21B Specialty IPA: Red IPA
RIPA 2 (Under Pressure)
ABV5.5% OG1.053 FG1.012Grain bill
| Gladfield American Ale Malt | 5.5 kg | 75.9% |
| Gladfield Munich Malt | 0.7 kg | 9.7% |
| Gladfield Redback Malt | 0.55 kg | 7.6% |
| Gladfield Shepherds Delight Malt | 0.45 kg | 6.2% |
| Gladfield Eclipse Wheat Malt | 0.05 kg | 0.7% |
Adjuncts
| Yeast nutrient | half tsp @ 10 min |
| Whirlfloc | half tablet @ 10 min |
Hop schedule
| Hop | 60 min | 10 min | WP | DH#1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citra | 20g | 30g | 50g | · |
| Superdelic | · | · | 100g | 100g |
Yeast
| LalBrew BRY-97 | 2 packets |
Water additions
| Calcium Sulphate | 1 tsp in mash |
| Calcium Carbonate | 1 tsp in mash |
Tasting notes
About This Beer
Owen’s first experiment with pressure fermentation, adopted to capture CO2 naturally and avoid needing bottle-conditioning sugar.
The RIPA grain bill refined across earlier batches carries over unchanged: American Ale, Munich, Redback, Shepherds Delight and a little Eclipse Wheat.
This is where the rapid-cool whirlpool technique starts. Heat off at the flameout addition, rapid cooling to 80°C, then a 20 minute stand before resuming the chill. That holds the hops at a temperature which extracts aroma and flavour oils without driving off the most volatile compounds. Citra and Superdelic split the whirlpool; Superdelic returns for a day-3 dry hop.
Fermentation
Primary completed at around 4 psi in three days. The target was 2.7 volumes, 16 psi at 6°C, but it needed a top-up with external CO2 to get there.
Bottled at 3 psi into chilled sterilised bottles through an open system, so some CO2 was lost, though still acceptable.
The lesson: once primary is complete, crank to around 20 psi rather than waiting.
Lineage
- RIPA 1 (Feb 2024): the companion batch on the same recipe, brewed a month earlier with standard non-pressurised fermentation. The pair is an A/B test of pressure against no pressure.