Critique my NIPA recipe idea

[Splodges]

Hello! This will be my fourth brew so far, I've done 2 session IPAs and a wheat beer and thought I'd like to try a NIPA style. I've not done one before but I'm going for a fresh fruity style with good mouthfeel, sweetness and bitterness.

I got great feedback and pointers on my last recipe I posted here and I'd really appreciate any pointers with this recipe including anything including grain bill, hop ratio, yeast choice, etc. Very open to your guys experienced opinions!

Here she is:

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/671064/nipper

Splodges :hat:

 

[joel]

I'm not an expert on NEIPA but as no one has offered advice yet I'll try. It can be a tricky style and needs some practice to nail it. However even if it's not perfect you can create something tasty.
The choice of hops looks fine. It's a fairly low bitterness style so I'd have all late hops, getting most bitterness from a good size 10 or 15 minute addition.
As for malt the percentage of flaked grains looks about right, I'd consider swapping half or all the maris otter for a more neutral extra pale base malt.

I'd ditch the lactose and maybe the orange peel too, this style is all about BIG late and dry hops, at least 300g total.

The best reports for dry yeast with NEIPA seem to be with S-04, not heard of anyone using Nottingham.

Water chemistry is important for NEIPA, do you treat your water at all?

Just for reference this recipe gives you a decent idea of a well respected NEIPA recipe: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/363082/avg-perfect-northeast-ipa-neipa-

 

[divrack]

ok, so it's not way way off, but you need to take practically all your hops out of the boil and put them in right at the end, go big at flame out, chill for a bit to like 170f then put another big blast in and leave it to steep. then put a massive dry hop charge in while it's actively fermenting, say, 80g, and another big load just before it's done. really important to have no o2 getting to it, ideally ferment in a keg then closed loop transfer to a purged keg for conditioning.
if you can't do much with the O2 limiting then I'd suggest skipping the flaked wheat as it is thought to b be a contribution to hop oxygenation for reasons that are too complicated for me to remember.
you don't need all the flaked stuff to make a good neipa TBH but it's an easy way to do it.
consider a dash of melanoidin or honey malt and more pale and skip the lactose and peel.
I mean your recipe may well be a delicious beer but I wouldn't say it was classic neipa. probably a bit light for style too but I make them that way to good effect.
the hops are good choices though, maybe not huell melon, id probably put something with a bit of edge in there as well, such as citra or Galaxy.
eukanot is fantastic for the style.
you really don't need anything in the boil hop wise. just put a massive dose in to soak as it cools.

 

[Simonh82]

As Joel says this is a good start. I concur with him that the lactose and orange juice are unnecessary. I wouldn't use Nottingham for the yeast either. S04 should work well. Also Danstar now doe a New England yeast, so that would be a good bet.

Personally, I would alter the hop additions slightly. I would up the 60 minute addition a little bit and then put all of the rest of the kettle additions in one go as whirlpool hops. Leave them to steep for 20 minutes after flameout before chilling. That way you get maximum flavour without boiling off the volatile hop oils. You can also extract a significant amount of bitterness from whirlpool hops. The brewer's friend estimates seem to be fairly good if you select that option.

In terms of your dry hop, a lot of people say you need to add some dry hops during active fermentation. They yeasts used in NEIPA are supposed to be able to biotransform some hop oils, giving interesting fruity results. You could try adding 1/3 on day 2 of fermentation and the rest a few days later when fermentation has pretty much finished.

The other thing to mention is that people focus on the water profile for NEIPA quite a lot. It is meant to be weighted towards chlorides, which give a fuller mouthfeel and emphasise the malt sweetness. If you don't know your water profile it is worth getting a report either from your local water companies website or from Murphy and Sons who give a full breakdown of all of the important brewing minerals. A starting point might be to add half a tsp of calcium chloride flakes to your strike water.

 

[stz]

For the grist keep it simple.
At that abv (>5%) personally like a little dextrine malt (2-5%) to bring up the FG though at higher abv I'm using sugar to do the opposite. You'll catch cloudwater using maltodextrine in their table IPA's.
I avoid malt forward base malts unless the abv is low, then I'll usually blend a little (<25%) with extra low colour, the sweetness carries perceived aroma through into the flavour.
Flaked oats are lovely, but not essential. I do use them most of the time and if desired 10% is a nice round number, though usually ignore the extract values in favour of a couple of bags, rarely use both oats and wheat as they do similar jobs.
I find oat malt to have an inferior flavour, but better extract than torrified, the flavour of wheat is not desirable for me above 2% and that that point it is just another thing to open and weigh.
If you get hold of golden naked oats they add a noticeable sweetness and weight compared to regular torrefied which can do the job of blending in a more assertive malt and/or some dextrine if you were in those territories.
Don't know what you are mashing at, but I mash at a normal 65C, at 6.5% and 80% atten you don't need a brew finishing in the high teens. When digging the mash out you'll thank yourself for it. At lower abv this is compensated for by the dextrine, oats, malty malt etc.
Water should have rA knocked out of it using your libation of choice.
Cl:SO 1:1 - 2:1 or thereabout. Actual quantities are dependent on calcium levels in your liquor, get enough calcium in it and to hit your mash pH, but no need to go crazy.
Personally don't use copper fining. Use as few hops as the filter will handle in the boil for a minimum number of IBU's. Rest are in at knock out with variations on hop stand, recirculation and whirlpool depending on brew. Hop rates are typically 6-8g/L in the boil. Dry hopping is 10-30g/L.
Real magic is in the dry hopping and packaging process.