One Missed Brew and a Current

I did not make a dedicated post, but I had made a NEIPA using the NEIPA 2 recipe but single hopping with Caliente hops. Although I do not think my water chemistry, recipe, yeast choice or techniques are particularly spot on for making such a beer, I am more confident that Caliente does not cut it for a single hopped juicy IPA. I got a lot of plum skin but not much actual plum from the flavor. To be fair, me and others did enjoy the beer over its life span. It just wasn't what I was hoping for. Expectations are a bitch.

I did try something new, which was to not add any hot side hops other than a bittering charge. There was an oz or so of Columbus thrown in as a pre-fermentation dry hop. After reading this blog post by Scot Jannish:

http://scottjanish.com/zero-hot-side-hopped-neipa-hplc-testing-sensory-bitterness/

I think that there may in fact be "something" associated with hot side hopping. I am still skeptical on the overall potential flavor impact, but perhaps there are reduction elements to be gained. I would like to continue my attempts at making a juicy IPA by doing two things.

1) Using Tree House Brewing Co. yeast.
2) Altering the hopping schedule

What's up with #1? This recent thread on homebrewtalk has my interest piqued:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=623221

DNA analysis shows that Tree House may be dabbling with some unique yeast. Holy cow, indeed.

The plan for #2 is as follows:

  - Hot side hops (perhaps just high oil such as columbus)
  - Pre fermentation dry hop (small addition of high oil hop)
  - Hop during active fermentation (such as day 3, 4 )
  - One last charge for 24 hours before kegging

I would like to keg with 3 or so gravity points left in order to naturally carbonate in the keg. In fact, I would like to add the last addition of hops around this point so that I don't lose any hop aroma to the atmosphere.

There are a handful of posts that I will place at the end of this IPA discussion for the sake of record keeping.

On another note, I have a saison fermenting that is a mixed fermentation of 3711 and Almagamation. The Almagamation starter went through several phases of taste, and I'm hoping that the recent gravity check pull was on one of the downswings. I did try some LODO techniques with this batch, which included a 40 mg/L addition of SMB. I'm really, really hoping that the SMB does not screw me with sulfur flavors. That would suck, e.g.,

http://brulosophy.com/2017/04/10/the-lodo-effect-evaluating-the-low-oxygen-brewing-method-exbeeriment-results/

Hoping for the best, though! I basically copied Amos' recipe for his standard saison. Some EKG was just moved from 20 and 2 minutes to one 5 minute addition. Oh, and I used local Marchegiano farro instead of spelt. Is it the same thing? It's probably the same thing...

http://www.browneandbitter.com/2016/06/basic-spelt-saison-recipe.html

IPA links:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/anyone-have-a-congress-st-clone-recipe.267947/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7901884&postcount=931
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7902301&postcount=937
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7925746&postcount=953
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7925887&postcount=961