SOBA NHC 2013 recipes

[Kelly Milligan]

Hey ya'll,

I recall there being another thread similar to this for last year's recipes, figured I'd get a 2013 version started! (hint hint Barb, give us some Joppa Stout love!)

Martin asked if I could share my "Smell the Roses" recipe :) Happy to! 

This is a rad summer beer. Sorry to say, but it uses pretty tough-to-get hops. This doesn't use any random ingredients as the name may suggest, just a name with a bit of a back story. I'm providing the ingredients in % (grains) and grams per litre + AA% + IBU's (hops) - I do double size batches so you can work it out for your system from there.

Session IPA - "Smell the Roses"

ABV: 5.2%

IBU: ~60 (Using Rager)

OG: 1.055

FG: 1.013 - 1.015

Water adjustment

My water is pretty soft, adjust this to your system. I've added gypsum and Acid Malt to achieve the appropriate mash PH.

0.3g/L Gypsum in mash water (aiming for about 250 ppm if I recall)

Fermentables

91% Golden Promise @ 6.3 EBC (I used Thomas Fawcett, but am also a big fan of Bairds)

5% Medium Crystal @ 153 EBC (Bairds)

3% Munich Malt @ 16 EBC (Weyermann)

1% Acid Malt (Weyermann)

Hops (kettle)
I'm using Simcoe to bitter as it gives a lovely smooth bittering. The Cascade is intended to be a "layering hop", with two rockstar hops like Simcoe and Amarillo, I needed something to sit quietly in the background and tie the hop profile together. 

1g/L Simcoe @ 12% @ 85mins (36.7 IBU)

1.25g/L Simcoe @ 12% @ 20mins (15.4 IBU)

2.5g/L US Cascade @ 6.2% @ 10mins (9.5 IBU)

1.25g/L Amarillo @ 8.5% 0 mins (probably a few extra IBU's from this addition)

Other additions

0.1g/L White Labs Yeast Nutrient @ 10mins

1x White Labs Servomyces Capsule per 20L @ 10mins (Make that yeast happy for gods sake!)

~1g/L Koppafloc @ 10mins

Hops (dry)

From what I've learned over time, dry hopping is all about surface contact with the beer (duh..). I don't have a conical fermenter so can't rouse my dry hops using CO2. Instead, I split the dry hopping out like this to get multiple instances of the hops "falling through" the beer before settling on the bottom. I also do it across a temperature range to try get different characters out of each dry hop. This could all be hearsay, so by all means do what you think works best for your system. The "days" refers to how many days before kegging or racking the beer. You can see I have it at crashing temp for that last addition.

0.65g/L Simcoe & 0.65g/L Amarillo @ 7 days @ ~20c

0.65g/L Simcoe & 0.65g/L Amarillo @ 5 days @ ~10-17c

0.65g/L Simcoe & 0.65g/L Amarillo @ 3 days @ ~1-5c

Yeast

White Labs WLP007 - This strain has been a favourite of mine for some time.. It has great attenuative properties (70-80%), and ferments very clean like an American Strain, but just seems to give the beer something a little bit special.. 

I grew up this vial over the course of a week, stepping a starter up to about 450b cells for ~40L. This is a bit of an overpitch. It was a very happy chappy when it went into the beer!

Process

Mash at 67-68c for 60mins

Boil for 90mins

Chill wort to 17C & oxygenate well before pitching yeast

Raise temperature to 19c over first 36-48 hours

Raise temperature to 21c over next 5 days

Fermenation will finish quickly with WLP007 (she's a beast), allow the yeast to clean up for at least a week before crashing and transferring.

Start your dry hopping after 1 week of fermentation. 

WLP007 Drops clear well, so you probably don't need to Gelatin this. Feel free to if you want it super clear, but that hop haze will prevent you from getting it brilliant. 

Carbonate to 2.3 - 2.6 volumes depending on your preference

Drink in volume in the sun, with a BBQ burning, music cranking and laughter abounding.

OK, I think that's pretty much it! feel free to ask any questions you may have. 

CHEERS!

K

[Alex]

The NZ IPA I entered was Yeastie Boys Digital IPA recipe with a couple of very minor changes. Guess it shows how good that recipe is! 

[Tilt]

You're right on the recipe being good - but that's only part of the picture.  Good process will trump a good recipe any day IMO.  Both of course are way better.

Any tips to share around your take on technique and NZ hops in an IPA.  Water, pH, whirlpool additions, hop steep times, dry hop additions etc?

[Alex]

I'd agree with everything Matt Smith has said. Kegging is great for IPAs as you can put the beer in the fridge straight after dry hopping without waiting for 1-2 weeks for bottle conditioning also purging everything with C02 after fermentation is important, I even purge the syphon with C02 before transferring to the keg.

I think mash ph is very important, it's worth investing in a ph meter IMO. With my IPAs I usually add about 6 grams gypsum to the mash and a tiny bit of tartaric acid to get the ph down to 5.2. After adding flame out hops I usually start chilling with an immersion chiller straight away or within a few minutes, I haven't experimented with steeping flame out hops yet although I've heard that can have great results. I usually dry hop for 5 days and add dry hops to the keg as well to keep the hop aroma fresh. 

[Matt Smith]

Congrats on your medals Alex! Gold medals in the IPA category is a mean feat I reackon.

I concur re. the PH meter. I just bought one 3 brews ago. Every mash I tested, which I had estimated with water spreadsheets at around 5.3, was actually up around 5.6, teetering on the edge of the danger zone. I used citric acid to bring it down, as It's all I had available, 1g took them down to around 5.4. From now on with Gladfield grist's I'm going to increase my Acid malt percentage to around 2%

[Tilt]

Thanks fellas - nothing like a good discussion on the finer points of technique to help the masses improve. 

Interesting Matt that you've seen a difference between theoretical water calcs and what comes up on the dial of the pH meter. 

I'm probably not alone in that I figure that once the baseline water specs from the council and the grist are plugged  into a spreadsheet calculator  then what I see is close to the actual mash pH.  I wonder how many commercial breweries measure pH closely for each batch and adjust on the fly?

[Crusader-Rob]

I'm yet to try that recipe, might be a good tester to see if my processes are correct, and how well I'm actually doing, that'll give me an idea of where to go from there.  On the to brew list it goes....

[Richard Jack]

I'll share this one because it's something a little bit different and it might tweak someone's creativity.

I wanted to see if I could get close to Rodenbach Grand Cru without waiting for a year or so for legit souring, so I had the idea of making a speed sour using a high percentage of acid malt, and fermenting with 100% Brett. Lambicus to get the big cherry aroma without a whole lot of funk that takes a year or so to develop. It was named by the ever-eloquent Hamish Ward who tasted it and said "yeah bro, not bad for microwaved steak".

I didn't get anywhere close to Rodenbach but I have a good idea about where to go from here to narrow the gap. It took a Silver. Pretty happy for a first attempt. It's enough to encourage me to continue trying to make faster sours.

Flanders Red Ale, "Microwaved Steak"
https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/947/score/share?k=c9ec5c

OG 1.06 16 SRM
23% munich
23% vienna
14% Pils
10% wheat
4% caramunich
3% carared
3% aromatic
2% spec b
1% dark crystal

at the end of the mash, cap with 18% saurmaltz 

90 minute boil,10 IBU of goldings at 60 mins.

Fermented with Brett. Lambicus, secondary addition of Brett. Trois after krausen subsided, warm conditioned for a month then kegged.

[Julian Melville]

I saw that one come up on Twitter and did wonder about the name...

[Phil Murray]

Hi Richard,

My table judged that beer, it was really good! And a nice surprise, we thought that category was going to be a bit diabolical.

Would love to try some more one day!

[Richard Jack]

Thanks Phil, I'll make sure it's better for next year :)  

[Greig McGill]

Drink in volume in the sun, with a BBQ burning, music cranking and laughter abounding.

That's my favourite bit, right there! :)

[Kelly Milligan]

It's a very important part of the process. ;)