I was poking around the recipe section of HBA (member’s) and stumbled over Wry Smile and thought I’d give it a shot this week. There doesn’t seem to be a water profile listed for the recipe. I’ve only been brewing about a year, so don’t have enough experience with minerals to just wing it. Found another person (kgs) using the forum search who brewed this back in 2017 but no follow-up on how it turned out.
I’ve kind of decided on using distilled water for brewing since the HC03 out of my tap is ~450. I’ve been using the “light colored and hoppy” profile on the Brewers Friend calculator (https://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/) to brew my past few batches as they have been, well, light colored, and hoppy, but this one maybe falls into the “Balanced” profile? SRM 12 is definitely darker than what I’ve been brewing (SRM 4-6).
Also, would sparge/no-sparge make any noticeable difference on this recipe? I’m guessing as long as the pre-boil gravity is spot on, it shouldn’t?
I tried a few target profiles in BF and the “Balanced” profile started out close to what Denny’s water profile shows. BF recommends a higer S04 and I’ve read that hops and bitterness perception is most affected by the S04/Cl ratio. I enjoy hoppy beers, so kept the recommended S04 and set the other targets to match the profile. Also keeping the 1tsp of Gypsum.
I’m not sure how much of this really matters… A half-gram of chalk brings the Ca+2 ions up to “green star” level, but this seeems to really be splitting hairs for the sake of numbers. I mean, boiling can cause a reduction in some of these minerals so if I miss the post-boil gravity and decide to boil another 30 minutes, the water profile is somewhat out of whack anyway.
Question though, on the water: I’ve noticed most IPAs have a higher sulfate/chloride ratio than what I figured into the initial water profile. I’ve read about people adding gypsum or CaCl2 to a glass of beer (post keg) to dial in the bitterness or hop character. Should either of those have been higher for this style of beer or is the lower-than-typical-IPA s04/cl intentional here? Maybe I’ve been reading too much.
I’ve looked around and it sounds like a popular recipe. I’m looking forward to it. It’s been fermenting for about a week (65F for 4 days, then up to 68F) and gravity is still dropping. That aroma coming out of that 1450 smack pack was something else! Like grape-floral-slight-alcohol-not-yeast-at-all smell. Took a small beer sample the other day and it’s got a floral aroma and creamy texture …as if half the grain bill was comprised of oats! I’ve been reading this is a characteristic of the yeast so kinda crazy to me as I’ve only used like four kinds of yeast.
You’re over thinking it. When I developed the recipe, homebrew water treatment was pretty much unheard of and suflfate:chloride ratios had never been mentioned. I did my standard IPA treatment, which was to add a tsp. of gypsum to the boil. It worked, I loved the beer, so I’ve never had any reason to take it further.
I just tapped mine tonight and have to say I’m quite pleased with it. Denny, this is an amazing recipe! I can’t find a lot of aroma to it, and that’s probably just me with my old nose, but oh man, it’s got quite a spectrum of flavor! To stay on topic, I’ll just say the water profile posted above seems to work quite nicely for this recipe and I’ll use the same one again.
it is by far my favorite IPA and I have made at least one batch every summer over the last dozen years.
