We have entered 6 AHA/BJCP competitions so far this year, earning 10 medals, and attribute the success to implementing several improvements to the brewing process and focusing specifically on brewing hoppy beer styles.
We have a Pale Ale, IPA, and Double IPA that have received medals at local and regional competitions that are also entered into the first round of the American Homebrewers Association National Homebrew Competition in Austin, TX with judging starting April 1.
The following modifications to the brewing process have led to producing better and more consistent beer from batch to batch.
Fermentation Temperature Control
As the saying goes, brewers make
wort, but yeast make beer. Pitching an appropriate number of yeast
cells for the gravity and volume of wort is critically important for a
healthy and complete fermentation. Using fresh yeast and making starter wort as needed will grow the cell counts and kickstart quality fermentations. We ferment ales using White
Labs California Ale (WL001) or Wyeast American Ale (WY1056) at 64-66F
with an increase at the end to help the yeast clean up. We have a chest
freezer with a temperature regulator that makes this easy if the
basement temperature is too warm. The chest freezer can also serve to cold-crash fermentors, refrigerate, and carbonate beers before moving them into the kegerator.
Water Chemistry
I attended a John Palmer event on brewing water and have learned a lot about modifying water to enhance beer flavor. We added a carbon block filter attachment to the basement sink, which scrubs out the chlorine and chloramine. From there, we add salts to the brewing water to accentuate the flavors we are looking for in hoppy beer styles like Pale Ales and IPAs.
Our Fulton County (Roswell, GA) water report indicates the following profile, which is very soft and clean and a great starting point for brewing water:
- Calcium 8 parts per million (ppm)
- Magnesium 2ppm
- Sodium 9ppm
- Sulfate 4ppm
- Chloride 5ppm
- Bicarbonate 25ppm
For a hoppy beer like a Pale Ale, IPA, or Double IPA, we need to increase the calcium, chloride, and sulfate to accentuate the flavor. The recommended ranges are calcium to 50-150ppm, sulfate to 100-400ppm, & chloride to 50-100ppm. To achieve these levels, it requires roughly 4-7g of gypsum (calcium sulfate), 3-4g of epsom salt (magnesium sulfate), and 2-3g of calcium chloride, but your mileage may vary. We split the salts between the strike water and the sparge water depending on the volume allocated to each. There are a few spreadsheets available that aid in calculating the appropriate levels of each, which I have found to be very helpful, though they do vary on the numbers a little bit.
Cold Crashing, Kegging, Gelatin-fining, and Bottling
We have enhanced the post-fermentation process, which has helped increase the quality and appearance of our brews. We cold-crash the secondary after dry-hopping to drop the hops, trub, and yeast to the bottom of the carboy, then rack the cold beer into a keg purged with CO2. We add gelatin to the cold beer for a few days before force-carbonating it with CO2. We either serve it through the faucets in the kegerator and/or use the Blichmann Beer Gun to fill bottles or growlers.
New Instruments
We use a pH meter and a digital refractometer to measure the wort throughout the process, which allows us to make corrections on the fly if something is off and this careful analysis has led to batch consistency. Due to the fact our water is slightly acidic and we aren't using any dark or roasted malts in these beer styles, we typically arrive at a 5.2 pH without having to add any lactic acid to the strike water, which is nice.
These few enhancements have greatly increased the quality of our hoppy brews this year. Cheers!
