Pineapple Milkshake NEIPA - Brew Night

So last night Mark Anthony and I gathered at his place to take another shot at a NEIPA.  This recipe and brewday night were informed by our past attempts including our recent hazed and confused brew session.  In our hobby learning and developing as a brewer are best informed by trial and error.  You can and probably should read about the hobby.  This and other blogs give lots of great information.  There are hundreds of books that inform you about the hobby.  Certainly, there are two really excellent magazines about it.  You can and should watch videos about brewing.  There are lots of great videos on brewing on youtube.  Some of them are actually by really excellent brewers who actually know what they are talking about.  Some of them should be avoided.  But nothing will inform you like actual experience brewing- both with success and failure.   And there is no substitute for lots and lots of practice.  Practice is the main reason I am such a fan of 2.5 - 3 gallon stove top batches.


I love this hobby.  I have for years.  And over the years, I have developed some best practices that work well for me.  Many have been learned through trial and error, many through study.  Many in my case by having a mentor who taught me so very much.

So why am I digressing about learning and experience on a brew night post?  Where the hell are the photos of the grain and wort?  Where's the freaking recipe?  Well, because we nailed the brew night last night.  It wasn't perfect, but our experience and knowledge was able to overcome the problems that we had with the brew day.

Last night we brewed a session pineapple milkshake NEIPA with centennial, citra, and mosaic.  3.3 gallon batch.  Here is the recipe.

3 gallon batch
1.048 OG    1.013 FG  ABV 4.63  IBU 47 Rager   SRM 10 Daniels  65% Efficiency

Fermentables
3 lbs 6 Row - Cargill (love this malt)
8 oz Flaked Oats - Quaker
8 oz Cane Sugar (late) - C&H
5 oz Cara 60 - Cargill
4 oz Wheat Malt -  Cargill Malted White Wheat
1/4th LB - Lactose
(the sugar from the 46 oz of pineapple sugar, for me the calculation was about 6.6 ounces of sugar)

The Hops
1 oz at 15 Centennial 10% AA
.5 oz Whirlpool CITRA 12 AA% 15 minute whirlpool starting at 175 F
.5 oz Whirlpool MOSAIC 11 AA%15 minute whirlpool starting at 175 F
.5 oz Dry hop CITRA CRYO 25.2 AA% at high krausen
.5 oz Dry hop MOSAIC CRYO 24.2% AA% at high krausen
.5 oz Dry hop CITRA CRYO 25.2 AA% days
.5 oz Dry hop MOSAIC CRYO 24.2% AA% 3 days

The yeast - Wyeast British Ale 2 1335 - why? Several friends have reported excellent results for this yeast in this style.  We are aware it is a departure from London Ale 2.  We'll report back on results. going to ferment at 66 F.

The mash - Full volume, no sparge at 153 F

The water - NEIPA profile- balance the calcium and the chlorides for us we were about CA 125 and Chloride 175.  That gives the desired "soft mouth feel".

The brew night was really relaxing and pretty much free of any major problems.  We made our water adjustments and heated the water to the strike temperature recommended by Brewersfriend.  But somehow I screwed up my settings on my equipment profile.  Rather than telling the software that I loose 7 degrees F upon mash in, I told it I loose 3 degrees F on mash in.  So we were sitting at 149 rather than 153 F.  What do you do?  Well you have a couple of options.  You can do nothing or you can bring the temperature up somehow.  With our cooler mash tun, increasing the temperature by flipping the switch is not an option.  So we did what we do when we miss; we used the calculator on brewersfriend to calculate an infusion.  And used the water that would have been for the mash out addition to bring the temperature up to the correct rest temperature.  No big deal.  We were only planning on 65% efficiency and no sparge so skipping the mash out is really not a big deal for us.  We also could have pulled a decoction, something you have seen us do many times.


Here is the point: experience and knowledge are your real tools on a brew day.  Not fancy fancy equipment.  Not your computers (although they are really important). Experience and knowledge.  And you get those by brewing... brewing a lot.

Other best practice steps we took?  Well we used a brew bag as a mash filter.  We used 1 camden tablet to remove chlorine and to scavenge off additional oxygen.  We used aluminum foil as a mash cap.  When we stirred, we stirred gently.  As you all know I am skeptical about oxygen's effect on mashing, but on the other hand I am not going to invite extra oxygen into the game.  We also bagged our hops.  There is no reason to increase hop debris in your wort.  We chilled this one in the sink with ice water.  We knew it would chill quickly with the addition of the frozen pineapple juice.   We were at pitching temperatures in 20 minutes.

And most importantly we are getting the 2.5 - 3 gallon no sparge system dialed in for upcoming contest season.  Can't wait to taste this beer.  The wort samples were amazing.

The beer is now happily fermenting at 66 F.  The beer should be ready for packaging in under a week.  It is a session beer.  So I will wait 24 hours after it reaches terminal gravity, and package immediately. 

Next Up?   John and I have something up our sleeves for this weekend.   Stay tuned.  Then in about 2 weeks I will be showing you all how to make an apple ale, easy partial mash delicious...Graff.  The LODO part 2 post is coming soon.

That's all for now brew nerds.