Surf Maps & Jump Maps

UPDATED – Due to delays on kegs we have to push this back a week, sorry 🙁

• Taproom from 4pm Thursday 4^th Aug
• Online shop 9am Friday 5^th Aug
• Trade 9:30am Monday 8^th Aug
• Taproom from 4pm Thursday 11^th Aug
• Online shop 9am Friday 12^th Aug
• Trade 9:30am Monday 15^th Aug

I hope you enjoy drinking these as much as we did making them. Good luck guessing. Go go go!

So, here was the full mission:

To evaluate the difference between a 30 min whirlpool and a 60 min whirlpool.

We brewed 2 DIPAs back-to-back with the exact same recipe and process to keep them as close to the same as we could. We ran one with a 5 min WP (whirlpool) followed by a 25min rest (normal for us) and another with a longer 35 min WP followed by a 25 minute rest with idea that longer contact time and more agitation should lead to more hop oil extraction.

To try and offset any increase in bitterness the WP temperature was kept low.

Everything was pretty much spot on but here are the minor measured differences between the beers:

Surf Maps

• 64.7°C Mash Temperature
• 5.31 Mash pH
• Co2 Vols: 2.4141 (average in package)
• WP time: 30 mins
• WP temperature: 69.9°C

I decided to run a triangle test at the Taproom for this one.

A total of 30 people of varying levels of experience participated in this triangle test over one weekend. We served each person 2 samples of either Surf Maps or Jump Maps and 1 sample of the other, this varied over the weekend so we will just call them Beer A and Beer B. Each participant was served 1 sample of beer A and 2 samples of Beer B in different coloured opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. While 15 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to accurately identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, 11 did (p=0.415), indicating participants in this triangle test were unable to reliably distinguish between DIPAs with a 30min difference in whirlpool time.

The 11 participants who made the accurate selection on the triangle test were instructed to complete a brief preference survey comparing only the beers that were different. A total of 3 tasters reported preferring the Surf Maps, 3 said they liked Jump Maps more, and 5 had no preference despite noticing a difference.

Untappd scores (at time of writing):

• Surf Maps – 4.25
• Jump Maps – 4.2

My Impressions: Our whole team and myself tried it and all of us got it wrong. Normally I would have done the test a few times but from that very first test I knew that I couldn’t tell, and my choice was essential a guess. To me both beers tasted the same despite knowing what the variable was.

We did taste them very fresh so there is a possibility that time will help highlight the difference so we will probably re-take the test in a month or so to see if we can spot it then.

The one area that could present a difference is the bitterness level of the beer, sadly we can’t measure the IBUs here, but it is very possible that Jump Maps is more bitter. Using the modified version of the Tinseth equation for predicted IBUs, Surf Maps comes in at 11.9 IBUs from the WP and Jump Maps comes in 15.3 IBUs so a theoretical 3.4 IBU difference.

It is possible that the dry hop overshadowed any perceivable difference the WP made. Our whole team tried the beers post fermentation and pre dry hop and all identified the odd one out. However, with the beer being unfinished any yeast or trub etc in suspension could easily have made them taste different so we can’t definitively say that the WP was the difference maker. One thing to note is, interestingly, no one said one tasted hoppier or more bitter than the other at that point.

It would be fun to see this test again in a beer that wasn’t dry hopped or maybe not a DIPA where the dry hop is large compared with other hoppy styles.

Thanks to everyone that has tried them so far. I hope you enjoyed them! For anyone that hasn’t, there are still a few left. Maybe try the blind triangle test yourself and see if you can pick the odd one out!