Josh becomes a Hazy Boi
On the homebrewing scale hazy IPA’s can be somewhat daunting to a lot of brewers due the overall sensitive nature of the beer. Most of your basic brewing equipment can make it difficult to reduce the amount of oxygen on the cold side, but it isn’t impossible. Thanks to lots of research and trial and error we here at Hop Hands feel like we’re getting a good grasp on how to make a hazy that looks and tastes like what your favorite brewery might put out.
Let’s talk ingredients. In the past I’ve felt that my hazy IPA’s would tend to be a little too much on the hazy side (sounds crazy, I know), so I built this recipe to focus less on the haze from proteins and mainly focus on the haze produced from yeast.
93% Golden Promise
7% Flaked Oats
0.5oz Warrior
6oz Vic Secret
6oz Idaho 7
Gigayeast Vermont (1L Starter)
Started with 4.5 gallons of water which was treated with 3.8g of Calcium Chloride and 1.8g of Gypsum to achieve a nice balance for a fuller mouthfeel. I also treated the water with a little lactic acid to get the mash PH in the right range.
With the water ready I doughed in and hit my mash target of 152 which sat for 60 minutes with a few good stirs every 10-15 minutes to promote good conversion. After some recirculation I began the sparge and collected 7 gallons of wort in the kettle. I checked my pre-boil gravity which came in a little low at 1.049 vs the 1.055 estimated. Time to boil.
To keep the IBU’s low I added half an ounce of Warrior once it hit a boil and set the timer for an hour. After the boil I dropped the temp down to 180, hooked up the pump, and started my whirlpool additions.
I began with 3oz of Vic Secret and after 10 minutes added 3oz of Idaho 7. They whirlpooled in harmony for 30-40 minutes after which I grabbed the chiller and dropped the temp down to 70 and pitched my starter. I hooked up the FTSs and set the fermentation temp to 68 and left the yeast to do what it does best.
The yeast had a bit more of a lag than usual (damn you old yeast) but started after about 36 hours. After a couple days of fermenting I added 3oz of Vic Secret for my first dry hop. Oh, did I forget to mention this is a Double Dry Hop Hazy? That’s right, we’re going for a big aroma on this one. Twenty-four hours after the first dry hop, I added another 3oz of Idaho 7 and left it to finish fermenting over the next couple days.
Fermentation finished about 7 days after pitching at which point I jammed everything in my spare fridge and dropped the temp down to 35 to cold crash. It’s at this point that you generally risk introducing more O2 than you would want, but because I dry hop loose pellets I needed everything to fall out of suspension so I didn’t wind up with a bunch of hop matter in my keg. After a couple days in the fridge I stuck a tube connected to CO2 into the blowoff tube and used 1-2 psi to pressure transfer the beer to my clean, sanitized keg. I set the regulator to 30 psi and left it in the fridge overnight before dialing it down to serving pressure.
My initial impression of this beer was how great the haze turned out with less ingredients and also how great the aroma was. It carried a great tropical aroma with a flavor profile to match. It did still have a bit of a hop bite from almost 1lb of hops being used, but after a couple days of conditioning it mellowed out.
Overall I’m really happy with how this beer turned out and I’ve already got my next hazy planned with even more ways to reduce the oxygen from the cold side. Professional Hazy Boi, here we come!
Josh