Juicy Blood Orange NEIPA

So... What is it?

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This is our attempt to make an already super juicy beer even JUCIER! By cramming it full of blood orange flavour and ramping it up to a 8.7% ABV! It gives Huge punchy flavours of mango, pineapple, fresh orange zest and and of course a ton of BLOOD ORANGE! For this beer we did a split batch to compare the blood orange infused version against the "regular" hazy IPA and wow were we stunned with the results, check out the full video below for the deets!

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Batch Size & ABV

• 38L (2 19L corny kegs) / 10 gal finished beer
• 50L (13.2 gal) wort
• For a smaller 19L (5 gal) batch size simply half the ingredients of this recipe
• Starting gravity – 1.080
• Final gravity 1.0135
• ABV – 8.7%
• IBU - 38
• Colour - 12.6 EBC
• Mash Efficiency - 80%

Brewfather link

Ingredients

‍Water 

• With sparging

• 45L (11.9 gal) strike water approx. for a 60 min mash at 68°C (154.4°F) with a 10 min mash out step at the end at 77°C (170°F)
• 25L (6.6 gal) sparge water at 78°C (172°F)

• Without sparging

• 65L (17.2 gal) strike water approx. for a 60 min mash at 68°C (154.4°F) with a 10 min mash out step at the end at 77°C (170°F)

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Malts: 15.995kg (35 lb) of fermentable's

• 10.395 kg - 22.9 lb (65%) — Ale Malt
• 2.5 kg - 5.5lb (15.6%) —  Gladfield Rolled Oats
• 1.2 kg - 2.6 lb (7.5%) — Rolled Wheat Malt
• 1.2 kg - 2.6 lb (7.5%) — Wheat Malt

• 700 g - 1.54 lb (4.4%) — Gladiator Malt

• 1 kg (2.2 lb) — Rice Hulls

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Adjuncts

• Monin Blood orange syrup - 1.4L / 0.36gal into a keg and rack the beer onto it when finished (we only did this for 1 keg)

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Hops & whirlfloc tablets  

112 g / 4oz (3 IBU) — Astra 7.9% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand

112 g / 4oz (7 IBU) — Lupomax Amarillo 13.5% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 78 °C

87.5 g / 3oz (3 IBU) — Astra 7.9% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 78 °C

87.5 g / 3oz (8 IBU) — Lupomax simco 19% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 78 °C

57 g / 2oz (5 IBU) — Lupomax Citra 18.5% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 78 °C

200 g / 7oz — Lupomax Amarillo 13.5% — Dry Hop — day 7

87.5 g / 3oz — Astra 7.9% — Dry Hop — day 7

57 g / 3oz — Lupomax Citra 18.5% — Dry Hop — day 7

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Yeast options & fermentation temperatures (we co pitched the below but you could use any strain you like)

• 11 g — Lallemand (LalBrew) Pomona - 25 °C (77 °F)‍
• 22 g — Lallemand (LalBrew) New England - 25 °C (77 °F)

alternatives below

• 23g (0.8 oz) Lallmand East Coast New England Ale Yeast ferment at 25°C (55°F) 
• 23g (0.8 oz) Kveik (we used a Omega yeats Espe Kveik, but any kveik is great!) ferment at 32°C
• 23g (0.8 oz) US-05 – ferment at 20°C
• 23g (0.8 oz) S-04 – ferment at 19°C

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Water Profile

Ca²⁺‍ 130

‍Mg²⁺‍ 16

‍Na⁺‍ 15

‍Cl^-‍ 202

‍SO₄^2-‍ 100

‍HCO₃^-‍ 57

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Step by step process

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Step 1 – Milling

• Mill grains to medium crush (set mill rollers to a gap of approx. 1mm / 0.039 inches) (BUT DONT crush the rice hulls or oats, add them into your grain separately after crushing them)
• Just keep in mind roller gap settings are not universal so as you brew more batches you will find the ideal crush size for your setup
• Alternatively if you don’t have a grain mill you can order your grains crushed from most homebrew stores, both online and in person

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Step 2 – Mashing 

• Add your brewing salts and mix to ensure they are fully dissolved prior to mashing in grains
• Mash for 60 minutes at 68°C (154.4°F)

• ensure you mix in the grains thoroughly with a mash paddle to prevent dough balls from forming (big spoons, spatulas or whisks will also work)   

• its easier to mash the grains and prevent dough balls if you add a little grain at a time, mix, add more grain and repeat until all the grains are mixed
• now add your mash hops!! This is going to free a bunch of bound thiols from your hops and make this beer even more juicy! I would recommend adding these in a hop bag to make sure you can remove all the hop particles before you start boiling so you don't get extra unaccounted bitterness

• if you don’t have a mash tun with heating then ensure after you have finished mixing the grains in to insulate your mash tun (thick neoprene or heavy blankets both work well)
• after 60 minutes of mashing raise temperature to 77°C (170°F) for 10 minutes to Mash out

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Step 3 (optional) – Sparging

• if your setup has the capability to sparge then do so with 25L (6.6 gal) of sparge water at 78 °C (172°F)
• if you are not sparging and using a BIAB (brew in a bag) method then remove grains from mash tun and twist and squeeze the bag to get as much liquid out of the grains as possible
• as you start sparging (or straining your BIAB bag) begin raising the temperature of your wort to a boil

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Step 4 – Boiling

• once your wort begins to boil start a timer for a 60-minutes
• after 60 minutes of boiling turn of the heat and chill the temperature of the wort down to 75°C (167°F) and begin whirlpooling

• if you don’t have a wort chiller you could rest your boil kettle in an ice bucket 
• if your system can’t whirlpool you can also achieve this with a mash paddle and a power drill, if you don’t have this either don’t worry about whirlpooling it’s not completely necessary

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Step 5 – Whirlpooling / whirlpool hop additions

• once temperature reaches 75°C (167°F) and you have started whirlpooling add your whirlpool hops, 87.5 g - 3 oz each of Lupomax versions of Amarillo, Sabro, citra and El Dorado
• allow hops to whirlpool in the wort for 20 minutes and then begin chilling wort again down to yeast pitching temperature
• once you’ve reached yeast pitching temperature take an original gravity reading of your wort

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Step 6 – Yeast Pitching

• It is best to make a yeast starter before beginning your brew day (ideally 1 day before) to ensure your yeast are as active and healthy as possible before pitching, but not completely necessary – you could also just rehydrate yeast 30 minutes before pitching.
• Pitch yeast in wort a degree or two higher than the target fermentation temperature to help yeast take off more aggressively 

• To make a yeast starter you can use either:

• DME (dry malt extract) at a ratio of approx. 100g per 1L water (3.5 oz per 33 fluid ounces) for gravity of approx. 1.040 
• some unfermented wort kept cold and sanitary from a previous brew day
• 70g of table sugar per 1L water (2.5 oz per 33 fluid ounces) – however, it is best to use malt sugar (wort / DME) whenever possible to reduce the chance of shocking the yeast with a different food source from starter to wort pitching

• To rehydrate yeast

• Add yeast to approx. 10 times as much room temperature water as the weight of the yeast e.g. 10g yeast in 100 ml water (0.35 oz yeast in 3.5 fluid ounces water)

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Step 7 – Fermentation, dry hopping and Soft Crashing (optional)

• Allow yeast to ferment over the next 5 days to two weeks 
• If you have a temperature-controlled system keep the fermenter temperature to the recommended fermentation temperature for each yeast strain (stated in the yeast ingredients section above)
• Monitor the fermentation activity over the first 7 days by the bubbling of the blow-off tube/airlock of your fermenter, as the bubbling slows down (roughly around day 7) take a gravity reading. When the gravity reaches around 1.016 raise the temperature of your fermenter by 1-2 degrees for 2 days for a diacetyl rest (if you don’t have temperature control don’t worry about this step, it's not the end of the world!)

• It's important to note that fermentation times will vary based on your circumstances like temperature, amount of yeast pitched, the healthiness of yeast, the gravity of the wort, pH, etc. so don’t stress be patient and know that these times are just a rough guide

• On day 2 of the diacetyl rest (once gravity reaches roughly 1.013 – 1.014) "Soft Crash" your beer (optional, if you cant temp control move onto dry hopping), by reducing temperature to 13°C (55.4°F)
• After 1 day of soft crashing add your dry hops, 75 g - 2.6 oz each of Lupomax versions of Amarillo, Sabro, citra and El Dorado and allow the temperature of fermentation to rise again up to 22 °C (71.6 °F)
• 1 to 2 days after dry hopping move on to cold crashing and dump trub / remove hops and take a final gravity reading
• (If you can’t / don’t want to cold crash go straight to kegging/bottling your beer!)
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• After beer was finished we racked one keg onto the 1.4L / 0.36gal of Monin Blood orange syrup

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Step 8 (optional) – Cold crashing 

• begin cold crashing your fermenter (bring the temperature of your fermenter down to as close to 0°C (32°F) as possible, for 2 days to a week depending on how patient you are
• If you don’t have a temp-controlled fermenter, you can cold crash by putting your fermenter in a fridge or temp-controlled chest freezer
• After you have finished cold crashing it's time to keg/bottle your beer! If you are bottling your beer from the fermenter uncarbonated remember to add about 5-7 grams (0.17 - 0.24 oz) of priming sugar to your bottles to carbonate your beer.

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