Need some help on my American Pale Ale

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eluterio

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I brewed an american pale ale but I have a feeling I might have under hopped my apa. All grain batch with 2 row, crystal 80L, 40L, and some white wheat malt.

I mashed at 152 for 60 min and boiled for 75.

I only used 2 hops in this and it was
1.0 oz 7 c's at 75 min
1.0 oz Cascade at 10 mins.

Im starting to think its going to be a flop compared to other APA's.

Should I dry hop for 7 days using cascade and Centennial or 7 c's blend?? These are the hops I have in stock.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
You're correct. It'll be lacking in hops.

Dry hop for sure. I recommend to do it in stages. Add an ounce of something every other day for 3 additions. Leave the last ones in for 3-4 days and call it good.
 
You likely got plenty of bittering from the ounce of 7Cs at 75 minutes, but this beer will probably have restrained aroma and hop flavor with 1, one ounce addition at 10 minutes. Hop flavor and aroma seems to be best achieved by adding hops 20 minutes or later in the boil You could try dry hopping with 2-4 oz. of the 7Cs to extract some aroma and a little flavor. You probably made a good beer, just not real hoppy.

Do you use a recipe builder at all? You will probably get some better information from others if you include how many lbs of malt this batch used, yeast strain, alpha acid of hops. The more information you can give the better when you have recipe questions. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the quick reply

Primary for 6 days now, should how much should I drop?? 1oz at a time of each or total? like

1oz cascade and cent total time 7
1 oz same total time 3
1oz same total time 2

or should I go big at first and reduce at the end?

What would be a good recommendation for schedule and amount?
 
I brewed an american pale ale but I have a feeling I might have under hopped my apa. All grain batch with 2 row, crystal 80L, 40L, and some white wheat malt.

I mashed at 152 for 60 min and boiled for 75.

I only used 2 hops in this and it was
1.0 oz 7 c's at 75 min
1.0 oz Cascade at 10 mins.

Im starting to think its going to be a flop compared to other APA's.

Should I dry hop for 7 days using cascade and Centennial or 7 c's blend?? These are the hops I have in stock.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

what are your alpha acids for the 7c's? I looked one up and saw 9-10%, I think your bitterness if fine. Generally you want a little less hoppiness for an APA than an IPA, so it will probably be just fine. It should taste good when you go to dry hop, but feel free to dryhop for some added aroma and flavor. No bitterness will come through when you dry hop. Since you have some flavor from the cascade already, why not use either the 7c or centennial.

If I can remember right the IBU to OG ratio should be around 0.8-1.1 for an APA. Don't worry and their is no use anyways. It will be great beer.
 
How many oz. do you have? You could split it into 2 batches depending on how many oz you have. As far as contact time, I usually rack the beer to a secondary vessel at day 14 or whenever the yeast has finished its work and then add the dry hops on top of the beer and wait for the hops to dissolve into the beer. Then I keg. New research is pointing to short contact time, no more than 4-5 days. But it's more about what you like if you're not entering a competition.
 
How many oz. do you have? You could split it into 2 batches depending on how many oz you have. As far as contact time, I usually rack the beer to a secondary vessel at day 14 or whenever the yeast has finished its work and then add the dry hops on top of the beer and wait for the hops to dissolve into the beer. Then I keg. New research is pointing to short contact time, no more than 4-5 days. But it's more about what you like if you're not entering a competition.

I have about 1.5 oz of cascade and 1 of cent and about 8 oz of 7 c's. I dont normally do a secondary I usually just keg after 14 to 17 days. By this time it usually clean up by then. I like the 4 to 5 day contact time so I can introduce starting in just 3 days and hop every day about an ounce each day up to 5 days!

And yes it for competitions my second attempt at an APA. If it dont work out then I can alway rebrew it!
 
what are your alpha acids for the 7c's? I looked one up and saw 9-10%, I think your bitterness if fine. Generally you want a little less hoppiness for an APA than an IPA, so it will probably be just fine. It should taste good when you go to dry hop, but feel free to dryhop for some added aroma and flavor. No bitterness will come through when you dry hop. Since you have some flavor from the cascade already, why not use either the 7c or centennial.

If I can remember right the IBU to OG ratio should be around 0.8-1.1 for an APA. Don't worry and their is no use anyways. It will be great beer.

My AA on the 7 is 9.8% bought a lbs of it a few months ago.

Thank Im just a little crazy when trying to brew to styles always second guessing myself that I why im posting this question here. I have a harder time when it comes to hopping my beers then when I brew wheats and blondes and everything else that isnt americanized for competitions.

I think Ill do about 3 oz max over a 5 day period, maybe. lol
 
How many oz. do you have? You could split it into 2 batches depending on how many oz you have. As far as contact time, I usually rack the beer to a secondary vessel at day 14 or whenever the yeast has finished its work and then add the dry hops on top of the beer and wait for the hops to dissolve into the beer. Then I keg. New research is pointing to short contact time, no more than 4-5 days. But it's more about what you like if you're not entering a competition.

Oh BTW Chum where did you read that research on contact time for dry hopping I would like to read it!

Thanks
 
I brewed an american pale ale but I have a feeling I might have under hopped my apa. All grain batch with 2 row, crystal 80L, 40L, and some white wheat malt.

I mashed at 152 for 60 min and boiled for 75.

I only used 2 hops in this and it was
1.0 oz 7 c's at 75 min
1.0 oz Cascade at 10 mins.

Im starting to think its going to be a flop compared to other APA's.

Should I dry hop for 7 days using cascade and Centennial or 7 c's blend?? These are the hops I have in stock.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Personally, I think you are only lacking on the aroma and a bit of flavoring. I would dry hop with 2 to 4 ounces of the 7Cs for 3 or 4 days, straight into the Primary and then rack to a keg on day 4.
 
Personally, I think you are only lacking on the aroma and a bit of flavoring. I would dry hop with 2 to 4 ounces of the 7Cs for 3 or 4 days, straight into the Primary and then rack to a keg on day 4.

Thanks and thanks for the info on the article!!
 
Update:

I dry hopped it 5 days with Cascade and 3 days with centennial 1 oz each. Week one I had a gravity 1.009 after week two it dropped another .0008. Starting OG was 1.056 it finished a little lower than expected but the aroma and taste was outstanding. Hoping to put this one in a comp to see how well I did.
 
For those who know about Competitions, this APA took Gold at the KLCC Homebrew fest in Eugene Oregon. All I wanted was some feed back on it turns out it was good enough to win the Category of APA. Beat out 13 others who entered.

Cheers!
 

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