APA Hop Combinaitons

The article on APAs in this month's BYO has inspired me to try to create my own house APA recipe. I have done tons of research (Brewing Classic Styles, Designing Great Beers, Jamil Show, magazines, here) and have several ideas.

Basically, for my first variable I want to choose a hop combination. I will make a large batch of a basic APA wort, and then boil separately with different hop combinations and ferment them in 2 gallon buckets.

I have in my freezer:
Amarillo
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Columbus
Simcoe


I am currently planning:
Cascade/Centennial
Amarillo/Simcoe
Columbus/Centennial

Chinook/Cascade
Chinook/Amarillo

I would like to do 4-6 different combinations. What others would you suggest?

You've got potentially 46,656 combinations in that list. Trouble is, those varieties all have similar flavors and aromas, at least to me, with the exception of Simcoe. So the vast majority of those combos are in the end going to be too similar for comparison's sake, at least with the extremely coarse sensors available to us (our noses and palates).

Me, I'd do single-hop versions so as to more fully understand the flavors and aromas of each.

Have fun!

Bob

I think Amarillo, Cascades, and Centennial are very similar.
Chinook is a great hop that works well with the above but also has a unique flavor when used alone.
I havn't used Simcoe yet and Columbus only has a bittering hop so I'm not sure.

I think any combination of these hops you wish to try would be great. They are all similar or complementary hops.

Craig

I just did a SN Anniversary Ale clone with chinook and cascade, a yummy combo.

Sounds like you are going to have some fun with this little experiment.

I was wondering if you have had the Chinook hops for a while or did you get them recently? I have been trying to track some down to do a Arrogant Bastard clone, but can't seem to find them anywhere.

Chinooks just appeared on freshops a couple weeks ago (along with simcoe).

Duster72 said:

Chinooks just appeared on freshops a couple weeks ago (along with simcoe).

Click to expand...

Cha Ching, thank you very much

wildwest450 said:

I just did a SN Anniversary Ale clone with chinook and cascade, a yummy combo.

Click to expand...

Hop schedule please?

Duster72 said:

I have in my freezer:
Amarillo
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Columbus
Simcoe

Click to expand...

Wow, that is almost my exact freezer selection as well. Minus the Columbus and add Nugget. I'm also working on a house pale ale inspired by byo. For the first iteration, I'm going with .5 oz Chinook for bittering and then Cascades at 30 (0.5 oz), 10 (0.75 oz), 0 (0.75 oz). I'm having more trouble with my grain bill.

Duster72 said:

Hop schedule please?

Click to expand...

1oz-Chinook 70min
.5 Cascade 20min
.5 Cascade 10 min
.5 Cascade 5min
.5 Cascade flameout- cool wort to 180f then add hops, continue to cool, try to steep at least 20-30 minutes.

This was cut in half from a 12 gallon batch, ibu's need to be around 48 to stay in recipe specs.