New England IPA

New England IPA Recipe

Have fun and brew this hazy, soft, tropical, stone-fruity IPA.

I should note that the water additions I make for this recipe are based on the water profile in my city, Toronto.  To make this style work, you will likely need to make adjustments to your water chemistry, boosting chloride levels. Beer and Brewing has a great guide on this. I recommend reading it before making your first New England IPA. 

I’ll also add that this recipe is admittedly complex if it’s your first attempt at this style. I have since brewed and shared a simpler NEIPA recipe you may want to check out too.

Recipe Profile

  • Method: 1 gallon BIAB (Brew-in-a-bag), single stage
  • Target OG (Original Gravity): 1.067
  • Target FG (Final Gravity): 1.014
  • Bitterness (IBUs): 68
  • Estimated ABV: 7.0%
  • Boil: 60 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2.25 lbs U.S. Pale 2-Row Malt
  • 4 oz Flaked Oats
  • 2.5 oz Cara-Pils
  • Additions before the mash
    • 2.7 g Calcium Chloride
    • 0.4 g Gypsum
  • Additions after the mash, before the boil
    • 0.03 oz Citra Hops
    • 0.03 oz El Dorado Hops
    • 0.03 oz Mosaic Hops
  • Whirlpool for 40 minutes
    • 0.05 oz Citra Hops
    • 0.05 oz El Dorado Hops
    • 0.05 oz Mosaic Hops
  • Whirlpool for 30 minutes
    • 0.09 oz Citra
    • 0.09 oz El Dorado
    • 0.09 oz Mosaic
  • Whirlpool for 20 minutes
    • 0.04 oz Citra
    • 0.04 oz El Dorado
    • 0.04 oz Mosaic
  • London Ale Yeast (Wyeast 1318)
  • Dry Hop for 8 days:
    • 0.15 oz Citra
    • 0.15 oz El Dorado
    • 0.15 oz Mosaic
  • Dry Hop for 4 days:
    • 0.20 oz Citra
    • 0.20 oz El Dorado
    • 0.20 oz Mosaic

The Mash

  1. Add the prescribed water additions to 9 litres of water.
  2. Bring water to a temperature of 155°F. Add your grains and give everything a good stir until the whole thing looks a bit like oatmeal. Shut off the heat, cover with a lid, and let it steep at 149°F for 60 minutes.
  3. Then you need to “mash out.” You put the heat back on, and raise the temperature to 168°F (75.6°C) and keep stirring for 7 minutes.
  4. Remove the grains and prepare for the boil. If you’re using a bag, just pull it out and let it drip near-dry above the pot. If you’re using a colander, strain to remove the grains, preserving the wort, which you’ll add back to the pot.
  5. Check that your gravity is on track and correct it, if needed. You need 67 gravity points for this recipe, and our target post-boil volume is 1.3 gallons.

The Boil

  1. Start the boil by bringing your wort up to a boil. Once boiling, start your timer.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare your sanitizer solution.
  3. Add boil hops according to the schedule prescribed.
  4. Once the boil is over, begin the whirlpool. Shut off the heat and then…

The Whirlpool

  1. Maintain the wort at a temperature between 185-210°F.  Steep the hops for the length prescribed in the recipe. 
  2. Just before the whirlpool is complete, make an ice bath in your kitchen sink. Load it up with as much ice and cold water as you can. Once the boil is over, transfer your pot to the sink to cool your wort to pitching temperature, as prescribed on the yeast pack. Remember to sanitize your thermometer every time you check the temperature.
  3. Meanwhile, thoroughly clean and sanitize your carboy, screw cap, airlock, funnel, and strainer/colander. You want everything to be ready to go once the wort is at the right temperature.
  4. Once the wort is at pitching temperature, transfer it to the carboy by passing it through a strainer overtop the funnel. Do not fill the carboy higher than the one-gallon mark.
  5. Aerate the wort.  Cover the fermenter with a screw cap and gently rock the carboy back and forth for a few minutes to mix in some air.
  6. Pitch the yeast! Use sanitized scissors to cut open the package and pour in only half of the yeast.
  7. Seal the carboy by filling the airlock with sanitizer. Fit it in the screw cap. Move the carboy to a dark spot, free of the home’s daily commotion for at least 14 days (but ideally not more than 21).
  8. Add your dry hops, according to the hop schedule.

Bottling Day

  1. Move the carboy to the countertop, if it wasn’t already there. If the wort got lots of movement during transfer, let it sit so that any stirred-up yeast has a chance to re-settle.
  2. Sanitize everything that will come in contact with the beer: bottling bucket, auto-siphon, tubing, filler, bottles, and bottle caps.
  3. Dissolve 0.59 oz (17g) corn sugar in enough boiling water to dissolve it. Add the dissolved sugar solution to your sanitized bottling bucket.
  4. Fill your auto-siphon and hose with sanitizer before submerging in the carboy. Transfer the solution to a spare container until the beer has completely replaced all the sanitizer in the tubes. Now you can place the end with the bottle filler in the bottling bucket, which should also be on the floor and gently transfer the beer from the carboy to the bucket.
  5. Transfer all the liquid up and the point where it reaches the sediment. Leave the sediment in the carboy.
  6. Now, move the bottling bucket to the counter and siphon the beer quietly into each bottle. When the liquid gets to the very top of the bottle, remove the bottle filler, which will leave the perfect amount of headspace at the top of the bottle.
  7. Cover each bottle with the sanitized caps and cap them into place, or secure your sanitized swing-top caps if using those.
  8. Store the bottles upright in a quiet, dark corner at 65F (18.5C) or so.
  9. Wait 30 days, if you can. If you’re way too curious (I can’t blame you!) try and hold out for 14 days. If you absolutely can’t wait, you can try after 7 days, but the beer really needs at least 14 days to condition.

Comments

45 responses to “New England IPA”

  1. kevin mchale

    semi-accidentally, I pitched ‘almost’ the entire Yeast pack (sMack Pack) in to my wort…

    should i expect a shorter fermentation, or should i adhere to your 14-day recommendation above? (after 12-hours, things already appear to be very active).

    thanks!

    1. Hi Kevin,

      It’s pretty tough to over-pitch yeast. I’ve often thrown the whole package in and have had a delicious beer at the end of it. You’re still good to wait the full two weeks. Of course, if you want to be extra precise, you could bottle when you hit the exact final gravity, which could be earlier than the prescribed 14 days.

  2. dAN rOBICHAUD

    DRY HOPPING FOR 8 DAYS AND 4 DAYS. DOES THIS MEAN I ADD THE HOPS AFTER THE BOIL AND WAIT 8 DAYS TO ADD THE SECOND SET OF DRY HOPS? THEN LET IT SIT TILL I REACH THE 14 DAYS FOR BOTTLING?

    1. Hi Dan,

      Thanks for the question, and that’s a good point. I’ll update the recipe to better explain this:

      1. You want the dry hop period to last the duration of time prescribed.
      2. Assuming you will bottle in 14 days, you would add the hops bottling day minus 8 days (Day 6 after the boil) for the first batch.
      3. You would add the second batch 14 days minus 4 days (Day 10 after the boil).

  3. Rick

    i brought this recipe to my local home brew supply store and they told me the water volume seems off. They said it is usually 1.25 – 1.3 qts per lb of grain. This recipe calls for 9L in the mash?? Please clarify.

    thanks

    1. Hi Rick,

      Thanks for writing in! Yes, this recipe uses 9L of water so you end up with just more than 8 litres of water for the boil (assuming some loss during the mash), and then leaving you with almost 5 litres of wort at the end of the boil. I deliberately use more water (and grains) to yield a 1.3 gallon batch so that I have plenty of wort to play with when transferring to the fermentor.

      But, each brewhouse is different. Your kettle may not evaporate at the same right as mine. You’ll want to adjust your water levels as you get a feel for your own setup.

    2. I also wonder, did your supply store mean the end-of-boil ratio? That would make more sense to me. With almost 3 lbs of grains in this, multiplied by 1.3 = 3.9 quarts, which is what you want to end up with in the fermenter.

      1. Isaac

        Rick,
        Did you mention to your brew store that this is a brew in a bag (biab) recipe. The numbers they are telling you are for sparging. In a brew in a bag recipe there is no sparging. You steep for recommended time and just pull the bag out. Let it drip for about 15 minutes. Then you are ready for the boil.

  4. Allan Lewis

    Great-looking recipe; can’t wait to give it a try.

    For the post-boil hops, are these added while actively chilling the wort, or do you perform the hop additions for 40 mins before transferring to an ice bath?

  5. Raul

    I think i Boiled to agressive, i got og same as what the recipe says but its too strong burns your tounge like ethanol. And also maybe in the whirl pool i did the 40 min hop addition but at 180-200 degrees its also bitter

    1. Hi Raul,

      What was your fermentation temperature? That sounds like the culprit to me.

      1. raul

        I USED WHITE LABS LONDON FOG ALE AND IT SAYS 65-68 I OVER SHOT IT FOR 1-2 DAYS OF 70-72 AMD YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT ABOUT THAT, ALSO, STILL SMELLS MAGICAL 🙂

        1. Sounds like that was it. Also, this beer style is very susceptible to oxidation, so if you’re racking to bottles, you need to be extra cautious to avoid splashing and the like. I’m even considering developing a version of this recipe to reduce the amount of dry hopping to further reduce the risk of oxidation.

  6. KB

    Hey, Thanks for posting this recipe. It looks wonderful and the profile is nice. While I know wet yeast is the preferred method of use for a NEIPA and there is most likely no dry equivilent, what dry yeast would you recommend for this recipe if you had to use one?

    1. Your best bet would be Safale S-04 Ale Dry Yeast. Good luck!

  7. JIM

    Hi Joseph…..so I am trying this recipe and my OG came in extremely low. Like 1.033. I divided the grains between 2 large bags and the oats in a 3rd smaller one. Temps and volume were good…..any ideas on what i did wrong?

    1. Joe

      Joe, can you reply to this. This exact thing happened to me too. And when i put the numbers You prOvide in BrewersfrieND it gives aN OG of 1.030 range. Any thoughts?

      1. HI Joe,

        I tripled checked my notes — those are the numbers. Not sure what could have caused the lower OG beyond the usual reasons. I just plugged the numbers into Brewer’s Friend and got an OG of 1.067.

        1. Joe

          Ok thaNks. Ill check again

        2. Joe

          What are you putting in for efficiencY in the calculator?

  8. Phil

    Can I still use this recipe if I can’t whirlpool? Just got a standard kit.

    1. Hi Phil,

      There’s no reason you can’t whirlpool. You just have to let wort sit at the whirlpool temp after the boil, and add the hops as timed. If you wanted to skip the step, you could make your own version of this recipe by avoiding this hop addition altogether or adding more to the dry hop.

  9. AndreW

    I put all the info from the recIpe in bru’n water and the pH is way low. I was using distilled water so I had a clean slate. Any clue What the problem is? I want to try this but i want to make sure the Additions are right, first. Also, your pdf adds epsom salt but your recipe above does not. Thanks!

    1. Ah, that’s a typo on the Epsom salt front. I would add if you can. As for pH, I have found—as has brülosophy, that it has little impact on the final beer. How low was it?

  10. Andrew

    I put your grain bill into the efficiency calculatOr on brewers friend and it states that the max og is 1.041 but your og is 1.067? Did you bring it up with dme Or am i missing somethIng?

    1. Hi Andrew, my recipes are set for 1.3 gallons. Could that be the difference?

      1. Andrew

        I set the mash water @ a 1.3 gallon yield so It should Have factored that in (link: https://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ ). The reason i aSk is becAuse when i made this brew last week i had an og hydrometer readIng of ~1.040 (adjusted for temperature) and had to add a decent amount of dme to get it up to 1.067. Maybe i missed something, as i am still very new to brewing, so i wanted to make sure i’M not overlooking something. Thank you!

        1. Joe

          SamE thing happened to me! Any ideas?

  11. Ian Charette-Brousseau

    Hi Joseph,

    My shop didn’t have all the ingredients in stock so I used Mosaic, Simcoe and Ekonut hops. I also used White Labs London Fog Yeast.

    I used the Northern Brewer priming sugar calculator and it tells me to put 24g of sugar instead of 17g. IF I try to fill my bottles completely like you mentioned in your blog, what quantity and conditioning time would you do?

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Ian, try 24g if you like, but you’ll likely end up with a more carbonated beer. To each their own preference! As for time spent conditioning, this is one of those beers where I start enjoying it after one week. It might not be as carbonated as I’d like, and it might test a bit “green,” but the hops shine more at this stage than 4 weeks in.

      1. Ian Charette-Brousseau

        Thank you!

  12. Andrew

    One more question – what are you using as a fermenter for These small batches? I Recently purcHased a BrewDemon 2.5 gal conical ferMenter but i’m Kind of worried about headspace, particularly after dry hopping. Thanks again!

    1. Hi Andrew, I’m using a standard 1-gallon fermentor. Why don’t you scale the recipes up to 2.5 gallons?

  13. Ryan

    Hi JoSEPH,
    i’VE BREWED PALE ALES AND ipA’S, BUT THIS WILL BE MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT A nEw england STYLE. cOUPLE OF QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

    1) THIS IS MY FIRST RECIPE WITH WHIRLPOOLING – DO YOU DO the initial hops and then A 60 MIN BOIL AND THEN DO THE 40/30/20 MINUTE HOP ADDITIONS ONLY DURING THE WHIRLPOOL? IN THE PAST I HAVE JUST MADE THE HOP ADDITIONS AT INCREMENTS only DURING THE BOIL SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE TO GET THAT RIGHT.

    2) I’ve nEVER ADDED CALCIUM CHLORIDE OR GYPSUM BEFORE BECAUSE OUR WATER HERE IS TYPICALLY GOOD WITHOUT HAVING TO MAKE ANY ADJUSTMENTS. ARE THESE WATER ADDITIONS NEEDED FOR THIS PARTICULAR STYLE TO TURN OUT CORRECTLY?

    ASKING BECAUSE i AM COMPARING YOUR nE RECIPE WITH YOUR AMERICAN IPA RECIPE. THE aipa LOOKS LIKE WHAT I’M USED TO, SO LIKE I SAID, WANT TO MAKE SURE I GET THE RIGHT STUFF GOING ON FOR THE NEW ENGLAND attempt. THANKS!

    1. Hi Ryan,

      1) Yes the first additions are before the boil. There are no hop additions during the boil. Once the boil ends, you will whirlpool for 40 minutes, adding the hops as the intervals prescribed.
      2) Yes, this beer style absolutely requires water adjustments. It makes a world of a difference.

      Cheers!

      1. ryan

        thanks joseph! when i type my messages all i see is caps, so sorry for the weird text formatting.
        i have all my ingredients now…just need to find some time for brew day! so, if i’m not starting with r.o. water, i can still add the minerals to adjust, but don’t have a way of testing the water. hopefully there’s no such thing as water that’s too hard?

  14. Andrew

    Can sparging be used for this recipe??

    If not, what is the appropriate amount of water to use??

  15. Ted

    Hi Joseph,

    I have a question about hop usage for 1 gallon BIAB recipes in general. It looks like you need 0.56 oz of each of the three types of hops for this recipe. So, a 1 oz bag (standard from what I’m used to seeing) should be plenty. However, some of the drop hops are added ~10 days after brew day. Is it OK to open the hops, use some for the whirlpool step and then not use the rest for 10 days? Will they go bad or stale? Would you recommend trying to seal them in sanitized mini mason jars or something during those 10 days?

  16. James

    Hi Joseph
    I’m looking forward to brewing this, albeit I’ve scaled up to 19L!
    I’ve followed the details on water chemistry regarding chloride:sulphate ratio, but wondered if you had any thoughts about alkalinity (as bicarbonate or Residual Alkalinity) plus calcium and magnesium levels. My water is a bit of pain (hard, but not much else) so I have to do a fair bit of meddling.
    I have assumed I’ll just aim for a regular American IPA on these other factors, but it would be useful to know what you’ve done.
    Many thanks in advance
    James

  17. James

    Hi Joseph
    Sorry Me again!
    Given that the yeast seems to form an important part of this style, certainly more than typical IPAs is it worth fermenting on the hotter side to ensure the yeast flavours come through.
    Cheers
    James

  18. Tony Di Bratto

    Are those hop addition volumes correct? They seem low.

  19. Jan

    Hello. Quick question. ARe the hop quantities for pellets or for whole hops? have you got experience with using either of these for the recipe and how the choice may affect the flavor?

    Thanks a lot,

    jan

    1. They are for pellets. I’ve not used whole hops in this one, but you may need to use higher quantities to drive the same flavour profile.

  20. Maureen Macvicar

    I am finding it difficult to weigh out such small amounts of hops-do you use any measure for pellets?

  21. Whirlpool hops
    40 min
    30 mins
    20 mins
    Is that a total of 90 mins of whirlpooling or a total of 40 mins adding more 10 mins later and then MORE 10 mins after that?

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