Begin Brewing!

In a previous post I shared  the recipe for the Digital Haze IPA kit  that was offered to attendees of HomeBrewCon 2021.  Today, I decided to brew the kit.  It was at that point that I realized the 8 ounce package of Carapils was missing from my kit. I decided to swap in some Pilsner malt I had that I wanted to use up - so what you see below is slightly different from the actual kit from Brewer's Best. Refer to the link above it you want the exact kit recipe. Ingredients 4 pounds Pilsen DME 1 pound Corn Sugar 8 ounces White Wheat Malt 8 ounces Flaked Oats 1.5 pounds German Pilsner Malt (8 oz. to replace Carapils, plus 16 "just because") 1 package Lallemand Voss Kveik yeast 1/4 tsp. Brewtan B (boil, 10 min.) - added to reduce oxidation 5.5 gallons of RO water, treated with: 1g Baking Soda 6.5g Calcium Chloride 3.3g Epsom Salt 1.5g Gypsum 2g Magnesium Chloride 1 Tbsp. pH 5.2 Stabilizer (optional, to hold pH at 5.2) Brewfather estimates the beer to have the following ...

Back in late December, I made the first version of a beer intended to be handed out as a favor to guests at my step-son's wedding. That beer was loosely based on a New England IPA recipe I'd found, but the hops were all swapped out for those with a decidedly citrus flavor. The resulting beer turned out more like a traditional American IPA than a New England style IPA (NEIPA). The American Homebrewers Association posted a recipe for WeldWerks Brewing's Juicy Bits NEIPA that sounded much more like what I was looking for. WeldWerks uses a blend of Citra, El Dorado, and Mosaic hops. With Mosaic often used interchangeably with Citra, I decided to remove Mosaic from the equation to keep things simpler. I also decided to drop El Dorado during the boil and go with an El Dorado hop extract in the dry hop phase.  Why only use Citra? Aside from the simplicity of eliminating one hop from the ingredient list, Kegerator.com describes Citra as " The Most Citrusy Aroma Hop in the ...

My step-son and his fiancee love big, citrusy IPAs. They would like me to brew one that could be given away as a favor to guests at the wedding. Not being a fan of IPAs in general, I don't have a recipe ready. Even if I did, I'd want to put a twist on it so that it's unique to them. Reviewing the information I could find on NEIPAs, I learned the following: Include high-protein malts (wheat, oats) in the grist to add body Use fruit-forward hop varieties Few kettle hop additions, more whirlpool hops (a challenge in automated systems) Ferment with low-attenuating, low-flocculating, ester-forward yeast, like London Ale, Dry English Ale, or Vermont/Conan Dry-hop during primary fermentation to allow yeast and hop qualities to bond Stay below 65 IBUs (generally) 1-3:1 chloride to sulfate ratio in the water (150-175 ppm chloride, 75-100 ppm sulfate) Dry hop with 0.5 to 1.3 oz. per gallon, added within 2-3 Plato (8-12 SG points) from final gravity Add most of the hops ...