Drinks3point2

Recipes 

My first batch of beer is now 5 weeks conditioned in the bottle. I made a Sierra Nev. Pale clone using the recip. in Clone Brews. The beer is not bad tasting per say and just to be clear, I'm not worried, but it has an unbelievably strong citrus/grapefruit taste to it. I'm curious if it's something that I did in the brew process, if it just happens, or should I expect that it will go away? My first thought was that I over-dry hopped with the whole leaf hops and that might be the cause.

Here is what I did:
Followed recipe in Clone Brews (extract w/ specialty grains, full boil 5 gal batch)-OG 1.059
Pitched Wyeast 1056 From 1 liter starter made aprox. 36 hours in advance
Fermented @ 74º in my basement
12 days- racked to secondary and dry hopped 1 oz Cascade whole leaf hops in a grain sock- SG 1.012
21 days- bottled, used DME to prime FG 1.012

I started sampling @ 8 days or so and drank one every other day. Since the first one the citrus flavor has mellowed out some but at this point it's not showing any sign of really going away. I would be happy with some "citrusy notes" but this one is powerful. I should just tell myself and friends that it's a Grapefruit Ale. Any thoughts on the cause???

Yooper

Recipes 

I don't have that book, so I can't see the recipe. But it sounds like the hops you used were "grapefruity" hops.

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markcurling

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Sounds delicious!

Doesn't sound like a fault to me - I agree with Yooper, perhaps the clone recipe was a just a little OTT on the grapefruity hops!

markcurling

Recipes 

...I look forward to the day where I accidentally make a beer which is TOO hoppy!

Drinks3point2

Recipes 

Here's the recipe:
4 oz Crystal 60
6.5 lb light DME
1/4 lb Malto-dextrin
1 oz Nugget 8.5% bittering
1/2 oz Perle Flavor @ 15min
1 oz Cascade @ 1min
1/2 oz Cascade Dry hop ( I used 1 oz whole leaf)

waldoar15

Recipes 

That's probably coming from your flameout and dry hop additions. It should fade to some extent, with time. But SNPA has always had a hint of citrus to me anyway.

Now, Summit hops would have given you some real grapefruit. I made an all Summit IPA once. It was pretty dang good.

eelpout

Recipes 

A hint of citrus? I must have different tastebuds.
I thought grapefruit was the whole idea of that beer.

Hang Glider

Recipes 

I like the Cascade and Amarillo better for the grapefruit than Summit or Simcoe...
my 2 cents

however, if your clone tastes TOO grapefruity to you (as compared to the real thing), perhaps the Sierra Nevada you tasted was a bit older - dry hopping does not last long - a few months. So perhaps your fresh beer was "brighter" from the hops than your commercial sample. Fresh Sierra is indeed, nicely grapfruity.

Shooter

Recipes 

...but, I read on the internet that Simcoe hops will make my beer taste like grapefruit!!

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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C. S. Lewis, English essayist & juvenile novelist (1898 - 1963)

AZ_IPA

Recipes 

For future reference, we tend to refer to our hop schedules by the time remaining on the boil.

So your perle should be called the 15 minute addition and the 1 oz of cascade a 1 minute addition.