Jaipur by Thornbridge Brewery is a legendary beer, one which has been brewed since 2005, one we want to teach you how to homebrew. It was one of the first UK craft beers to introduce British drinkers to American hops and used in abundance, it was a pioneer and one which helped to kick start the UK craft beer revolution. The fact that this beer is still being brewed today and still tasting as great as all those years ago meant we just had to go visit them to learn just how they brew this beer.

The following recipe kit is based on the Jaipur you will find in bars being served using a hand pull from a cask. This has a more yeast forward taste and aroma, we have presented you with optional liquid yeasts to replicate the Thornbridge house yeast strain.

You can however choose to package and serve this beer however you should wish.

Before purchasing this kit we highly recommend watching the series of videos we produced with Thornbridge Brewery, where you will get to see behind the scenes of the brewery and get in depth information about just what makes this recipe so special and why it is not as easy to replicate as you might first think.

It certainly proved more challenging to us than we expected.

Be sure to read the below information carefully and choose if you need to add the optional products to your order.

Ingredients Included

Simpsons Malt – Low Colour Maris Otter (5870 grams)

Cascade – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (13 grams)
Centennial – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (26 grams)
Chinook – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (52 grams)
Simcoe T90 Pellets (13 grams)

Jaipur Whole Hop Pack

Columbus Whole Hops
Centennial Whole Hops
Cascade Whole Hops
Chinook Whole Hops

ProMix – Finings and Nutrient (1 Pack)

Optional Ingredients

Hop Bittering Extract – Flex 15g (1 pack) – OPTIONAL
Liquid Yeast – OPTIONAL – WLP028 or Wyeast West Yorkshire

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Method

Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): American-Style India Pale Ale
Batch Size: 23
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.010
ABV %: 5.9
IBU: 55
Mash efficiency: 80
Brewing equipment: Grainfather G40

THE MASH
Temperature °C (Step 1): 65
Length (mins) (Step 1): 45
Temperature °C (Step 2): 75
Length (mins) (Step 2): 10

THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60

Hop / kettle additions and timing:

3.5ml Flex Co2 Extract  at start of boil – Optional Product – we chose to make this optional as one purchase is enough for multiple batches – please add to order if you do not already have this.

ProMix – add in the last 10 minutes of the boil

Whirlpool / hop stand:

Whirlpool is done at 92c, this temperature should be maintained for the duration of Whirlpool and Hopnik step
13g Chinook Pellets for 5 mins

Then a 20 minute whirlpool rest.

Then to replicate the Hopnik, we add the final additions for 20 minutes maintaining 92c

You will find bespoke weighed Whole Leaf hops supplied specifically for this recipe kit, weights and Alpha are provided on the bags

Chinook Leaf
Centennial Leaf
Cascade Leaf – (used as replacement for Ahtanum)
Columbus Leaf
13g Simcoe T90 Pellet – as we are not able to source leaf

Yeast: In the final video you will see we used WLP028 Yorkshire we would also recommend West Yorkshire from Wyeast. With both we recommend that you do a starter with your liquid yeast as you want it to quickly and to complete fermentation in the time that Thornbridge achieve and to avoid stalling at the end.

Fermentation temperature/steps: Pitch at 16c, allow to free rise and cap at 22c

Secondary additions:

At the end fermentation a small dry hop is added for 48hr contact after yeast has been harvested/dumped

39g Chinook PHP
26g Centennial PHP
13g Cascade PHP

Then cold crash to 1c and consider possible use of Brausol for a clearer beer to replicate the use of Centrifuge at Thornbridge.

Once packaged carbonate as you would usually and allow the beer to condition for 12 days before serving if you wish to follow the brewery process.

Method and Technical Information

There are a few key points to pay attention to based on the information that we learned from Thornbridge Brewery, some of which you will be able to catch in the videos we produced, and few that we learned off camera.

Water Volumes

Don’t be shocked if the water volumes you calculate are not enough to hit your numbers and volume. We found that software just couldn’t calculate the correct amount to be fair with the technique used on the this brew it wasn’t straight forward standard brewing, what with its double whirlpool for extended time at higher temperature. Be sure to taking readings, measure and be prepared by having extra water available to back liquor as required.

Water chemistry

Rob talks about how great the base water is in Buxton, well we got a bit more information for those of you that have the ability to adjust your water:

We’re targeting 350ppm of Sulphate and 150ppm of Chloride. Our additions throw the calcium up to the top end of spec (~200-250ppm). Calcium Sulphate and Calcium Chloride in the mash and boil. We adjust mash pH to 5.3-5.5 with 80% lactic acid.

When we brewed this we used RO water and built up a profile using this information and filled in some of the blanks, you can do the same or use what we did.

pH 5.4, Ca2+ 100, Mg2+ 5, СаСОз 80, sO42 350, CI 150, Na+ 100

But don’t stress if water treatment isn something you are currently doing, just as Rob in the video we would recommend using Tesco Ashbeck water as an easy option.

Hops

Its not just home brewers who cant get Ahtanum, from time to time there isnt enough for Thornbridge, so when this is the case its a straight swap for Cascade, thats what we are doing with the ingredients on this kit. We have also paid full attention to what Rob said about the use of Whole Hops and just for this recipe kit we have produced a bespoke set of weighed out Whole Hops, the weights and alpha information will be provided on the product when received as we will adjust this according to any alpha changes.

The brew kit at Thornbridge uses a Hopnik, the hopnik is simply a hopback. A lot of the bitterness comes from there – typically they see approx. 11-15% utilisation from these hops. The temp is approx. 92C after the whirlpool and the wort is flowing through the hopback. So, an hour’s boil, then 5 minutes whirlpool, 20 minutes whirlpool rest. Then the wort is transferred to the hopback and cast into the FV from there. Takes about 45 minutes in total, so this is why we decided to follow a 2 step whirlpool to replicate this and the time. When you are replicating the Hopnik step you should be agitating the hops either by using a whirlpool, stiring them or plunging them for the duration.

Yeast

As you will have seen from the second video with Rob he is a big advocate of liquid yeast, but they have their own specific house strain of a Yorkshire yeast which is not available to home brewers. So we have selected two available liquid Yorkshire strains that are available to home brewers to use with this kit. When Thornbridge pitch their yeast is very active, having either come from their propagation system or from a previous batch. As we found out when attempting to do our version of the cask batch using even a super fresh batch from a lab was not able to achieve the rapid active fermentation that they experience, so therefore we would recommend building a start the day before you are brewing to give the yeast an advance start.