Sichuan IPA

brewing

With the temporary return of our erstwhile brewing cooperator from his adventures in China (which perhaps he may post sometime concerning his brewing endeavours) we decided to brew a beer with some particularly fragrant and alkaline sichuan peppercorns he had brought back. Something we had been contemplating trying for a while. The result, hampered somewhat by a lack of freshly harvested hops (we had to make do with 2015 harvest) is a refreshing affair with a subtle and not overwhelming tingle from the peppercorns but with their characteristic taste well blended with the flavour of the hops.

The picture above is the alkaline in sichuan peppercorns that makes your mouth tingle.

Grain Bill

  • 2-Row / Extra Pale - 85%
  • Flaked Maize 5%
  • Carapils 5%
  • Cherrywood Smoked Malt 5%

Mash Temp: 66 Celsius

Liquor to Grist: 2.5 : 1 (Approx.)

Water Chemistry

We made some additions to the water chemistry to optimise for light and hoppy beer. We used the Hanging Bat’s water chemistry as an approximate base as it is reasonably close to where we brew.

  • 27g CaSO4
  • 12g NaCl
  • 4g CaCl

Boil

Boiled for 90 minutes, with the following fun additions:

  • 60m - 50g Target (9.2AA)
  • 30m - 30g Archer (6.73AA)
  • 30m - 30g First Gold (4.33AA)
  • 25m - 200g Sichuan Pepper Corns (Red)
  • 15m - 20g Archer (6.73AA)
  • 15m - 20g First Gold (4.33AA)
  • 1m/end - 50g Archer (6.73AA)
  • 1m/end - 50g First Gold (4.33AA)

Theoretical IBU: 50

Post-Boil

We split the batch into 4 approximately 10l batches and pitched different yeasts so as to hedge our bets on the best flavour esters and to experiment.

OG: 1.055

  • Burton Ale Yeast [White Labs], FG: 1.010, ABV 5.91%
  • Funktown [Yeast Bay], FG: 1.010, ABV 5.91%
  • West Coast American Ale [Lallemand], FG: 1.008, ABV 6.17%
  • Lochristi [Yeast Bay], FG: 1.009, ABV 6.04%

Creative Commons License
Sichuan IPA by Edinburgh Brewing Cooperative is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.