Citra hops are starting to let me down

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jcorn

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So I have recently been on a big citra hops kick. Zombie Dust really turned me onto the kick and I have noticed an unusual trend that I would like to know if anyone else has noticed about them. Of all 3 recent ALL citra hop batches (1 oz dry hopped) I have made, I am noticing that the hops citrus character immediately shines like crazy from the dry hop. The bad side to this is that as time goes on (normally within a few weeks) the character of the hops slowly turn from crazy bold citrus to more piney flavors. It is totally changing my beers and introducing a flavor I am not wanting at all. Would citra better be served with other citrusy hops to showcase the citrusy flavor than being alone? Maybe cut the dry hopping of citra in half so that the piney change is not so evident? Is anyone else noticing this change from citra? It seems wonderful as a flavoring and aromatic hop!
 
I wonder if the different harvests might have something to do with it. I recently bought a pound of Citra and brewed Zombie Dust clone. It smells like sweat/body odor! I'm hoping it mellows out, but the Kern River Citra DIPA I brewed last year, was nothing like this.
 
Citra does not go good long in the boil IMO.

Never added it before 7min left in the boil. It tends to get piney/catty at the 15-20 mark and im not even a fan of its bittering compounds.
Added at 5-0, whirlpool and dry hop really let it shine. Try doing a nuetral bittering hop like warrior or nugget to around 25-30IBu and hit it with a huge knock out (5min) of citra (2-3oz) and the same into whirlpool (Keep ~180 for 20-30min) and finish with 1.5-2oz on dry hop, this should give u a nice aromatic citrus/tropical fruit bomb with little piney/catty tones on the backend.

Cheers!
 
I totally agree this year my citra beers are not what they were last year and last a shorter time for citrus flavor. I have been extremely happy doing all Mosaic batches this year and would suggest trying one.
 
I wonder if the different harvests might have something to do with it. I recently bought a pound of Citra and brewed Zombie Dust clone. It smells like sweat/body odor! I'm hoping it mellows out, but the Kern River Citra DIPA I brewed last year, was nothing like this.

i've had the same experience, same brew, 2 different citra harvests. one was mango-pineapple, and one was overripe pineapple-sweaty gym bag. some white wines have that smell that's just on the edge between passionfruit and BO, i'm happy with it there but don't think i want it in my ipa
 
Blasphemy! I've certainly never noticed that with my citra supply, but I'm just getting ready to break into a different batch. I love citra as a dry hop. Also a good citra/amarillo ale.
 
Others have seemed to like some resent citra batches but I think the years past harvests were better also. A local brewery makes a honey citra ipa that was amazing in 2010/11 and since then it just isn't nearly as good imo.. maybe next year will be better again? A guys gotta hope :mug:
 
That honey citra sounds delicious! Mosaic sounds interesting also... what single dry hop will give me boldest citrus flavor? Maybe citra with cascade would clean the cascade up some?
 
Hmmmm I was going to use citra for bittering, cascade for aroma, and dry hop with amarillo, but after reading this I may choose to revise my plan and bitter with something else. Anyone know what Evil Twin uses in their Molotov cocktail?
 
That honey citra sounds delicious! Mosaic sounds interesting also... what single dry hop will give me boldest citrus flavor? Maybe citra with cascade would clean the cascade up some?

Mosaic kills it as a dry hop! It honestly feels like cheating when I use that hop variety haha.
 
I brewed an pale ale which me and a friend sampled only yesterday and I'm really happy with it, it was based on punk ipa which I find a bit one dimensional as they make it with 100% pale marris otter. They use whatever hops they can source to meet demand I think, I've had bottles marked up with mixtures of nelson sauvin, chinook, simcoe, ahtanumn and currently they state chinook, crystal, motoeka but it really varies and obviously they find they need to adapt from harvest to harvest.

I find too much crystal in an IPA clashes with the purity of the hop flavour for the same reasons as I prefer to mash for a drier final beer in pale ales, but there should be some balance to prevent the beer leaving you hanging on the finish. So my bill was (what does this have to do with citra? read on..)

85% pale marris otter
5% dextrine
2.5% aromatic
2.5% melanoiden
5% sugar

90% lactic acid solution used to bring ph down during batch sparging. 3 drops/10L. Scant amount of gypsum added to boil, 1g/10L.

Mashed at 150F for 90m
Mashed out at 170F for 10m

42 IBU challenger FWH
6 IBU citra @ 5m
3 IBU cascade @ 5m

2 weeks with US-05, racked to secondary added citra and cascade @ 4.5g each per litre for 6 day dry hop.

Beer is excellent but really happy with the colour, predicted 14EBC but it is this glorious tropical strawy yellow/orange colour.
 
STZ, that is a very interesting theory you have there because I load my pales with crystal 60. Maybe I should tone it down a little with some of that melanoidin,carapils or aromatics and see if I can get more complexity out of my hop oils. I love nelson sauvin!!! Wonderful tropical flavors..
ONE THING I HAVE NOTICED ON THE CITRA IS THAT IF I KEG HOP IT INSTEAD OF DRY HOP, THE CITRUS STAYS LONGER AND MORE TRUE TO ITS CHARACTER. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER IF YOU DO NOT BOTTLE.
 
I think fresh and somewhat even green is best for any citrusy pale that I make. Just seems best for I go for on my recipes. My grain bills are normally nothing more special than some cara and munich though.
 
I'm kind of over citra as well. It's only good fresh. After a couple weeks in the bottle it changes completely. I'm going to use mosaic next time.
 
I'm kind of over citra as well. It's only good fresh. After a couple weeks in the bottle it changes completely. I'm going to use mosaic next time.

You will be very happy with the Mosaic I can't say enough about it and people need to start using it more if they are fans of Citra
 
Every description I have come across for Mosaic says its equally citrusy as piney. Is this not true? Citra is way more citrusy than piney. This is of course is before the citrus falls out within a few weeks.
 
A couple of things I'd like to mention here from my very limited experience with both hops.

I'm pretty certain that Two Brothers Sidekick is made with just Mosaic. If you can get that, it may provide a starting place for working it into your recipes. It will also answer some of the questions above about piney vs. citrus flavors.

In my ZD clone, I felt that there was no reason to use citra early in the boil like the recipe here on HBT does, and replaced the first addition with Mosaic, and a part of the second addition, as well as one oz of dry hop, all mosaic. I've never gotten higher praise on a beer. It's wonderful.

The advice above me in this thread seems to agree with my experience.
 
Mosaic as a dry hop gives that hop bomb flavor and aroma effect that Citra is known for?
 
I get a hint of it.. not as much as i do in Zythos. That stuff is like all tropical fruit haha
 
Did another ipa today with both Mosaic and Citra. Added some homegrown Cascade as well. In a few days I'll dry hop with the remaining Mosaic and Citra.

I'll be reporting back here once they are ready to taste.
 
Did another ipa today with both Mosaic and Citra. Added some homegrown Cascade as well. In a few days I'll dry hop with the remaining Mosaic and Citra.

I'll be reporting back here once they are ready to taste.

Sounds wonderful! Please do
 
I just did a basic all grain pale ale bodied beer with magnum bittering and all flavor hops of Mosaic. Came out very good! The hops have an extremely distinct flavor profile but are pretty complex. Definitely citrusy and somewhat danky. Some of the dank flavor could be from a little over bittering. Very good hop! Just not citra :)
 
I also just brewed a pale ale with citra, mosaic and cascade.

.5 cascade bittering 60
1 oz citra 20
1 oz mosaic 10
1 oz citra 0

dry hop 1 oz citra and 1 oz mosaic

dry hopping sometime next week, hoping for the perfect blend of hop goodness, will report back when it's finished!
 
Grape drank!! Haha. I am definitely noticing that grape flavor. It is so weird haha.

Hop hound, that sounds like a wonderful brew! Im not sure the mosaic will complement the citra though. It may be too much because both of those are so so strong and bold. I use citra so much that I cannot even taste anything from centennial or cascade nowadays.
 
After brewing alot with Mosaic (especially dry hop and keg hopping) I definitely continue to get that "danky flavor". Its almost sort of grassy. Very good hop though. Shines in alot of citrus character but nothing even close to citra. Thanks for chiming in on the mosaic.
 
I just brewed my first Mosaic Pale Ale. I did add some Columbus to offset the fruitiness of the Mosaic, but oh boy it's like drinking candy. Not sure I like it, and if I brew it again the Mosaic will definitely be in the background.
 
It seems like the bitterness (dry hopping I dont seem much of it) from the Mosaic gives that fruit and dank flavor. I have started using Magnum in my citra pales to try and conserve my citra hops. Magnum gives a slight aftertaste on its bitterness if you used too highly on ibu so I am trying to find another "clean bittering hop" to replace it with
 
Magnum is a great battering hop. Have you tried nugget or warrior? Those are the 3 I use in my pa/IPA/IIPAs.
 
I may give Warrior or Columbus a shot. It is really hard to find a hop you can use alot of bitterness from without imparting those bad after tastes from. I think that is the biggest struggle in beer making. It is not easy to perfect without an after taste. I definitely struggled with it more when I did extract brewing though.
 
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