New England IPA conditioning/turnaround

[Toxophilly]

G'day all,

Yesterday I knocked up my first attempt at the 'New England' IPA style. There will be ample dry hopping both during active fermentation and right before bottling, but what I'm struggling to find much guidance on is the appropriate 'conditioning' time - that is, the time between primary finishing, and bottling. :hmm:

I gather time is of the essence to preserve max hop aroma and kegging isn't an option for me at the moment, so 2 weeks to carb bottles is a minimum. Should I therefore be bottling as soon as I see no change in FG over several days, i.e. right after primary is finished? That could mean 3 weeks between brewing and drinking, if my primary fermentation goes well. :-o

I've previously always allowed beers around a month to condition before bottling. Would I be inviting off flavours with such a short turnaround? :wha:

Toxophilly

 

[terrym]

Your beer should be safe to bottle when the SG has bottomed out. For most beers this is usually about 7 -10 days from pitching, although it can be less or more.
However if you intend to dry hop I would leave this until the fermentation has finished, and ideally starting to clear. If you do it whilst the fermentation is still underway you will lose some aroma.
I would then leave the hops in the brew between 5-7 days and by then, assuming it was starting to clear when you added the hops, it should be clear or nearly clear, but with enough yeast to carb up, and this will significantly reduce the amount of yeast going forward at packaging time.
Carbing usually only takes one to two weeks if the beer is kept in a warm place say 20*C, so is slightly independant of conditioning.
So as far as conditioning is concerned this can vary according to the beer. Some beers can be drunk young and dont improve much so you could be drinking 3 weeks after packaging. Other beers especially darker stronger beers need longer to come good and it will be months rather than weeks before they reach their best. The only way you will find out is to sample your beer at weekly intervals to see if you are happy to go ahead and get stuck in.
Finally I have found that the impact of a dry hop reduces over time. After about 4 months its almost gone, but that can vary according to the hop used.

 

[Beersort]

What's the OG of your beer?

I've done two NEIPA's - one was a session style (4.7%) and a stronger one (6.5%)

The session style NEIPA was ready to drink around 2-3 weeks. The stronger NEIPA was ready to drink around 3-4 weeks. Would just say open a bottle after two weeks and see how it's getting on.

 

[Toxophilly]

What's the OG of your beer?

I was aiming for normal strength and overshot it a bit so got 1.077

 

[Sadfield]

Sorry Terrym you've probably picked the one style of beer where you advice is not applicable. It needs to ferment out, obviously. Do dry hop during active fermentation and don't wait for or expect the beer to clear. As I've stated elsewhere, Toxophilly, let your senses guide you, if it smells and tastes like a NEIPA get in the glass as soon as possible.

 

[terrym]

Sorry Terrym you've probably picked the one style of beer where you advice is not applicable. It needs to ferment out, obviously. Do dry hop during active fermentation and don't wait for or expect the beer to clear. As I've stated elsewhere, Toxophilly, let your senses guide you, if it smells and tastes like a NEIPA get in the glass as soon as possible.

Read what I said, which is to allow it to finish before bottling, and my advice is always to let it finish or thereabouts before you dry hop. If you don't you can smell the aroma oils leaving the FV with the CO2, which rather defeats the object of dry hopping in my book. And I also said that some beers can be drink young, so try them early. If this this is one of those beers so be it, you will find that out by sampling as I said.
That aside if this style of beer never clears then there is no point in leaving it in the FV after its finished unless there is anything to be gained by bulk conditioning. On this point I have no experience so you may be right, and I have learned something.:thumb:

 

[Sadfield]

I read what you said, it is very clear. Just wrong in this singular instance, I'm afraid. The ingredients and Method section of this article has the important detail regarding dry hopping.

 

[MrRock]

I did one recently and fermented mine for my usual 2 weeks or thereabouts, which turned out to be 12 days this time (although it was finished fermenting after a few days) dry hopped on day 2 and 7.

It tasted fantastic at bottling and I tried a bottle about a week later and it tasted so good I just started drinking it from there, forgoing my usual 2 weeks warm, 2 weeks cool after bottling.

This is definitely a style to drink young as it starts to fade after only a few weeks in the bottle, some commercial examples are now coming out with 30 or 45 day best before dates on them.

 

[Toxophilly]

Thanks for the replies all. I opened it up and after 24 hours or so there was a big fluffy krausen so I piled a load of pellets in. Now 12 hours later the pellets have dissolved into the krausen, it's all green and smells great; stone fruity.

Think I'll wait till it seems to have hit FG, dry hop again, then bottle.

Will keep you updated

 

[Ajhutch]

Sounds like you've got the right plan. I bottled after 12 days on mine but frankly the last 5 of those were down to real life interrupting my brewing plans. The yeast I used was a monster and finished in about four days (and yes, I checked!). I dry hopped on day 2 and 4. I've heard of people doing only a day or even shorter for the second dry hop and getting his style bottled and drunk asap.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Toxophilly]

Well the Nottingham yeast has done a great job and got it down to 1.014, but that's a change from yesterday's 1.017 so I'm hesitant to bottle just yet in case it keeps going.

The smell is fantastic and for something in the 7-8% abv region there's no obvious alcohol (OG reading was a bit uncertain, two hydrometers gave different results but somewhere between 67-77).

I think I'll do my second dry hop tomorrow hoping that by Thursday 14th fermentation will have levelled out and into bottle it'll go. Then somewhere warm for carbing and I'll start sampling from 1 week :-P