Author: Greg Foster

After a long period of initial skepticism, I’m finally comfortable admitting I’m fully aboard hazy IPA train. The once incredibly rare style has become much easier to find here on the west coast, so I’ve been able to taste enough of the brews to determine that yes, they are quite often delicious. Unfortunately, that’s about the only conclusive statement I can make about the style. I’ve heard plenty of anecdotal information about what makes NEIPA so special, but very little of it has been supported by hard evidence. Is it the hops, yeast, water profile, oats, or some magical combination of them all that produces the “juicy” quality modern hop-heads crave?

One of the more common recommendations those looking to achieve maximum juiciness receive is to introduce the dry hop addition at high kräusen, which is said to unlock the full potential of hop oils via a process referred to as “biotransformation.” While the results of our recent xBmt on the topic demonstrated it had an impact on appearance, tasters couldn’t reliably tell a beer dry hopped at high kräusen apart from one dry hopped once fermentation had died down. I don’t necessarily question whether biotransformation occurs in the brewing scenario, though I’m admittedly skeptical of the strong impact some claim it has on beer.

After publishing those results, we received suggestions from readers to take this variable to the extreme by comparing a standard dry hopped beer to one where the dry hops went along for the entire fermentation ride, being added at yeast pitch. I’ve never done such a thing and began to wonder if the additional contact time during active fermentation might encourage more juice inducing biotransformation to occur or maybe even have some other impact on the character of a NEIPA.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a NEIPA dry hopped at the beginning of fermentation and the same beer dry hopped toward the end of fermentation.

| METHODS |

I designed a NEIPA with a simple grain bill to showcase any contributions from the different dry hop additions.

Too Early, Too Late NEIPA

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 20.8 L 60 min 54.3 IBUs 3.6 SRM 1.056 1.015 5.4 % Actuals 1.056 1.008 6.3 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 4.536 kg 85.11 Oats, Flaked 793.8 g 14.89 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Yakima Valley Hops Extract 5 g 60 min Boil Pellet 61 Citra 14 g 10 min Boil Pellet 12 Simcoe 14 g 10 min Boil Pellet 13 Centennial 35 g 4 days Dry Hop Pellet 10 Citra 35 g 4 days Dry Hop Pellet 12 Galaxy 35 g 4 days Dry Hop Pellet 14 Simcoe 35 g 4 days Dry Hop Pellet 13 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature London Ale III (1318) Wyeast Labs 73% 17.78°C - 23.33°C Notes Water Profile: Ca 106 | Mg 0 | Na 0 | CL 102 | SO4 118

The morning of my brew day, I spun up a large starter Wyeast 1318 London Ale III yeast, a strain I’ve successfully induced a milkshake-like haze with in the past.

Six hours later, I got back to work by weighing out and milling my incredibly simple grain bill.

As my brewing water was heating to strike temperature, I added minerals and acid to achieve my target profile.

Once the water had reached strike temperature, I mashed in, gave it a good stir, and turned on the RIMS to re-circulate for 60 minutes before confirming the mash was resting at my desired temperature.

Following the 60 minute mash, I transferred the sweet wort to my electric kettle, performed a routine batch sparge to reach pre-boil volume, then turned on the heat. Once boiling, I added a measured dose of hop extract for bittering.

The wort was boiled for an hour with hops and whirlfloc added per the recipe. I then ran the wort through my counterflow chiller into separate fermentation kegs, each receiving an identical 4 gallons. At this point, my kitchen could only be properly be described as a giant mess.

In order to avoid clogs during later transfers, I covered the dip tubes in each fermentor with a stainless mesh hop blocker.

I proceeded to pitch the yeast, each batch receiving half of the starter I’d made earlier in the day. With wort now officially beer, it was time to introduce the xBmt variable. I measured out two equal quantities of the same hops and immediately added half to a just pitched beer.

I then vacuum sealed the other dry hop charge and placed them in my freezer to reduce the chances oxidation. The beers fermented next to each other in my chamber controlled to 65°F/18°C, signs of activity present the following day. When I returned to check on the beers 4 days later, fermentation had slowed to a crawl in both, indicating it was time to add the dry hop charge to the other batch. Once again attempting to reduce oxygen as much as possible, I purged the bag of hops with CO2 before hastily opening the keg and adding them to the beer.

My fear of oxidation further compelled me to purge the headspace of both kegs with CO2… 10 times. I then turned up my chamber temperature to 70°F/21°C and left the beers for a week before confirming FG was reached in both.

After a couple days of cold crashing, I pressure transferred the beers into separate sanitized serving kegs.

The beers were fined with gelatin, which I added to each keg, and burst carbonated before being set to serving pressure to condition for a few more days. Samples pulled a few days later revealed beers of similar haze with neither possessing quite the milkshake look I was expecting. Curiously, after a 3 weeks in the keg, once data collection was complete, the beer dry hopped at yeast pitch was considerably clearer than the standard dry hop batch.

| RESULTS |

A total of 16 people with varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt while attending a Pacific Gravity Brewing Club meeting at Los Angeles Ale Works.

Each participant was served 1 sample of the beer dry hopped at yeast pitch and 2 samples of the standard dry hop beer then asked to identify the sample that was unique. Given the sample size, 11 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to correctly identify the beer as being different in order to reach statistical significance. In the end, only 6 participants (p=0.65) accurately identified the unique sample, indicating participants in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a beer where the dry hop charge was in contact throughout the duration of fermentation from the same beer where the dry hop charge was added toward the end of fermentation.

My Impressions: In between testing Pacific Gravity club members, I triangle tested myself once and chose incorrectly. In my opinion the beers tasted identical and I was just randomly guessing. A month later when one of the beers cleared up, I tested myself again. I attempted a “blind” side by side. I thought I could detect one of the beers tasting smoother and cleaner. I surmised my choice would be clear beer, but I discovered I was wrong. I then tried to triangle test myself one more time and was wrong once again. I just couldn’t tell these beers apart. As for the recipe, I’m not sure if it could be called a proper NEIPA due to the minimal haze, but it sure is tasty nonetheless.

| DISCUSSION |

The point at which dry hops should be added to beer has been a topic of debate among brewers for as long as I’ve been in the hobby, though it seems to have become even more of a focus with the rising popularity of NEIPA. Having previously embraced the method of adding dry hops toward the end of fermentation, for reasons admittedly unknown other than it’s what I’ve heard is “best,” I was pretty surprised participants in this xBmt couldn’t reliably distinguish a beer dry hopped at yeast pitch from a standard dry hop beer. While this did little to fulfill my hopes of unraveling some of the mysteries behind NEIPA, I was stumped by some of the observations I made throughout the process.

Most shocking to me was the difference in clarity between the beers in this xBmt, not so much that they were different, but rather the fact the beer dry hopped at yeast pitch ended up clearing quite a bit more than the standard dry hop beer. Given the results of the recent biotransformation xBmt where the beer dry hopped at high krausen maintained more haze than a standard dry hopped beer, I’m left asking if perhaps there is something to the timing of dry hop additions, at least when it comes to appearance. Also, might it be possible that actual biotransformation, subtle as its impact may be, occurs more readily when hops are added at high krausen as opposed to the beginning or end of fermentation? So many questions!

Based on results of our collaborative xBmt on gelatin fining a NEIPA, I was confident it wouldn’t have much of an impact on clarity or flavor, which appears to have been the case only for standard dry hop beer… which is odd because I’ve made plenty of bright IPA using essentially the same exact methods, the only real difference being yeast strain and flaked oats. Still, I’m fascinated by whatever it is about hops being added prior to active fermentation that would lead to better clarification properties and look forward to ongoing exploration of this mysterious new style!

If you have any thoughts about this xBmt, please do not hesitate to share in the comments section below!

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