The Importance of Water Quality in Hazy IPAs

Ten years into the rise of hazy IPA, the brewing world knows far more about how to make this challenging yet enduringly popular style—yet the deeper we push, the more we realize how much more we have to learn. For this extended episode of the podcast, we got the gang from last year’s West Coast IPA Now! episodes back together to discuss hazy IPA, along with a respected East Coast voice in the hazy IPA conversation. Steve Parker of Fidens joins Evan Price of Green Cheek, Kelsey McNair of North Park, and special guest host Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River as they dissect varying approaches to medal-winning, crowd-pleasing hazy IPA, including:

• choosing soft water over more chloride-heavy approaches
• different strategies around pH to balance flavor, function, and food safety
• selecting malt for color and flavor contributions
• using adjuncts such as unmalted wheat, chit malt, oats with husks, and more, to build pale color yet stable haze
• feeding bigger fermentations to offset low efficiency mashes
• the impact that certain hop varieties have on haze development and stability
• “coolpooling” with concentrated pellets and knockout hopping with advanced hop products
• promoting biotransformation during active fermentation without dry hops in the tank
• double-batching over two days while under-pitching and over-aerating
• closing the tank several days before terminal, and dry hopping under pressure
• the impact of pellet density
• what to look for in certain varieties at hop selection
• balancing bitterness and final gravity

And more.

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