfer. This might be an issue for you if you can’t remove hops first but I’d bet if you rotate the racking arm vertical and pull a bit of beer you should be able to transfer without clogging a poppet. I rarely ever get a clog. 1 in 20 maybe.

It's my friends beers that turn dark, mine stay the same colour until the keg kicks. Flavor does definitely drop off slightly.

I have the 7g brewmaster bucket so unfortunately can't dump off yeast. Would love to have this function. I think at least for the first dry hop I'll do as you suggest with the exception of I will put my hops in a hop spider which drops in through the 3" opening. I brewed a session IPA a few weeks ago and put the hops in loose, never again, transfer was an absolute disaster even with a cold crash. I couldn't rotate the racking arm as the yeast settled around it and wouldn't turn.

I had an experiment ready to go where I made a floating dip tube like in the Fermzilla. Only did one dry run with water. It did work but I decided when filling the fermenter to abandon it for now until further testing. This would enable me to dry hop loose. I do a few more trial runs when this beer is fermented.

 

[RCope]

It's my friends beers that turn dark, mine stay the same colour until the keg kicks. Flavor does definitely drop off slightly.

I have the 7g brewmaster bucket so unfortunately can't dump off yeast. Would love to have this function. I think at least for the first dry hop I'll do as you suggest with the exception of I will put my hops in a hop spider which drops in through the 3" opening. I brewed a session IPA a few weeks ago and put the hops in loose, never again, transfer was an absolute disaster even with a cold crash. I couldn't rotate the racking arm as the yeast settled around it and wouldn't turn.

I had an experiment ready to go where I made a floating dip tube like in the Fermzilla. Only did one dry run with water. It did work but I decided when filling the fermenter to abandon it for now until further testing. This would enable me to dry hop loose. I do a few more trial runs when this beer is fermented.

So my process with the same equipment (no domed lid): racking arm just short of horizontal (no trub/hops intrusion), no more than 5oz of dry hop (6 is pushing it), CO2 flush while dry hopping post-fermentation (simply hook up CO2 to the blow off and flush with low flow CO2 during the dumping in of hops), use the same hook-up for cold crash and low pressure closed transfer into purged keg. But I do a two staged transfer to the fermentor to minimize the hot break settling which would bring the level of undesirable stuff closer to the dip tube: first transfer from boil kettle to 6 gallon bucket with spigot, 2 or 3 hours in the ferm chamber (chest freezer) to ferm temp, then transfer into the brew bucket with yeast then oxygenate. Learned that from the LODO site. More than 30 NEIPA's, never had a clog, never noticed any oxidation.

 

[doogie]

Don’t worry the pellets won’t degrade while they’re in the keg before you transfer beer onto them.

I beg to differ on this. I tried several methods of remote dropping hops held in my fermenter in order to dry hop without oxygen exposure, I had issues with the hops dropping due to the expansion of the hops due to the humidity in the fermentation vessel. They expanded and lost all scent in the 2 weeks of fermentation. I use your method to purge my keg, but I no longer add dry hops early due to the humidity issues.

 

[aaronm13]

So my process with the same equipment (no domed lid): racking arm just short of horizontal (no trub/hops intrusion), no more than 5oz of dry hop (6 is pushing it), CO2 flush while dry hopping post-fermentation (simply hook up CO2 to the blow off and flush with low flow CO2 during the dumping in of hops), use the same hook-up for cold crash and low pressure closed transfer into purged keg. But I do a two staged transfer to the fermentor to minimize the hot break settling which would bring the level of undesirable stuff closer to the dip tube: first transfer from boil kettle to 6 gallon bucket with spigot, 2 or 3 hours in the ferm chamber (chest freezer) to ferm temp, then transfer into the brew bucket with yeast then oxygenate. Learned that from the LODO site. More than 30 NEIPA's, never had a clog, never noticed any oxidation.

That's impressive with that high dry hopping amount and no clogging.

I really like your idea of transfer to the fermenter. I use a Grainfather and find it pretty much impossible not to get a load of the hot break and crap in. The few hours in the fridge would easily give this time to settle out. I don't have any buckets with spigots anymore, would an auto syphon do the job or would it pull up too much undesirables?

I'm using the malylar balloon attached to the ball lock to catch co2 for the cold crash as I saw on Brulosphy. Seems a nice little system and saves a bit from my tank.

 

[Hannabrew]

So with the new year, what are some of your favorite low-ABV (<5%) hazy IPA recipes?

 

[couchsending]

I beg to differ on this. I tried several methods of remote dropping hops held in my fermenter in order to dry hop without oxygen exposure, I had issues with the hops dropping due to the expansion of the hops due to the humidity in the fermentation vessel. They expanded and lost all scent in the 2 weeks of fermentation. I use your method to purge my keg, but I no longer add dry hops early due to the humidity issues.

2 weeks of fermentation?

Fermentation should be done in 4-5 days. There’s probably enough Co2 created with fermentation to only have it hooked up for a day or two and have it fully purged.

I believe you can successfully purge up to 5 5g kegs with a typical 5-6g ale ferment.

Done it a bunch. I don’t get any degradation. It’s also only hooked up for 3 days then the lines are pulled and keg is sealed with a 20 PSI charge. Then put somewhere cold until beer is transferred into it.

 

[Dgallo]

So with the new year, what are some of your favorite low-ABV (<5%) hazy IPA recipes?

Just take your favorite and scale it back to about 1.038 and brut it. Could be pretty cool to get close to 5.0% and less than 100 calories

 

[BeerFst]

Isn’t the “experimental” hop product just Incognito? Or maybe it’s produced using the same process as Incognito but by another manufacturer so they do t actually use the “Incognito” name.

Whatever it is that beer sounds horrible.

Yes I believe this is correct. they noted on their recent monkish collab they use incognito and state it. That said i think it was just a branding thing and they couldnt use the HDHC since its multiple breweries? I dunno.

https://otherhalfbrewing.com/beer/conjoined-triangles-of-success/

Its a product from Barth Haas and with the partnership with YVH now I'm really hoping they come out with some homebrew volumes. they have alot of the NEIPA big boys now, citra, sabro, ekuanot, mosaic, HBC 472 (dont know this one).

https://www.johnihaas.com/incognito/

I asked YVH if this would happen after their collab announcement, but never got a response.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Incognito has reached the retail market in the UK via the Malt Miller, so you may be able to find it across the pond.

 

[RCope]

That's impressive with that high dry hopping amount and no clogging.

I really like your idea of transfer to the fermenter. I use a Grainfather and find it pretty much impossible not to get a load of the hot break and crap in. The few hours in the fridge would easily give this time to settle out. I don't have any buckets with spigots anymore, would an auto syphon do the job or would it pull up too much undesirables?

I'm using the malylar balloon attached to the ball lock to catch co2 for the cold crash as I saw on Brulosphy. Seems a nice little system and saves a bit from my tank.

I think the syphon would work fine...maybe even better since you can control the pick up point based on the trub level. The one downside is leaving a significant amount of wort behind...I adjust the recipe for that loss, but some filter and return the clean wort back to the fermentor.

 

[BeerFst]

Incognito has reached the retail market in the UK via the Malt Miller, so you may be able to find it across the pond.

Oh snap! That’s awesome, here’s hoping it’s stateside soon

edit: unbelievably expensive though. They quote verdant as using 1.25gram/liter in a beer which is 23g per 5gallon batch. Malt miller only selling in 15g qty at almost 9 pounds (12 bucks with today’s rate) that’s 18 bucks before a single dry hop...that’s rough

 

[Dgallo]

Oh snap! That’s awesome, here’s hoping it’s stateside soon

edit: unbelievably expensive though. They quote verdant as using 1.25gram/liter in a beer which is 23g per 5gallon batch. Malt miller only selling in 15g qty at almost 9 pounds (12 bucks with today’s rate) that’s 18 bucks before a single dry hop...that’s rough

Why are they quoted using a weight measurement instead of a volume measurement? That seems bizarre to me, since it’s a liquid product being added to a liquid. (Oh well)

You have to remember that incognito isn’t created to be cost effective for the home brewer. It’s not even created to be comparable in price or more potent that t90 or T45 pellets. It was created to strictly reduce loss due to hop material on the commercial scale, which is where the real cost effectiveness occurs.

 

[BeerFst]

Why are they quoted using a weight measurement instead of a volume measurement? That seems bizarre to me, since it’s a liquid product being added to a liquid. (Oh well)

You have to remember that incognito isn’t created to be cost effective for the home brewer. It’s not even created to be comparable in price or more potent that t90 or T45 pellets. It was created to strictly reduce loss due to hop material on the commercial scale, which is where the real cost effectiveness occurs.

Seems to mostly come from the sales side as the thing comes in 2kg and 10kg sizes, and haas recommends 60-235 gram per barrel, *to start. So about 2oz to 8oz per barrel...so laughably small compared to pellets. There’s a blog post about surly replacing 3pounds per barrel of Citra and mosaic with 2 2kg containers.

I still think it would should be at a price point similar to cryo as it really serves a similar aspect to the industry and it’s only useable hot side