This hazy IPA is pillowy soft and oh-so drinkable. There are waves of pineapple, and juicy stone fruit brought on by the El Dorado, Dolcita and Nelson Cryo, and there's an underlying ripple of passionfruit and grapefruit from a co-pitch of Dry Tropics yeast.
By co-pitching Dry Tropics™ London with Fresh™ London, you can fine-tune the passionfruit and grapefruit thiol character to your liking. Craving a bigger tropical punch on the repitch? Simply hit your chilled wort with Tropics Boost™ and turn up the dial on those vibrant flavors. It’s a flexible method for tuning the aromatics in your beer.
Recipe Specs
- OG (before sugar): 14.5°P
- OG (after sugar): 16°P
- FG: 4°P
- IBUs: 25
- ABV: 6.5%
Malt/Grain Bill
- 65% Rahr North Star Pils
- 15% Extra Pale White Wheat
- 10% Flaked Oats
- 10% Best Chit Malt
Hops & Additions Schedule
- 10 g/bbl Calcium Chloride to the mash
- 50 g/bbl Calcium Chloride at boil start
- 20 g/bbl Sodium Chloride at boil start
- 1.5°P worth of Brewers Crystals at boil start
- As needed Lactic Acid
- 1 lb/bbl El Dorado T90 at whirlpool
- 1 lb/bbl Dolcita Cryo T90 at whirlpool
- 0.1 g/bbl zinc sulfate heptahydrate to the fermentor
- 1 mL/bbl ALDC at dry hop
- 1 lb/bbl Nelson Cryo at dry hop
- 2 lb/bbl El Dorado T90 at dry hop
Yeast
For a measured but noticeable thiol contribution:
- Berkeley Yeast Dry Tropics London at 50g/BBL
- Berkeley Yeast Fresh™ London at 300k/°P/mL
Or
For a little more tropical character:
- Berkeley Yeast Dry Tropics London at 75g/BBL
- Berkeley Yeast Fresh™ London at 250k/°P/mL
Directions
Mash at 150°F. Add the calcium chloride to the mash. Target a mash pH of 5.45.
Vorlauf until the wort is free of large particulate then begin to lauter into the kettle. If you have the ability to acidify your sparge water, add phosphoric acid to bring the pH to 5.0. This will help buffer the pH rise and prevent astringency pickup from the grain husk. Try to not let your last runnings go above a pH of 5.7.
Boil for 60 minutes, adding salts, brewers crystals, and hops according to the schedule. Do not add copper to your kettle as it may decrease sulfur-based thiol precursors. Add lactic acid to achieve a pH of 4.8. The whirlpool hops should raise the pH to 4.9, which is the target. At the end of the boil, lower your wort temperature below 200°F (as low as 170°F) by running through the heat exchanger or by adding filtered city water or cold liquor. Then transfer the wort to the whirlpool, adding hops during transfer. After a 10-minute rest, transfer the wort to the fermentor.
Chill the wort to 65°F and aerate to 15 ppm. Pitch the liquid portion of your house yeast as usual, at the suggested rate. Then sprinkle the Dry Tropics London into the top of the fermentor—no need to rehydrate. Set your tank to 68°F and add zinc.
Hold fermentation at 68°F. When the beer reaches 6°P, raise the tank temperature to 72°F for a timely finish. When terminal gravity is reached, add 5 psi CO₂ pressure and soft crash 5° below the current temperature. Remove yeast for 2 days, then begin dry hopping.
Tropics London does not contain the Fresh™ low diacetyl technology, so it’s recommended to add a small amount of ALDC at dry hop. If co-pitching with Fresh London (which has the low diacetyl tech), only a very small amount of ALDC is needed. Add the dry hops and ALDC, cap the tank, and bring CO₂ pressure to 10 psi to push the floating hops into the beer. After one hour, release the pressure. The next day, rouse the hops from the cone. After 48 hours on hops, shave off spent hops daily from the cone.
When the beer smells free of acetaldehyde and sulfur (typically within a day or two after dry hop) and passes a forced diacetyl test, crash the tank to 32°F.
Shave hops and trub for 48 hours. Carbonate to 2.6 volumes. Leave cold for several days, then package.
