Brewing a crisp IPA with hard water.

[needabrew]

Hi all,

I have been brewing for a while now with good results but one thing I haven't managed to nail is making a crisp IPA. I am looking for a clean sharp bitterness with a fragrant taste. I think the water is to blame as it is quite chalky (Copenhagen). I have been adding citric acid to adjust the strike water pH but don't have many other options. My last brew was a wheat/pale ale.

This is my recipe

The OG was 1.054. I am using hop buds not pellets. Unfortunately my thermometer has broken but I have a temperature controller on my tea urn and was aiming for 68°C for my mash. Lets assume that I hit the right temperature. It came out fairly bitter, a little sweet but definitely not crisp. I suppose the wheat might be to blame but I have had similar experiences making IPA styles in the past.

I want to make a crisp IPA next. Any suggestions for improvements. Mash temp, hops, yeast types?

Hops I have:

Willamette
Cascade
Columbus
East Kent Golding's
Wild hops (unknown)

Malt
Pale Malt
Wheat
Rye
Peated malt
Crystal
Ruby

Yeast
Bohemian lager m84
Bavarian Wheat M20
British ale M07
US west coast M44

I don't have a fridge for fermentation but my basement could probably be fine for a lager. I await your guidance.

 

[rodabod]

Are there any commercial examples of what you are aiming for? When I think of crisp, I think dry. And that would lead me to think of pale ales which use almost 100% pale malt, mashed relatively low.

 

[Hops_and_Dreams]

I've used sugar (dextrose) to dry out some of my IPAs with good results. About 500g in 5.5-6% beers. I've also used Pilsner malt which worked really well.

Not tried brewing a white IPA, so can't comment on that.

 

[clibit]

I also think lower mash temperature, around 65-66C. Attenuative yeast - West coast yeast probably. Fermented cool. 17-18C. And some sugar helps dry a beer out too. If you study American IPAs, 2-3% crystal malt (40L is used a lot) with the rest pale malt is very common. And the Americans use American pale malt, which is lighter and less malty than European pale malt - so pilsner or lager malt would be a good substitute, I think.

 

[Dads_Ale]

I boil my mash water for about 15 mins to try and remove some of the chalk.

 

[needabrew]

Are there any commercial examples of what you are aiming for? When I think of crisp, I think dry. And that would lead me to think of pale ales which use almost 100% pale malt, mashed relatively low.

Indeed I guess dry is what I mean by crisp as well. Something that makes the hop character shine through. Maybe what I am actually aiming for is a hoppy lager like Mikkeller's American Dream.

 

[needabrew]

Sorry for the duplicated post, some glitch in the tapatalk app. Thanks for the other tips on mashing low, adding sugar and boiling my mash water.

Can I use regular cane sugar or does it have to be dextrose?

 

[peebee]

Plenty of good advise, but looking at the rest of your recipe...

80 IBU? 40 would be too much for a lot of people! Quite a lot of wheat (and rye) in there, wheat beers tend to use just 15-20 IBU for probably a good reason, so I'd replace wheat with pale malt. Your citric acid should see off the "chalkiness" in the water but might add its own flavour; try mixing with other acids (e.g. malic) to help avoid that or use phosphoric (but you need something to calculate the dose). Peated malt? That'll be a shock! Get a recipe working without smoked malt first (and if its peat, experiment with tiny amounts to start with). Gypsum in the water is frequently suggested as good for hoppy pales, but you've got plenty of other things to get right before worrying about gypsum.

 

[clibit]

Cane is fine, or beet.

You can use a clean ale yeast, fermented at the cool end of its range, to get something similar to the cleanness of a lager. US05 and Nottingham both suitable.

 

[peebee]

Casked my "pale ale" today. Interesting, FG has worked its way down to 1.009 when I expected about 1.013. "Clibit" had recommended low temperature mashing (and others, using sugar, same effect but no flavour). I had aimed mashing at 67degrees but got 64-5degrees and as it was a 65L batch correcting it wasn't practical. I didn't have to use very attenuative yeast (Safale S-04, English Ale), the low temperature mash just resulted in something more fermentable.

So I guess this low temperature mashing is going to give me a (very) "crisp" ale. And probably a headache! I also aimed at an OG of 1.057 and got 1.060; in all 6.7% ABV (and about IBU34 - quite bitter enough! BTW do you "age" the claimed AA of the hops? I'm reckoning on my Challenger hops being about 6.4AA% this late in the year, whereas the claim is for 7.3%).

 

[peebee]

Columbus hops: Not great keepers it seems. "Beersmith" estimates the 15.5% IBU to be more like 8.2% now. Not a problem yet as you get used to what they are doing for your beer. But come March or April you might be buying 2015 hops - then you'd have a shock aiming at 80IBUs!