NE IPA too ambitious for first go at AG?

[r-evans]

I currently have two recipe threads that a few people have kindly helped me piece together recipes for based on the kinda beers I love, NE Hop Bombs.

Have been told a few times it's quite an ambitious recipe for my first ever brew and reading some other people's attempts at it, it looks like they don't always work out the way intended. Water treatment is a big thing I know and I'm kinda starting to realise it is a little above my knowledge.

If I just use bottled water with no treatment, what am I likely to be left with with a heavy dry hopped, pale malt with oats and wheat ale?

Should I try something simpler?

 

[Martybhoy]

Water treatment (IMO) is at the fine tuning end of the brew process. It won't drastically change your brew into something completely different.

I'd say forget the water treatment (maybe just add a Campden tablet to the water prior to mashing).

I'd also say go for the NE IPA. If it's your first AG, there's a chance you'll miss the mark (it's a steep learning curve). But I have always found hoppy IPAs to be very forgiving. So even if it doesn't turn out to be an exact NE IPA, you'll be close, and still have a good brew for drinking.

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[strange-steve]

It seems to be a little tricky to get right stylistically, but it's not really any more difficult to make than any other beer. And when they go "wrong" it's not that you end up with a bad beer, but usually it's just more like a standard IPA than a NEIPA.

Re water treatment, you should be able to get a water report online for your area. Post the details here and we'll be able to help you out. Your water might be fine as is, or maybe with a little blending.

 

[r-evans]

It seems to be a little tricky to get right stylistically, but it's not really any more difficult to make than any other beer. And when they go "wrong" it's not that you end up with a bad beer, but usually it's just more like a standard IPA than a NEIPA.

Re water treatment, you should be able to get a water report online for your area. Post the details here and we'll be able to help you out. Your water might be fine as is, or maybe with a little blending.

My plan was to use bottled water as I don't like our tap water at all.

I have just done an online water report and there is so much info (10 page PDF) I have no idea what to post :lol:

Here's the main headings;

HARD water.

Calcium carbonate(CaCO3): 253 ppm

Natural fluoride content of your water:0.1 ppm

Water we supply contains virtually no lead.

 

[strange-steve]

Can you post a link to it? If not then have a look for calcium, sulphate and chloride levels.

 

[Sadfield]

+1 to what strange-steve said. Was going to post the same in a more clumsy manner.

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[r-evans]

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/Help-.../Check-the-water-quality-in-your-area/success

 

[Ajhutch]

You either live on my road, or the Thames Water website remembers when I searched my postcode!

EDIT: It remembers the postcode, which probably means your link isn't going to work for others.

 

[r-evans]

You either live on my road, or the Thames Water website remembers when I searched my postcode!

SE19 1RX :thumb:

 

[Ajhutch]

OK, a little way away from me, I'm in SW17. Our reports are pretty similar though.

Thames Water reports don't include a figure for Calcium, I tried talking to them about it and got nowhere so I bought a Salifert Ca test kit as well as an alkalinity test kit. Then I thought about it some more and decided our water is really not that good for brewing pales beers, as the hardness level is so high you'd have to add a lot of either CRS (which introduces other minerals) or lactic (where you'd be flirting with the flavour threshold mentioned by @strange-steve in his excellent threads on the subject). So for anything other than dark bitters or stouts I will use bottled water now.

At the weekend I brewed a NE IPA and I used Sainsbury's Caledonian bottled water which required a small lactic treatment and some calcium chloride, nice and easy.

 

[strange-steve]

Ajhutch is right, your water isn't great. Tesco Ashbeck will be fine to use, even better if you can get some calcium chloride and add a tsp to the mash.

 

[r-evans]

Ajhutch is right, your water isn't great. Tesco Ashbeck will be fine to use, even better if you can get some calcium chloride and add a tsp to the mash.

Any Calcium Chloride in particular? Not sure if I can buy in supermarkets or just Home Brew stores?

Also, as you both seem to have experience with NE IPA, I grabbed some Marris Otter last night, is that a good base malt for NE IPA or should I get something better? Also grabbed some Wheat Malt but now not sure if that is different to White Wheat as my recipe lists (Simply because it's a pale brown :lol:)

 

[grmski]

If it were me then I'd recommend going for a nice hoppy SMASH recipe. Lets you get the hoppiness you want (depending on what you use) but takes out some areas where you could have problems. A nice Amarillo smash would be along the lines of 5kg Maris Otter so around 1055 OG, bitter to 45 IBU's with Amarillo at the start of the boil (so for 60 mins) then chuck in 50 g of Amarillo at flame out. Should aim for a FG about 1010-1012 so you'll get a hoppy pale ale at about 5.5%. Start with 25 litres of Ashbeck water in the boiler and you should end up with around 20-22 litres into the FV. The colour just using MO will be light straw so nice and pale. The hop is great and I bet you'll love it and there's a limited number of things to go wrong.

 

[Zephyr259]

Go for it, I did one as my 3rd AG stove-top batch.

1.5 kg maris otter, 200g medium crystal, 200g malted wheat, 100g flaked oats.
I went for a hop-burst style schedule (think that's the right term), hops were equal quantities of amarillo, cascade and galaxy as below.
20 min - 1.5g
15 min - 2.5g
10 min - 3.5g
5 min - 4.5g
0 min - 5.5g

I planned to do a dry hop but didn't bother in the end, fermented with danstar winsor for some unknown reason... only got down to 1.020 but I did mash hot at 68C (and help the temp in the oven since towels were losing too much heat). Ended up with a really tasty beer, a bit dark for the "style" due to the crystal but I'm sure I read somewhere it's used, I could say it's a NE(Scotland) IPA since crystal is so prevalent in British beers. :-) Extremely smooth and hoppy but also satisfying due to the high finishing gravity and the high protein grains, would definitely brew this again. My father-in-law just found one in his fridge after a few months, it had dropped almost crystal clear and they rated it as the best beer of the bunch they were drinking that day (decided to sample a few of my brews I'd given him with some of his mates).

So as others have said, good for it, even if it's not perfectly to style you'll still end up with something tasty.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Tesco value water comes from chase spring and thats a bit cheaper too :whistle:

 

[r-evans]

Go for it, I did one as my 3rd AG stove-top batch.

1.5 kg maris otter, 200g medium crystal, 200g malted wheat, 100g flaked oats.
I went for a hop-burst style schedule (think that's the right term), hops were equal quantities of amarillo, cascade and galaxy as below.
20 min - 1.5g
15 min - 2.5g
10 min - 3.5g
5 min - 4.5g
0 min - 5.5g

I planned to do a dry hop but didn't bother in the end, fermented with danstar winsor for some unknown reason... only got down to 1.020 but I did mash hot at 68C (and help the temp in the oven since towels were losing too much heat). Ended up with a really tasty beer, a bit dark for the "style" due to the crystal but I'm sure I read somewhere it's used, I could say it's a NE(Scotland) IPA since crystal is so prevalent in British beers. :-) Extremely smooth and hoppy but also satisfying due to the high finishing gravity and the high protein grains, would definitely brew this again. My father-in-law just found one in his fridge after a few months, it had dropped almost crystal clear and they rated it as the best beer of the bunch they were drinking that day (decided to sample a few of my brews I'd given him with some of his mates).

So as others have said, good for it, even if it's not perfectly to style you'll still end up with something tasty.

Sounds good, I'm definitely going to try this style. My recipe has more MO and less Crystal so shouldn't be too dark for me.

Would you recommend mashing at a lower temp then if you struggled to hit FG?

 

[Zephyr259]

Hard to say for sure. I think Windsor is a poor attenuator, and my house was quite cold at the time. The CML US ale is a very good attenuator from what I hear in these forums so you probably shouldn't struggle. Have you run the recipe through any brewing software?

 

[r-evans]

Hard to say for sure. I think Windsor is a poor attenuator, and my house was quite cold at the time. The CML US ale is a very good attenuator from what I hear in these forums so you probably shouldn't struggle. Have you run the recipe through any brewing software?

Have done on the recipe builder on this site, I have Beersmith on my phone too but not done that yet.

 

[Sadfield]

A very good attenuator is not what you want with this style.

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[YourBrew]

You should totally go ahead with your recipe, just don't expect to turn out perfect as it is a tricky style even for experienced brewers. Worst case scenario you end up with a nice hazy IPA. Try to have fun and don't worry too much about the water right now, focus on the technique and the process.