I tried a new hop a couple of weeks ago, and just gave it a serious tasting. BTW total oils for Azacca is 1.8.
The aroma is quite enjoyable: Tropical fruits & Citrus mainly
The flavor majors on Mango, and ripe pineapple and generic citrus (maybe bending toward tangerine), Juicy fruit gum.
The only disappointment was the character of the bitterness. First, it is so reserved that I would characterize it more of a Pale Ale than an IPA, but I like substantial bitterness in my IPA’s so that may be all there is to that. My wife thinks it is bitter enough to be an IPA. But there is something about the flavor or character of the bitterness that I don’t like.
So if I do one again, I’ll use a different bittering hop and add a bit more flavor/late additions. Overall I’d give it a solid B.
Here’s the recipe so you can see what I did:
Azacca IPA
Type: All Grain, 5.5 gallon, Boil Time: 60 min
Ingredients
10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) 78.4 %
2 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) 15.7 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L 5.9 %
1.00 oz Azacca [14.86 %] - Boil 60.0 min 44.0 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 mins)
1.00 oz Azacca [14.86 %] - Boil 10.0 min 16.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Azacca [14.86 %] - Boil 5.0 min 8.8 IBUs
2.00 oz Azacca [14.86 %] - Boil 1.0 min 3.8 IBUs
4.00 oz Azacca [14.86 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 5.0 min 17.5 IBUs
Re-Pitch London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) Fermented at 68*
4.00 oz Azacca [14.86 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days 0.0 IBUs
Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Alcohol by Vol: 6.7 %
Bitterness: 90.1 IBUs
Color: 7.7 SRM
I also brew with RO Water, and according to Brun’ Water here is my finished water profile:
Calcium 110.6
Magnesium 15.6
Sodium 8
Sulfate 291.4
Chloride 29.5
Remember, low wort pH can reduce the extraction of bittering compounds from the hops and the bittering expression in the beer. If brewing with RO and you are boosting the calcium content to provide sulfate, you probably need a little alkalinity in the mashing water to avoid a low pH. A little pickling lime or baking soda may be a necessary thing!
I heard this recently and I wondered if I heard it correctly given that for lighter color beers the mash pH is lower than for darker. BUT, I have been having a terrible time getting enough bitterness out of ANY of my IPAs, so surely you hit something I need to know about. So this elicits a couple of questions…
Should I err to the high side of the pH range for whatever beer style I am brewing, or just for IPAs? According to the Bru’n Water calculations I had 13 ppm Alkalinity for this brew. What should the target be?
I guess my main question is whether I should attend primarily to the pH or the maintaining of a target Alkalinity (or RA) because when I add Alkalinity the pH goes up, then I add more X to lower the pH, and on it goes leading to a chemical soup. What am I missing?
I would love a podcast on brewing with RO/distilled water vis. water chemistry. So many questions. Glad you’re out there and involved!
5.4 is fine for hop focused beers and that is what I aim for when brewing PAs and IPAs. The problem is that if I don’t add a bit of lime to my water (its RO too), the mash pH will be too low and that echos into the kettle pH.
Malt focused beers might be mashed at slightly lower pH (say 5.2) to help accentuate their crispness and also reduce those hop contributed flavors or bitterness that we clearly are not interested in these styles.
If you’re using RO (or distilled) I’d go with baking soda, Steve. It’s a lot more forgiving. And there’s a spot in the software salt additions for baking soda . It works really well. It’s what I use to raise pH.
I hate to be a total idiot here but I’m going to wade in anyway.
What is the difference between simply targeting a mash pH of 5.4 (by not adding ingredients that will force it lower), and adding Baking Soda or Pickling Lime?
I’m really trying hard to get this, but it sounds like a math problem that goes like this:
The answer is 5.4. Assuming I start with 7, I can get there this way 7 - 1.6 = 5.4. But I hear it being said that I need to get there by doing this: 7 - 2.3 + 1.3 = 5.4. (with the 2.3 being a made-up number - the point being that it overshoots the 5.4 target)
So I ask again: is the primary thing the resulting pH, or adding Alkalinity? Another way to ask this is, is there something being added beyond the manipulation of pH when one adds Baking Soda or Pickling Lime? I hope I’m not ticking someone off here with my denseness, but I honestly feel like I’m being ushered into a round room and being asked to sit in the corner.
You also have potential flavor impact of the cation(s) being added - sodium in the case of baking soda, calcium in the case of lime.
But the answer, to my understanding, is that the mash pH is what matters. If adding alkalinity is what’s needed to get to the target, then that’s what you have to do. Martin was just saying that that could be necessary if you’re adding a lot of gypsum - the calcium could pull the RA too low and drop the mash pH below the target.
No idiot questions here, especially when it comes to water. In the end, what you’re looking for from water are a) pH and B) concentration of flavor ions. It doesn’t make much of a difference how you get there. Alkalinity is part of whet gets you to your pH, but it is NOT your end goal.
Basically, you have your starting water, your salt/acid additions, and your grain bill. These all factor in to determine your pH. So when you ask how much lime you add to a 5-gallon batch, the only correct answer is “it depends”. I’m assuming that when Martin said he needs to add lime to his Pale Ales, it’s because with the mineral additions he uses (including ~300ppm of Sulfate from gypsum/epsom salt) and his grain bill, his mash pH would be too low if he didn’t add lime. Your water and grain bill may require a different amount.
In this case it’a gypsum related thing for me. Using the Pale Ale profile gives you a 300ppm Sulfate target. Adding this much gypsum can drop pH below 5.4. I add baking soda, just enough to raise pH back to 5.4. According to Bru’nWater sodium should be kept below 60ppm - if you use RO or distilled, it’s not even close.
If you are adding so much gypsum to the mash that all the extra calcium is pushing the pH of the mash too low, couldn’t you just reserve a portion of your gypsum addition for the kettle and avoid the need to add alkalinity back to the mash?
Since calcium lowers mash pH by reacting with malt phytin, adding gypsum to the kettle wouldn’t lower the kettle pH correct? Or is there sufficient phytin remaining and carried over to the kettle that it would affect kettle pH?
martin - I’m scratching my noggin here as well. I checked last night, and the water recipe I use for one of my house IPA recipes is strictly gypsum, calcium chloride and a bit of epsom (although i know you’ve been saying recently the latter may not be important).
this particular recipe has an estimated mash pH of 5.4, SRM of 6.4.
what gives - is your IPA a lot darker, hence needing the PL to get back up to 5.4? I should have looked at my other house recipe which is a bit darker to see what i do with that one, but I was rushing this morning before work and was looking up before i left in order to pose this question.
Do you use a lot of gypsum though , Paul ? Depending on grist, using 300ppm will sometimes drop my estimated pH to 5.3. That’s when I bump it back up to 5.4 with baking soda.