Amber w/ Citra hops

I came up with this recipe to try out some Citra hops.
Any tips?

8 lbs Pale Liquid Extract
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
4.0 oz Melanoiden Malt - 20L
1.0 oz Black Barley - 500L
1 lbs Sugar, Table

1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (60 min) Hops 32.8 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (10 min) Hops 11.9 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (5 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (0 min) Hops -

1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

batch size: 5.25 gal
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.015
IBU: 51.2

Kind of an American Red I guess.

i would say substitue honey for the table sugar, but i find that table sugar makes it taste cidery. oooh a hoppy honey red, that sounds yummy

I would just leave the table sugar out. I've got you at 1.064 OG without it. That'll equal a final gravity of around 1.016 with 6.4%ABV. Adding the one pound of sugar will bring you up to 7.4%-ish, fine if you want to make it an imperial amber, but IMHO not necessary. I would also consider just doing 8oz each of the crystal, or 12oz of the 40L and 8oz of the 80L. Too much of the 80L will see you with a more-brown-than-amber ale.
I am interested to hear how this turns out with the hops schedule. I haven't had a chance to play around with citra hops

im just going to make an IPA hop bomb out of these things

hopped up ambers are damn good. I just finished an intensely (pliny dry hop inspired) hopped american red ale. It is nice to have a bigger malt profile to back up the intense hop character

I decided to cut the sugar out completely. Up the C40 to 12oz, cut the C80 to 8oz. Beersmith gives me a OG of 1.056 now with a FG of 1.013 and still 51 IBU's. I will be brewing this sometime next week.

sweet. sounds like a winner

One lb of sugar or honey will not make it cidery. If you up it to 40% of the fermentables, then yes, it will probably taste cidery or some-other-lessthangood-y. I use simple sugars to dry out bigger beers with good results. I never had much luck getting a big extract brew much under 1.018 or 1.020, which is pushed me toward all-grain. Just my opinion.

s3n8 said:

One lb of sugar or honey will not make it cidery. If you up it to 40% of the fermentables, then yes, it will probably taste cidery or some-other-lessthangood-y. I use simple sugars to dry out bigger beers with good results.

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Do you add it at the end of the boil, or the beginning? I know it will reduce hop utilization a little if added at the beginning. I've added 1lb at the beginning of the boil with other beers before without any cidery taste. I think it helps get the FG down a little on extract brews.

When you say bigger beers, how big?


thanks

I add it at the end of the boil, or even as primary fermentation slows. I agree about getting the FG down on extract brews, which is why I wanted to encourage its use without fear of cidery result. When I say big, I mean anything over 1.060. Most of the beers I make are 1.085 - 1.110. I tend to like big full flavor beers, but dont like them sweet. I had a belgian tripel OG 1.095, FG 1.008. It used 2.5 lbs of simple sugar, and I mashed at 148 for 120 minutes.

This looks good. I'm brewing an Amber on Friday with a hefty shot of Citra and Centennial hops- somewhat inspired by the hop schedule on Dude's Lake Walk Pale Ale. I'm looking for a face full of citrus, so I'm going to dry hop it a little bit as well- something that may be good in this beer. You don't need it, but it could be fun.

Digging up an old thread here, but just wanted to pay homage to Wallygator. My wife wanted an all Citra hopped amber, so we plugged your recipe into BeerSmith to convert it to an all-grain recipe and came up with this:

10.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
0.50 lb Melanoiden Malt
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
0.10 lb Black Barley (Stout)
0.50 oz Citra [11.00 %] (60 min)
0.50 oz Citra [11.00 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (5 min)
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs California Ale V (White Labs #WLP051)

OG 1.059
Est FG - 1.015

Brew went great and we got the Citra hops from Freshops. We nailed the OG and it is sitting in the corner bubbling away right now. Thanks for the recipe. Will let you know how it turns out.

s3n8 said:

I add it at the end of the boil, or even as primary fermentation slows. I agree about getting the FG down on extract brews, which is why I wanted to encourage its use without fear of cidery result. When I say big, I mean anything over 1.060. Most of the beers I make are 1.085 - 1.110. I tend to like big full flavor beers, but dont like them sweet. I had a belgian tripel OG 1.095, FG 1.008. It used 2.5 lbs of simple sugar, and I mashed at 148 for 120 minutes.

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how did it turn out? was it hot at all?

alcibiades said:

how did it turn out? was it hot at all?

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It is fantastic. It needed some time to age, but I do not get any hot alcahol flavor at all.

thanks Brew_Horn.

This what I ended up making:


8 lbs Pale Liquid Extract (4.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM)
1.0 oz Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM)
12.0 oz Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM)

1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (60 min) Hops 32.8 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (15 min) Hops 16.3 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (5 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [11.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
55 IBU's

1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast-Ale

OG: 1.061
FG: 1.015
color is about 16 SRM

It turned out really good, a little darker than originally planned. Very smooth and drinkable for 55 IBU's. Next time I might drop the C80 to 4oz's and dry hop for a couple days.

wg

Very cool - thanks again. Yeah we went easy on the early hops since she is very sensitive to hop bitterness.
The color is really nice and smelled great when I transferred it this evening into the secondary. It was slightly higher FG than I expected (around 1.017) but also might drop a few points in the secondary. We'll see, but definitely looking forward to trying it.
Did you get any peachy flavors from yours? That is what she is looking forward to.

Just an update on the all Citra hopped amber. It has been on tap for a little over a month and it is pure peach! The peachy flavors did not come out at first, but at about week three in the keg they really popped - and that's with only 3 oz of Citra. Everybody is really enjoying this one and is a great easy drinker for the summer.

I don't see any dry hops there? Did you dry/keg hop at all?

Ouroboros said:

I don't see any dry hops there? Did you dry/keg hop at all?

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I hope he did, citra has the best dry hop aroma on the market I think. Pure tropical fruit.

I didn't do any dry hopping on this batch, and still get an intense fruity aroma back by a little roast. Almost like peach cobbler.

I'm gonna do an IPA and that will definitely get some dry hops though.

Brew_Horn said:

I didn't do any dry hopping on this batch, and still get an intense fruity aroma back by a little roast. Almost like peach cobbler.

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This is what I did on mine also, no dry hop, just a zero addition.

I get a little roasty and a lot of fruity aroma, I'm leaning more toward mango in mine then peach.

After about 2 months in bottles, it really started to shine. Very good flavor. At first I didnt think I would brew this again, but now its on my to-do again list.


wg