Citra and Simcoe APA...I like citrus but...

Here is the recipe I am dealing with, it is derived from LHBS's recipe. And this is my 1st brew...I am trying to get your opinions on the recipe in general, the use of pacman yeast and if the hops will be good... and Here goes:

5GAL Batch

7 Lbs light liquid malt extract
.5 lbs crystal malt, .5 lbs special roast, .5 lbs vienna malt (30 min steep)
1tsp Gypsum, 2tsp irish moss
Wyeast PACMAN Yeast (ferment @63deg F)

Hops:
60 min-1OZ simcoe 12.7 AAU
60 min-.5OZ CITRA 11 AAU
30 min-.5OZ simcoe
30 min-.5OZ CITRA
02 min-.5OZ simcoe
02 min-.5OZ CITRA
DRY HOP- .5 oz CITRA

What do you think of the recipe? I enjoy beers like Firestone Union Jack IPA, but is this going to be drinkable? What about the hop schedule? Should I adjust a little bit to make the beer more balanced?

What about the PACMAN? Will this be tasty. I live about an hour from rogue and wanted to make it regional..

Are you doing a full or a partial boil? Your IBU's for this could be anywhere from high 30's to low 70's depending on how big your boil is. I highly suggest that if you don't have a program like Beersmith, then go over to hopville.com and plug your recipe in. It is free and can give you and idea of where your brew will fall. You can search to get relative IBU / color / maltiness of commercial brews that you like once you know what you are making.

I plugged this into hopville (awesome program!! and free) and it is amazing the differences between 3 4 and 5 gallon boils...since my favorite ipa (firestone walker union jack) is just above 70, I think I'll do a 4 gallon boil to keep it around 70IBU....

Any ideas on hop balance between simcoe and citra?...do I need more bitterness or less aroma?

Hopefully the PACMAN will chomp up the bad and leave me the good!

I honestly don't like citra. I would go simcoe and chinook, but if you like citra, the hop bill looks great

I throw in another 1lb of light liquid malt extract. Boost up the body and alcohol. Sounds like an awesome beer.

Use the style guidelines. You can adjust the style in the sheet, and it will tell you whether you are to style. 70+ would be overboard for an APA, but would be fine for an IPA. One thing that I would suggest would be to start out with an APA instead of an IPA. Hop schedules are one of the most important things to learn, an with APA's you can experiment more with early / late hop additions to see the impact of bitterness vs aroma / flavoring. Were I to brew that beer, I'd be re-allocating hops to late additions to maximize flavor / aroma, but that is what I've learned that I like.

i made an all citra IPA. I will now only use citra for aroma hops. elmetal has tried my citra IPA and can vouch that it's not good. smells great, though.

There's a reason why Sierra Nevada only used it for aroma in their Torpedo IPA.

if you've got pounds of hops like I do, I just do all flavor/aroma additions. Say like nothing but 20mins and less. Get the simcoe in at the 20min mark to try to get the ibu's up. You will need a ton of hops.

That makes sense Smitty, especially becuase I can use Hopville to create more recipes in the future.

It is important to learn this process of understanding not just the recipe but how I can tweak the recipes for the beer to fit my tastes. I'm gonna brew this tomorrow morning and see what happens.

Perhaps I will tailor it to the APA style a little more by reducing the 30 min. hop additions and adding these to the dry hop or late hop (aroma). Don't think aroma will be a problem with these hops but I'll keep ya posted.

I am going to pitch the Pacman straight from the activator pack. I just don't think I want to mess with a starter until I get the brewing process down first (there are so many steps!)

New Hop schedule....Hopefully downplays some of the unfavorable tastes of citra and moves the additions later..but still gives the flavor in the dry hop..what do you think?

hops

boil 60 mins 1.5 Simcoe info leaf 12.7
boil 25 mins 0.5 Citra info leaf 11.0
boil 5 mins 0.5 Simcoe info leaf 12.7
boil 5 mins 0.5 Citra info leaf 11.0
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Citra info leaf 11.0

Boil: 4.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes Bitterness
19.0 HBU
71.2 IBU
ƒ: Tinseth
BU:GU
1.23