New England DIPA Brew Day (BIAB) Cloudwater v13 clone attempt

Hey Everyone,

So I had my brew day on Saturday, hoping to make a clone of one of my favourite beers (Cloudwater’s v13 DIPA). This was done via the BIAB method, which admittedly was a tall order as it was also my first time at BIAB, but I figured go big or go home!

I posted the original recipe here, but I had to adjust it after I realised the limitations of my 32 litre pot would only allow for a smaller batch brew due to the massive grain bill and water displacement.

Brew method: BIAB
Batch size: 18.9L
Mash/Boil size: 24.6L
OG: 1.085
FG: 1.016
ABV: 9.12%
IBU: 52.04 (estimated on Brewer's Friend, but likely to be much lower due to whirlpool temp)
Colour SRM: 6.5
Boil time: 60 minutes
Efficiency: 75%

Mash temp: 66C for 60 minutes
Mash out: 76C for 10 minutes

Grain Bill
5.5kg Golden Promise (79%)
1.25kg Flaked Oats (18%)
0.21kg Dextrose (3%) added at 10 mins

Hop Bill
5g Magnum @ 60 minutes
60g Citra @ 0 minutes (hopstand at >80C)
60g Mosaic @ 0 minutes (hopstand at >80C)

250g Citra @ 4 days (dry hop)
250g Citra @ 2 days (dry hop)

Extra additions:
Yeast nutrient at 10 mins

Yeast: Vermont Ale from The Yeast Bay
pitched at 18ºC
allowed to rise to 18.5ºC
allowed to rise to 22ºC once wort was below 1030º for diacetyl rest and to complete attenuation

Water Profile:
Adjusted my London tap water with CRS and Calcium Chloride to end up with roughly:
140 Ca | 5 Mg | 30.6 Na | 183 Cl | 130 So

Brew Day Notes:

The Mash
-Good thing I reduced the recipe from the initial as the total volume was just enough to fit in my pot!
-I used my Anova immersion circulator to try and achieve a consistent mash temperature, having it outside of the grain bag to avoid the impeller clogging up. This proved to be a little difficult as the water temperature of the free flowing water around the circulator at times was 10C higher than when I dipped my thermapen into the middle of the mash! More research into BIAB and temperatures.
-Heated my water to 72C before adding my grains, but should’ve gone a bit hotter as the mash temp registered at around 63C
-I turned on the heat (my grain bag falls short of the bottom of my pot so no chance of scorching / bag breaking) and stirred the mash to get it up to temperature
-To my surprise, the temperature stuck at 63/64C for a long time, then suddenly spiked up to 72C!! I thought I had been mixed the grains properly, but I guess grains at the bottom of the bag weren’t being circulated properly and heated up too much
-Panicking, I gradually added about 1kg of ice to the stock pot in an attempt to bring down the mash temp. It came down eventually to 66C as registered on my anova, but I realised later that the temperature when I dipped my thermometer into the grains was around 62-63C, whilst the free flowing water outside the bag was higher
-Measured the mash pH, which came in much higher than expected at around 5.9. I had some lactic acid to hand so I added 10ml, and the pH dropped to 5.1. This testing / adjusting took me to about 25 mins into the mash
-Mash out completed with no issues at 76C
-Lifting the grain bag and squeezing it to hell was a bit of a job, I’m glad I had a friend over to help as it was awkward at the best of times! Managed to squeeze the living hell out of it and get most of the water out of the grain bag

The Boil
-pre-boil gravity reading was at 1.072, but I knew that would rise with the addition of dextrose along with the evaporation
-decided to do a 70 minute boil to account for the extra water added to the mash as ice
-boil went as planned, 5g magnum went in at 60 mins, achieved a good hot break, dextrose, yeast nutrient, immersion chiller and hop spider went in at 10 mins

Cooling and pitching the yeast
-cooled down to >80C fairly quickly with the immersion chiller. Whirlpool hops went into the hop spider for 30 mins, stirring occasionally with a sanitised spoon before cooling the wort to 18C
-tried to do a whirlpool with a sanitised whisk to encourage the trub to collect at the bottom, left the wort for about 15 minutes to settle as I’ve done before
-I’m not sure if it’s due to the oats in the grist, or the amount of break material you get from BIAB (just google excess trub), but there was a TON of trub and hop material suspended in the beer that didn’t drop out. I normally siphon through a fine mesh sieve into the fermenter, but on this occasion the sieve was overflowing due to the crazy amount of material being caught in it
-I made a yeast starter the evening before as per directions for making a larger starter for a high gravity beer
-pitched the yeast, sealed the FV and stuck it in my fermentation fridge set at 18.5C
-I can report healthy yeast activity


Final measurements:
Fermenter volume: 18 litres
OG 1.088

Final thoughts
I’m pleased with where the FG ended up, but it means I’ve probably mis-calculated either my boil off rate or grain absorption. Using the brewer’s friend efficiency calculator, I’m at 73.6% which isn’t too bad.

I need to do more research / practice with BIAB mashing as I massively overshot my temperatures, but I hope I managed to get enough fermentable sugars!

I didn’t hit my planned mash pH initially and had to add 10ml of lactic acid, so I need to understand why this happened so I can adjust as necessary next time.

The amount of suspended hop / break matter that didn’t sink was a bit disappointing, but I think that’s due to a combination of oats in the grist, the fact that it’s such a thick high gravity beer, and the fact that BIAB can produce lots of break material. Hopefully it will settle out in the FV especially when I cold crash, but I’m expecting higher losses than normal because of it. Also, the colour of the wort in the FV seems a little off, here's hoping it becomes more of a straw yellow that I'm aiming for!


If anyone has any comments on how I can improve my process, I'm all ears!

Looks great (same can't be said for that socks / flip flops combo! :lol: )

What kind of final gravity are you expecting?

henteaser said:

Looks great (same can't be said for that socks / flip flops combo! :lol: )

What kind of final gravity are you expecting?

Click to expand...

The socks / flip flops was actually my friend who was helping me that day (I swear! :whistle:). I opted for flip flops and no socks :)

Expecting FG to end up at 1.016 ish

Dry hopped earlier this week on Tuesday. Tried taking a gravity reading from the tap at the bottom of my FV and the sample still looked as "sludgy" as it did when I racked to the FV.

I put the sample in the fridge to see if cold crashing would cause whatever's was floating around to drop, and it did, so hopefully things will turn out ok.

Planning on doing the next dry hop in a couple of days before cold-crashing later next week.

I upped the temperature to 20C on the 22nd and then again to 21C shortly after the second dry hop as per instructions I've read on dealing with this yeast strain.

Second dry hop went as planned on Tuesday 26th. I was meant to cold crash it on the Friday night to be ready for bottling on Sunday, but I completely forgot so I set my fridge to 1C as soon as I woke up on Sunday.

The beer got down to about 8C before bottling in the evening. I'm glad to report that all of the sludge had settled out. Whether it's a result of finished fermentation or the cold crash I can't say for certain. The trub line was right at the bottom tap, so that explains why samples I had taken had tons of sediment in them.

Bottling went ahead as planned. I removed the dry hop bags with sanitised gloved hands and squeezed the hell out of them to extract all of the juicy liquid they had absorbed before racking to my bottling bucket which had the priming sugar solution in it. I then gently stirred the beer before filling my bottles. In order to try to minimise exposure to oxygen, I capped each bottle immediately after filling.

I also took a final gravity reading and was a little shocked to see it had finished up at 1.024, which is a good deal higher than the 1.014 I was aiming for.

I'm guessing the high mash temps are to blame for extracting un-fermentable sugars?

Bottles are currently conditioning at 18C, and I'll try one in a couple of days, fingers crossed it tastes good! At least the sample did, and I got a nice golden straw colour I was aiming for.

ProjectBeer said:

I upped the temperature to 20C on the 22nd and then again to 21C shortly after the second dry hop as per instructions I've read on dealing with this yeast strain.

Second dry hop went as planned on Tuesday 26th. I was meant to cold crash it on the Friday night to be ready for bottling on Sunday, but I completely forgot so I set my fridge to 1C as soon as I woke up on Sunday.

The beer got down to about 8C before bottling in the evening. I'm glad to report that all of the sludge had settled out. Whether it's a result of finished fermentation or the cold crash I can't say for certain. The trub line was right at the bottom tap, so that explains why samples I had taken had tons of sediment in them.

Bottling went ahead as planned. I removed the dry hop bags with sanitised gloved hands and squeezed the hell out of them to extract all of the juicy liquid they had absorbed before racking to my bottling bucket which had the priming sugar solution in it. I then gently stirred the beer before filling my bottles. In order to try to minimise exposure to oxygen, I capped each bottle immediately after filling.

I also took a final gravity reading and was a little shocked to see it had finished up at 1.024, which is a good deal higher than the 1.014 I was aiming for.

I'm guessing the high mash temps are to blame for extracting un-fermentable sugars?

Bottles are currently conditioning at 18C, and I'll try one in a couple of days, fingers crossed it tastes good! At least the sample did, and I got a nice golden straw colour I was aiming for.

Click to expand...

Any update on this? How did it end up tasting? I'm thinking of doing something similar for my next brew, just bottle conditioning a NEIPA and can't wait to get another one on the go (especially as the NEIPA was my first brew and the sample tasted a bit naff... need something in the pipeline fast in case it ends up undrinkable!)

ProjectBeer said:

I upped the temperature to 20C on the 22nd and then again to 21C shortly after the second dry hop as per instructions I've read on dealing with this yeast strain.

Second dry hop went as planned on Tuesday 26th. I was meant to cold crash it on the Friday night to be ready for bottling on Sunday, but I completely forgot so I set my fridge to 1C as soon as I woke up on Sunday.

The beer got down to about 8C before bottling in the evening. I'm glad to report that all of the sludge had settled out. Whether it's a result of finished fermentation or the cold crash I can't say for certain. The trub line was right at the bottom tap, so that explains why samples I had taken had tons of sediment in them.

Bottling went ahead as planned. I removed the dry hop bags with sanitised gloved hands and squeezed the hell out of them to extract all of the juicy liquid they had absorbed before racking to my bottling bucket which had the priming sugar solution in it. I then gently stirred the beer before filling my bottles. In order to try to minimise exposure to oxygen, I capped each bottle immediately after filling.

I also took a final gravity reading and was a little shocked to see it had finished up at 1.024, which is a good deal higher than the 1.014 I was aiming for.

I'm guessing the high mash temps are to blame for extracting un-fermentable sugars?

Bottles are currently conditioning at 18C, and I'll try one in a couple of days, fingers crossed it tastes good! At least the sample did, and I got a nice golden straw colour I was aiming for.

Click to expand...

Also could I ask about your yeast starter? You say you used Vermont yeast, how much of a starter did you make and how did you make it?

How long does it take you to get to a boil on the job? I have the same 32l pan and it takes long enough on my propane burner so just curious
Thanks

SJMC said:

Any update on this? How did it end up tasting? I'm thinking of doing something similar for my next brew, just bottle conditioning a NEIPA and can't wait to get another one on the go (especially as the NEIPA was my first brew and the sample tasted a bit naff... need something in the pipeline fast in case it ends up undrinkable!)

Click to expand...

Hey, I meant to post an update. Up until last weekend (2 weeks after bottling) the carbonation still wasn't quite there yet. It didn't quite have as much of a hoppy nose as I was expecting (I'm too used to Cloudwater's insanely delicious DIPAs), and I guess it was a bit much to expect to nail it first time.

It was pretty damn tasty though. I gave some bottles to a friend who opened some today and he said it was fully carbed and delicious! I've stuck a couple in the fridge for the weekend, so I'll try to post some pics then.

SJMC said:

Also could I ask about your yeast starter? You say you used Vermont yeast, how much of a starter did you make and how did you make it?

Click to expand...

I made a 2 litre starter. Can't remember the quantity of DME I used to get to a gravity of 1040 (easily found on google). I had it in a mason jar with some tin foil on top. Shake the jar every so often to aerate it, but the leave it for a few hours before you pitch so that the yeast settles to the bottom. Decant the liquid from the top and pitch the slurry.

Pretty sure there are some detailed guides out there.

TenaciousG said:

How long does it take you to get to a boil on the job? I have the same 32l pan and it takes long enough on my propane burner so just curious
Thanks

Click to expand...

I can't remember off the top of my head, but from cold water I think it takes about half an hour or so. We have a massive gas hob in the middle which works pretty well.

How long does it take on your burner?

I’d say it takes 20 mins on the burner from mash temp to rolling boil for about 28l
I might try it on our hob as we’ve got a big ring (giggity) too

Weather getting crap now so brewing indoors may be the best bet

I know it’s not really the correct thread but i did a brew in the kitchen, went pretty well to be honest. Windows steamed up etc with French door slightly open and windows open and extractor in full power, how do you combat this? Hob just about held a rolling boil, will see how it tastes.