Lemon IPA

[BlackDuck]

My 6 year old assistant brewer daughter seems to think that my favorite beer is a Lemon IPA. I'm not sure where that comes from, buy she always asks if I'm drinking a lemon IPA and if it's my favorite beer. I always tell her that I'm not, but it probably would be one of my favorites.

Well, I think I should try to figure out how to make one. Then I could actually tell her that I really am drinking a lemon IPA. My thought is to take the grain bill from my Simply Simarillo Session IPA and change up the hops.

So my question is, other than Lemondrop hops and lemon peel, what hops or other ingredients should I use to get a lemony flavor and aroma? Thanks in advance!!

[Beer-lord]

Sorachi Ace has a lemon aroma and citrus flavor.
From what I've read when I was making my not so great Lemon Saison, adding a decent amount of wheat can help bring out more lemon flavor. Can't say its true but that kept being mentioned.

[mashani]

RE Sorachi:

Buy a bottle of "A Sorachi Ace" from Brooklyn Brewing, and taste it. You can get that in 12oz bottles now.

If that is the vibe you are looking for, all the flavor there is basically a dry hop of the equivalent of 4-6oz or so of the stuff @5 gallons. (yes, dry hop can give you flavor contrary to what folks think - and flavor and aroma are tied at the hip. One brings out the other.).

If you add it to the boil as what you would normally consider a flavor addition, it gives you some other stuff, kind of like dill weed or cilantro along with the lemon, and some people find that off-putting, and the lemon comes across as more like "lemon curd/cream".

The dry hop doesn't do that, it's just lemon/lemongrass.

RE: the wheat, I think a light (10L or 8L) crystal malt would also work to bring it out. I think the goal is to add a touch of sweetness that isn't "malty", so the lemon has something to play against. Doesn't need to be very much. A Sorachi Ace is pretty much bone dry. I think what is more of a concern is adding caramel malts that are... caramel flavored... that would wreck it.

[BlackDuck]

Good thoughts guys, thanks. Great points on the crystal malts Mashani. I'm envisioning this very light in color too, so I was thinking pretty much no crystal malt. Maybe just 2 row, carapils for body and red wheat to get the wheat in there, but also for color. Maybe even split the two row with Marris Otter to get a little malt backbone to it.

As for the hops...I'm thinking something first wort for a clean bitterness, maybe like a .25 ounce of magnum. Then some citra and/or Lemondrop at 5 minutes or even a steep, then dump in a few ounces of the sorachi for the dry hop...like you mention Mashani.

Good thoughts so far, thank you!!! And keep the recommendations coming, as I'm not done formulating this yet.

[Inkleg]

Some of this Lemongrass @5 would add to it.

[BlackDuck]

Interesting Jeff, thanks. I didn't know that Brewers Best packaged that. But I always thought lemongrass was a little more grassy than it is lemony. But I'm not sure if that's correct or not???

[Inkleg]

Jody adds lemongrass to a soup she makes. She buys it fresh at an asian market, great lemon taste. So you could go fresh too. There's a reason it's called Lemongrass.

Sorry.......Creeper+Bigfoot

[mashani]

I'll just throw out that a totally radical option (which I have not tried, but in theory it should work) would be to make a lacto only (not bugfarm) sour like a Berliner, that has basically no IBUs from bittering hops and then dump a whole bunch of lemony dry hops in and/or hit it with lemon peel, or lemon grass, or all of that.

That should work because a lacto sour has a strong tart lemon like component to begin with.

The key to that would be again no or at max say 5-7 IBUs, because bittering + sour = bleah. That's where most 'Merican macros who have attempted to make hoppy sours go wrong IMHO (all the ones I've tried at least). 5 minute addition with a lot of hops is going to be too much bittering. Whirlpool of a lot of hops also too much bittering. Needs to just be dry hop really. The sour replaces the bitter.

Some crystal to give it a touch of sweetness behind the sour or back sweetening a bit of some lactose to taste would work if the sour was too much or if Beer Lord walked by and could not resist the urge to throw hops into the boil.

If I had a dedicated sour fermenter, I'd try this. Because it sounds cool to me. It would be like a less sweet hard lemonade with hoppy nose.

[BlackDuck]

I like the idea Mashani and I think it would make a really tasty Berliner style beer. But I don't have a dedicated sour fermenter either. And, I want to keep this along the IPA style, to please the 6 year old assistant brewer of mine.

[BigPapaG]

If I might... (Check for changes, as I had to check temps etc. and make edits...)

Lacto beers are great because you don't need dedicated sour gear.... WHAT???? That's right!

You only need a temp controller and heat source ( hot plate, reptile heater, heating jacket, brew belt, electric boil pot, etc. )

Use a boil kettle and bring your wort to 175-180°F to kill off what you don't want growing...

Probably want an initial gravity of 1.030 ish...

Allow to cool to about 108°F ( this is around the temp you want for lacto to grow )...

Innoculate with a commercial lacto culture, cover, hold that temp around 108°F for 24-60 hours...

(You could just throw a handfull or two of whole 2-row in at this point instead of the commercial culture as there is usually lacto all over the grains, but results will vary with this approach and it will take the full 2-3 days whereas the commercial culture could sour faster... )

(Also, As I remember, you want to limit oxygen at this point, so cover the top of the wort with plastic wrap I think?) Mashani... Keep me honest here... No oxygen for lacto right? You want the oxygen ambivalent strain to flourish... Flushing the head space with CO2 helps too! As I recall, very bad smells will happen in the presence of oxygen!

Then bring to a boil for a few minutes to kill the lacto or, if you prefer not to boil, heat to at least 180°F and hold for five minutes ( the sour from the ph change will remain )

Add your hops to a small number of IBU's (4-7)...

There's your sour base... Proceed from there.

[BlackDuck]

After some more thought, I think I'm going to move away from a session style IPA and just go with a normal range IPA. I'm thinking about mashing around 148 or 150 and add in some corn sugar into the boil to help dry this out a bit. As mentioned earlier, I think I'll keep the malt bill simple so I don't cover up the lemon characteristic. Still working on the recipe.

[mashani]

(Also, As I remember, you want to limit oxygen at this point, so cover the top of the wort with plastic wrap I think?) Mashani... Keep me honest here... No oxygen for lacto right? You want the oxygen ambivalent strain to flourish... Flushing the head space with CO2 helps too! As I recall, very bad smells will happen in the presence of oxygen!

So FWIW:

These are "generalizations" there are various "types" of these things so everything varies a bit here and there depending.

Lactobacillus can tolerate:

Up to 8% sodium
Up to 8% alcohol
Temps anywhere between 60-150 (it's pretty bad ass in this regards), however temp control is useful to control OTHER things which tend to be less badass. Like things below.
It tends to max out at around 1% lactic acid production, then it becomes a bit unhappy to make more.
It doesn't like acetic acid and it doesn't like oxygen but those won't "kill" it, just stunt it / slow it's growth, and give other stuff better opportunities to get a foothold.
Takes about 2x as long to get a good foothold/growth curve compared to Sacc.

Acetobacter (which you don't want)

Doesn't like sodium, it slows its growth (Goze exists for a reason hurray!).
Likes temps between 70-110.
Makes lots of acetic acid, up to 8%, which is not good for lacto (it's not good for your mouth either), vinegar is diluted so it isn't that acidic.
REQUIRES oxygen to produce the acetic acid. So this is why you might want to more seriously consider limiting oxygen in your lacto fermentation. Not necessarily for the lacto itself.
Can tolerate up to 18% alcohol or so, and then eats it if it has oxygen. We do not want that.
Takes about 7-8x longer to really get going vs. lacto, and of course double that compared to Sacc. But that's a good thing for this since it eats the alcohol the Sacc makes.

Pediococcus (which you don't want unless you are brewing a Lambic or Flanders beer)

Likes temps between 60-95
Makes lactic acid, up to 2%, and can deal with PH as low as 3.4 which is lower then sacc/brett/lacto
Likes to eat starch, so if your mash isn't good or intentionally leave starch, it gives it something to eat
Doesn't like oxygen, it prefers anaerobic conditions. Oxygen is more toxic to some types then others
Really takes like... forever to get involved. Like 50x longer then Sacc in good conditions. With oxygen in the mix, it's even slower.
It doesn't grow fast. But beers it is in are often aged for a year or more in barrels before being bottled. Barrels let in small amounts of oxygen.
So it sits in them for a long time, slooooooowly changing.

So sours that are potentially more sour but not vinegary often have Pedio in the mix.

You wouldn't want that for the "lemon beer", it doesn't need to be that sour.

[teutonic terror]

Duck, I've got a lemon bomb IPA recipe if you're interested.

Mostly two row and 6 1/2 oz of Sorachi Ace.
Not terribly bitter, but very hoppy.

As far as Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace goes, I wasn't very fond of the bottle
I tried about two months ago.

[BlackDuck]

Duck, I've got a lemon bomb IPA recipe if you're interested.

Mostly two row and 6 1/2 oz of Sorachi Ace.
Not terribly bitter, but very hoppy.

As far as Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace goes, I wasn't very fond of the bottle
I tried about two months ago.

I would love to see the recipe, thanks so much. The more info I can get the better. How was the lemon characteristic? Was it noticeably lemony, or just mostly citrus?

[mashani]

RE: The "A Sorachi Ace":

My suggestion to try it is to understand the kind of lemon flavor/aroma that a huge dry hop of Sorachi will bring. But don't expect it to taste like a pale or IPA, it's a bone dry saison that also tastes like it was fermented with French Saison yeast (spicy/peppery along with the lemony). So liking it or not as a "whole package" isn't what I am getting at, it's just to get the vibe of the Sorachi in that application. Separate everything from the beer besides the lemon/lemongrass, as that's what is coming from the Sorachi.

This may be a taster specific thing, but I'm not joking when I say you might get dill and/or cilantro like flavors if you use Sorachi in the boil. I'm pretty sure Beer-Lord tasted something like that in his Sorachi beer mentioned above. I know I've gotten it in beers I've made with it, along with that "lemon cream" vibe I mentioned. It might be something like "cat pee" in IPAs though - something only some people taste / notice at a certain threshold. The only way I have not gotten it is to use Sorachi as only a bittering hop and then only a dry hop, and nothing in between, except for maybe very small additions. But any big late addition has given me this.