Star Gazer Hazy Double IPA Comments

[stealthfixr]

I am looking at brewing this recipe soon and considering a few changes/problems in brewing it. First, not sure about the K-97 yeast. I've never used it before and wondering if some of the more recent Hazy IPA yeasts (like Cosmic Punch) might be a better match. Second, I've never added sucrose after primary fermentation started. I assume you have to melt it into hot water then add, but not sure. Last, the IBUs listed is 35, but Brewfather is calculating 71 when I enter everything exactly per the recipe, after converting the AAUs with the AA% on hand. Is that too high, did any of you scale back on that? We are talking about Polaris here--hard to not overdo bittering.

Have any of you brewed this? If so, how did it turn out? Any tips or thoughts appreciated. The widely available recipe is at this link, and here:
https://byo.com/recipe/star-gazer-hazy-double-ipa/

 

[TkmLinus]

I brewed it last May and it turned out great. Just brewed it again a couple of weeks ago. The K-97 yeast works well with it, make sure to use a blow off tube. I thought 1.5 gallons of extra headspace would be enough, the yeast proved me wrong. I used fermcap the second time I brewed it, still overflowed. I can't access your link, but the instructions I followed called for the sucrose to be added at the beginning of the 60 minute boil, not in primary(Star Gazer Hazy Double IPA - Big Brew 2021). I hopped per the instructions, the brew turned out great. I would say it was one of my best brews ever, the keg only lasted 6 days (normally they last 2-3 weeks). Quite juicy with a nice tang to it. My "I don't like hoppy beers" friends loved it. Hope this helps!

 

[stealthfixr]

Bump…anyone else?

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I am a little curious about the hops. "minty and green apple aroma notes from German Polaris hops" does not jump out to me as exactly what I am looking for in an NEIPA. The descriptions of Zamba sound good ["remarkably juicy tropical fruits (pineapple, mango), stone fruits, candy, and orange tangerine"] but I have never heard it mentioned before.

I have read of some breweries that use a Kolsch strain in their hazies/NEIPAs.

About the sugar...the recipe says "1 lb. (454 g) sucrose (add with first wort hops)". That would mean to add it before the boil. "First Wort Hopping" is a technique of adding hops into the first runnings from the later tun. If you are doing BIAB, add the sugar before the boil, or just add it with a few minutes left in the boil.

 

[Knightshade]

I did this brew..and will do it again at some point for sure. Had to look back at my notes. I wrote "candied tropical fruits in aroma, and initial hit in the body, which led to citrus throughout with a slightly bitter finish. A little more bitter than I'd like, but it is still green." This was after it was still in the midst of getting carbonated at 1 week as a cheater sample. I let it sit for another week, then keg kicked 2 weeks later and I was the only one really drinking it.

 

[stealthfixr]

For those that brewed this before, what did your brewing software say the IBUs actually were? The online recipies show 35 IBUs, but I am way above that when I enter everything in Brewfather using Tinseth calculations (63 IBUs).

Just brew it at 63 IBUs? Hard to get much lower when using 0.5oz/23% AA Polaris at 60 mins!

 

[Elric]

Playing around in brewers friend, adding .4 oz of 20% as first wort hops is 16IBU, changing that to a 60 min boil addition makes it 27IBU. The fact that you seem to be throwing in .5 oz at 60 min as opposed to .4 at first wort and .1 at 60 coupled with your higher alpha hops would seem to be where the mismatch in IBUs is. I also find it interesting that the way they approached it assumes no IBUs from whirlpool, but to each their own. Personally I always scale my bittering editions to match expected IBUs not by the weight in the recipe. The way I look at it is, if they just wanted you to add the amount of a specific hop they would just tell you amount to add and not detail the aa rating for the lot they are basing the recipe off of. They put that there so you can adjust accordingly to get the level of bitterness the recipe is aiming for. As for dry hop, def just equal what they add weight wise, whirlpool would depend on if you are assuming any additional IBU from it and whether the recipe you are looking to follow does or not. If you do and they don't (or vice versa), than you have to decide by how much you want your recipe to vary and adjust accordingly as your numbers will not be able to match up.

 

[stealthfixr]

Playing around in brewers friend, adding .4 oz of 20% as first wort hops is 16IBU, changing that to a 60 min boil addition makes it 27IBU. The fact that you seem to be throwing in .5 oz at 60 min as opposed to .4 at first wort and .1 at 60 coupled with your higher alpha hops would seem to be where the mismatch in IBUs is.

When FWH hop additions are made in a 75 min boil, I show higher IBU contributions from that as opposed to the same hop amount added at 60 minutes. Seems to make sense, but maybe I am missing something.

Not counting the Hopstand additions makes sense, but doesn’t get me down to 35 IBUs.

Ashton Lewis is the recipe author and is the BYO technical editor. So, I emailed BYO…hopefully that will help answer the hop questions.

 

[stealthfixr]

Writing BYO didn't yield a response and no consensus that I see here. I am going to shoot for 41 IBUs total, but only 35 from bittering additions (the rest is hopstand). I have never used K-97 yeast before, but I'll give that a go too.