Brewday: Playoffs Rye IPA take 4

First hop addition, 60 of 340g

A disproportionate number of my brews are American IPAs and Pale Ales - 22 out of my last 67 brews. I love a wide range of styles but it's harder to get a good, fresh IPA than most other things so I need to brew these more often to get my fix. One thing I don't think many people, even plenty of beer geeks, grasp properly is just how quickly beer deteriorates, hoppy beer in particular. Freshness is hugely important for most styles of beer. For a bit of an insight into what I mean, Literature and Libation has a great writeup of the experience of tasting the same IPA at 5 days and 90 days old.

The huge distance that most beer has to travel is something we have working against us in Australia. Our population is so spread out that beers have to travel a long way before they get to the majority of consumers. I've had way too many IPAs and pale ales with little to no discernible hop aroma. A bottle might be a month within its best before date but still be long past its actual best. In my dream world everyone has at least one brewpub within walking distance of their house and the beer is always fresh.

In this respect home brewers have a serious advantage over other craft beer consumers. No one gets to drink beer that's more fresh. For brewers who can brew to a decent standard, that means that the beer in their own homes is often better than the majority of commercially available beer. Avoiding the travelling distance and having control over storage makes a particularly big difference for IPAs and other modern hoppy beers. You're also always aware of how old the beer itself is and how soon it needs to be consumed.

All that is really just to say I'm excited about brewing my Playoffs IPA again and having some fresh IPA action. It should be ready just in time for this year's NBA playoffs which are looking like they'll be fun, especially in the West. This is my 4th crack at this particular beer. The first one I loved, the second I had a couple of enforced changes and was disappointed, the third was in late 2013 and was just ok. It suffered due to my rushed production and the aroma was not impressive. It was there but the current batch of Columbus is more potent than what I was using back in 2012 so it dominated in a way that wasn't what I was after and the overall aroma and flavour was a bit muddled and didn't 'pop' like it should have. This time I decided to make some changes to my process and the recipe to hopefully improve things.

Probably the biggest change is with the hops because I felt like going with something different this time. I may return to the original hop varieties eventually but this time I wanted to make use of the opportunity to try new combinations. I've switched out the Amarillo and Columbus of the original recipe and added in Centennial and Ahtanum. The ratios are a bit different as well, I've gone for 2:1:1 Centennial:Citra:Ahtanum throughout and added an extra dose of hops for a 50 minute sub-80C steep. The aroma as I transferred the wort into the fermenter fully justified the decision - it was incredible.

One of the pieces of feedback I received last time around was that the rye that was advertised didn't really come through so I've increased it to 20% of the grist compared to the original 14%. I also went with the Joe White Traditional Ale malt that I used originally instead of the pilsner malt of my last attempt. It was partly a decision to increase the colour and partly to avoid burning through my pilsner malt before I can get a re-up through a bulk buy.

The process changes are relatively small but will hopefully improve the finished product a little. I've been reading a bit about mash and post fermentation pH and it seems that a lower pH will help the hops to come across with more clarity. With that in mind I've aimed for a mash pH of 5.3 rather than the normal 5.45 I've usually been after. All this is theoretical though since I'm working with estimates off a spreadsheet rather than actual pH readings. All I can say for sure is that the pH is lower this time than when I've brewed it before. I'm considering buying a pH meter so I've got a better idea of what's going on with my mash and post fermentation pH levels.

I've also decided to start experimenting a bit with chloride:sulphate ratios. My normal practice with hoppy beers is to add a decent amount calcium sulphate and a small amount of calcium chloride. This time I'm keeping the sulphate addition in my normal range but I'm pushing the chloride a bit higher to see how it alters my perception of the beer. It's just something I haven't really experimented with at all up to this point and I've been wondering about it so I thought I'd make the change.

So with all that decision making out of the way, the brew itself should have been pretty straight forward but I ran into a couple of problems. The big one was that when I emptied my urn I found that part of the element had blackened. I've had that happen once before and that beer had rye in it as well so I'm guessing that's something to watch out for when using that grain. Fortunately the wort itself smelled and tasted great so I'm hoping that I got away with nothing more than a fair bit of scrubbing to remove the cooked on stuff. The other problem was small but annoying. I missed my gravity target even though I already aimed lower than normal in my recipe design (75% instead of my normal 80%). 1.061 instead of 1.062 isn't a big deal but poor efficiency was the reason I stopped using Joe White malt in the past and this result isn't a strong motivator for me to buy more. I think I need to alter the extract potential in my brewing software to compensate for that because it's obviously yielding less than its specs say. Those problems aside, the aroma of the wort was fantastic and if the finished beer has a similar character I'll be very happy.

Sad burnt on element

Playoffs Rye IPA #4 (20L batch)
OG: 1.062 (1.061 measured)
FG: 1.012
IBU: 66
EBC: 15.5
ABV: 6.7%

Recipe
76% Pilsner malt
20% Rye malt
4% Caramunich II

2.5g/l Aramis @ 60 min (41 IBU)
2g/l Centennial @ 0 minutes (for a 20 minute steep) (13 IBU)
1g/l Citra @ 0 minutes (for a 20 minute steep) (8 IBU)
1g/l Ahtanum @ 0 minutes (for a 20 minute steep) (3 IBU)
2g/l Centennial @ < 80C for a 50 minute steep
1g/l Citra @ < 80C for a 50 minute steep
1g/l Ahtanum < 80C for a 50 minute steep
3g/l Centennial @ dry hop
1.5g/l Citra @ dry hop
1.5g/l Ahtanum @ dry hop

WLP090


Method
Mash:

• Added 10g CaSO4, 5g CaCl2, 2g MgSO4 to increase calcium and sulphate levels
• 4ml lactic acid for pH correction
• Stepped mash: 62C (45 minutes), 72C (15 minutes) and a 78C mash out

Boil:

• 90 minute boil
• 60g Aramis @ 60 minutes
• 1/2 tab of whirlfloc @ 10 minutes
• 40g Centennial @ 0 minutes
• 20g Citra @ 0 minutes
• 20g Ahtanum @ 0 minutes
• 20 minute hop stand after flame out
• Chilled to < 80C, added 20g each of Citra and Ahtanum and 40g Centennial for a 50 minute steep

Fermentation:

• Oxygenated for 90 seconds
• Began fermentation at 18C, I plan to increase it to 20C by the end of fermentation
• I'll cold crash and add dry hops once fermentation is complete