OVHA Chat

I have made one attempt at an 'American IPA' style beer.It's still in the fermenter clearing,and calling my name(I'm not sure it's even,really,an IPA ).Untill recently,my onset reaction to IPA was simply "YUCK!" (who the hey wants to drink something that bitter?).Well,I don't know what happened,but,I have quite suddenly re aligned my disposition on the matter and,anyway,I am now obsessed.

To the point.I overheard someone saying that higher mash temperature was needed for IPAs but conventional info suggests that IPAs are traditionaly mashed at lower temperatures to maximize fermentability.What's the twist?Higher that what?Lower than what?

What should I do?

If your initial reaction to IPA's was yuck then you are more like myself. If you want to win an American "competition", then I would suggest you brew yuck. It seems to me that American IPA's are in competition among themselves to be more off-balanced than the next. I recently put a pound of hops in a 10 gallon batch which sounds like a lot, but it is balanced between bitter, aroma, and flavor. I hear a lot of non-brewers always tell me that they like my IPA even though they normally do not. However, among brewers, I'm always told it's not bitter enough.

As far as mash temps, it depends. If you are doing a high alcohol, you want a fermentable beer. Even finishing low, but at 10%, you will perceive a lot of body. If you make a 5%, you need unfermentables, so higher temps or unfermentable grain additions. Balance between those extremes. Good luck!

Hi folks, Chris Alvey here from the American IPA Enthusiasts Society here to remind you of our motto ... "If you move those hops to the back then you prolly' won't yak."

That is all - Good day.

Chris Alvey wrote:Hi folks, Chris Alvey here from the American IPA Enthusiasts Society here to remind you of our motto ... "If you move those hops to the back then you prolly' won't yak."

That is all - Good day.

Hi folks, Chris Alvey here from the American IPA Enthusiasts Society here to remind you of our motto ... "If you move those hops to the back then you prolly' won't yak."

That is all - Good day.

That's pretty clear,Chris Alvey.Thank you for such a cleverly informative and witty comment,as my preponderance toward another,equally silly question is..."how hoppy should it be"?

Also thanks,sirgiovanni.I can figure it out from there.Also a good answer.And you, probably,answered my second question as well.The style seems to have a lot of open teritory.Good job,both of yous.

Oh,yeah...and Don,too.

.......IPA......

I am getting ready to brew an IPA and it calls for oak chips in the secondary. I am guessing this will take some of the bitter out and add a oak barrel flavor.

I think it's really a matter of taste and experimentation to be honest. I kind of imagine there were some weird kind of balance scale that has three sides. In an IPA you have the overall malt profile on one arm, your perception of base hop bitterness on another arm and your flavor/aroma hop component on the third arm.

The goal then is to imagine in what configuration you want that weird scale to end up in and make that happen. For my tastes the thing is definitely out of balance tipping with the flavor/aroma arm a bit lower than the base bitterness arm and the malt arm, while not ridiculously out of balance, definitely the lighter of the three. That's certainly not everyone's preference.

In IBU terms I would say roughly 60 to 70'ish might be a good starting goal for an IPA with at least half of those IBUs contributed from hops added in the second half of the boil. Beer Smith is a good program for adding a hop addition, looking at the numbers, and experimenting from there. My little IBU calculator http://www.brew365.com/ibu_calculator.php might not be too bad for that either.

I think it's really a matter of taste and experimentation to be honest. I kind of imagine there were some weird kind of balance scale that has three sides. In an IPA you have the overall malt profile on one arm, your perception of base hop bitterness on another arm and your flavor/aroma hop component on the third arm.

That's a very ingenious way to think of it and easy to understand.I bottled my little IPA 2 days ago and had a good taste of it.It ain't exactly in the circle but I'm getting the idea.Going from 'preferring beers that are only slightly tipped to base bitterness' to suddenly 'gotta have an IPA ( or such ) in my catalog' seems like a high hurdle,to me.But,please,don't assume the negative.I am very pleased with my 'sort of an IPA' results.Gonna try an India Black Ale soon.That may be a worthy challenge,as well.

Thanks for the support.Drive responsibly,drink only enough.

"American IPA" isn't a style so much as a gross over-indulgence in hops.

Traditional India Pale Ales were stronger and more highly hopped than "normal" pale ales to withstand shipping to India on sailing ships (in barrels, I presume, hence the oak chips). Pale Ales are more highly hopped and stronger than "bitters", which I would class as ordinary 3.2 beer today. My guess is that the alcohol content was about 6% ABV, no more, and about 1/3 more hops, more or less. The minimum that would preserve the beer for the trip, I expect. Cost is always an issue in a business, and the makers of IPA for shipment to India were not hobby brewers.

Modern beers are probably different (and better beer, too).

It's all a matter of taste, and the current "American IPA" taste is for so much hop flavor you could just add some ever-clear to dirty water that has had a couple pounds of hops per gallon boiled in it and some people would swear they are in heaven. Add a couple crushed grapefruit peels and they would die of bliss. I once read a judges report on a beer that had to have been 80 IBU or more complaining it needed more hops, as if 2 oz of 12% alpha acid hops in the boil for a 5 gallon batch and two or three ounces at the end of boil wasn't enough! Must be some sort of disease induced by mis-reading supposed brewing recipes that called for huge amounts of hops in 1500, forgetting that one must translate the measures, or a serious case of eating too many hot peppers and loosing all the taste buds on the tongue (it happens).

My personal feeling is that if you are belching hops the next six hours after drinking a beer, you put too many in. If you can still taste the bitterness an hour later, it was too bitter. One can also mask brewing defects with super hopping, another reason for it's popularity, I suspect.

On the more serious side, the mash temperature has a large influence on the frementability and final gravity, hence residual sweetness, of the beer. Lower temperatures (above 150F) favor the activity of beta amylase, which makes maltose from long chain starches. High temperatures degrade beta amylase quickly and therefor leave more long chain sugars that normal brewing yeasts cannot metabolize, making the end product higher in gravity and sweeter. Wild yeasts can sometimes use those long chain sugars, though -- a leading cause of overcarbonation and funky tastes.

Depending on what you want in your final beer -- malt, hops, and the balance between the two -- you will have to set and maintain the correct temperature in the mash. The grain you use has an effect too -- pale malt acts differently than lager malt, and roasted or crystal malts/caramel malts add other things, including non-fermentable sugars. You must get the temperature over 150F for a least a short time, though -- the starch isn't fully gelatinized until you do, and it will hang around as haze in the beer after boiling if the temperature never hit 150 during the mash. Mash-out at 167 won't help, because the alpha amylase is also dead by then.

One should also not confuse hop FLAVOR with hop BITTERNESS, as I suspect some people do. As Chris pointed out, dry hopping gives lots of flavor with no extra bitterness. If you want significant hop aroma, you can only dry hop, as the aroma will boil off in minutes. Flavor goes a bit slower, but not much, so you won't get any flavor at all from bittering hops (longer than 30 min boil). The practice of adding flavor and aroma hops just before chilling is a good idea -- most of the flavor and aroma will stay around, but they are sanitized by the boiling wort. Or you can remove the condensate drain in your vent stack at the bewery and let all the volatiles drip back into the beer, as happened at Turoni's before they got a professional brewer in. Ruined an otherwise pretty nice batch of Double Diamond Ale -- the flavor of the hops overwhelmed everything else.

Peter

Depending on what you want in your final beer -- malt, hops, and the balance between the two

Thank you Peter.That concept is spot on and and essentialy the pivot point of my confusion.I know what I want MY BEER to conform to and I am getting much better at making that happen.However,I do seek a moderate level of 'peer approval',in so much as not wanting my fellow tasters hiding thier cups when they see me coming and all.That hasn't happened,of course,but poorly impimented biterness could be a powerfull catylist in that regard.

I have been doing All Grain Brewing for about 2 years and,untill recently,stayed away from brewing to style guidelines ( APA,IPA,etc.)mainly because if one claims to have brewed to Style it must coform to said style and I just didn't have the neccesary skills.Oh,I probably could have picked a recipe off the web or from a book,etc.and followed the instructions(if listed),providing that said recipe was reliable and a fair example of whatever style.But I have always formulated my own recipes,except when I was brewing extract kits in my beginer days.Not that there is anything wrong with practicing on other peoples recipes,I just don't see how it would nurture my creativity,and creativity seems to me,is the main ingredient of home brewing.
I bottled my 'First IPA ' ~ 10 days ago.Yesterday I opened a bottle to check the carbonation.I was very pleased with the flavor,body and percieved bitterness.It was smooth with a pronunced,non overwhelming bitterness backed up by noticable hop flavor and very clean maltiness.It had very good foam which lasted to the end,which was suprising for only 10 days in the bottle.It was no 'Two Hearted Ale' but,heck,I can go buy that.

'IPA QUESTION'surely has had a very amazingly good turn of responses.Thank you all very much and keep it comming if you like.

Brewing to style takes quite a bit of practice to get right. It helps to make the same beer over and over til you get it right, but most of the people I know make a variety rather than a single style.

Not to mention that it takes quite a bit of skill to produce superb lagers -- any defect in materials or practice will almost always become the predominant flavor.

Fortunately, we don't have to like all of them to brew beer!

Peter

most of the people I know make a variety rather than a single style.

Yes,me included

Don't assume this to be madness or lack of focus.I am zeroing in on the ones I like and even though I don't brew the same one twice in a row I do keep records and try to keep my sessions progressive.