American Pale Ale (Mosaic, Amarillo, Citra and Simcoe hopped)

Here's what I'm planning to brew this weekend. I was able to get my hands on some mosaic, amarillo, citra, and simcoe pellets. Also able to get a few oz. of Citra whole leaf hops. Wanted to make a bright, crisp, citrusy/orange pale ale to drink during late summer when it's hot out. I almost considered zesting some orange peel or grapefruit peel with this but have never used mosaic hops before so I just wanted to appreciate what those hops can do without adding in anything else. If this recipe turns out well, them maybe the next incarnation will include some orange peel zest. On the flip side of this, was thinking a similar recipe with nelson sauvin/sorachi ace/galaxy would be interesting and use some lemon peel zest. Maybe some point down the road.
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Category: 10 - American Ale
Subcategory: A - American Pale Ale
Kettle Volume: 14.0*gal @ 212*°F (1.047)
Boil Duration: 1.5*h
Final Volume: 11.28*gal @ 68*°F (1.056)
Efficiency: 90.0%
Attenuation: 77.0%
Evap./Hour: 1.5*gal

- 2 tsp of gypsum to HLT
- 1.25 qt/lb mash thickness. Single infusion mash at 152F for 90 mins.
- Mashout to 168F
- 90 min boil
- reduce boil kettle temp to 180F for flameout/whirlpool hops.
- primary ferment 7 - 10 days, transfer to secondary/dry hop 7-10 days, cold crash near freezing for 2 days. Keg.

Ingredients:
85.0% 2-Row Brewers Malt; Briess - added during mash
10.0% Munich Malt - added during mash
5.0% Crystal 15; Crisp - added during mash
1*oz (9.1%) Warrior® (16.0%) - added first wort, boiled 90*m
.25*oz (2.3%) Citra™ (12.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10*m
.25*oz (2.3%) Amarillo® (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10*m
.25*oz (2.3%) Mosaic (11.6%) - added during boil, boiled 10*m
.25*oz (2.3%) Simcoe® (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10*m
.75*oz (6.8%) Citra™ (12.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5*m
.75*oz (6.8%) Amarillo® (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5*m
.75*oz (6.8%) Mosaic (11.6%) - added during boil, boiled 5*m
.75*oz (6.8%) Simcoe® (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5*m
1*oz (9.1%) Citra™ (12.0%) - whirlpool, steeped 30*m
1*oz (9.1%) Amarillo® (8.5%) - whirlpool, steeped 30*m
1*oz (9.1%) Simcoe® (13.0%) - whirlpool, steeped 30*m
1*oz (9.1%) Mosaic (11.6%) - whirlpool, steeped 30*m
2*oz (18.2%) Citra™ (12.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter for 7-10 days

WYeast 1056 American Ale™

Original Gravity: 1.056
Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Color: 5.76*SRM
Alcohol: 5.63%
Bitterness: 45

This sounds a lot like the pale ale I made a month or two ago. I used Simcoe as the bittering hop and Amarillo and Mosaic as the aroma hops. It came out really tasty and I'd definitely brew it again.

LandoLincoln said:

This sounds a lot like the pale ale I made a month or two ago. I used Simcoe as the bittering hop and Amarillo and Mosaic as the aroma hops. It came out really tasty and I'd definitely brew it again.

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Sounds good. I really like warrior or colubus hops as a FWH addition (smooths the bitterness out)...but might be interesting to try that with simcoe. Never used simcoe as a bittering hop.

I guess, on another note, I am a little concerned about the amt. of warrior hops I'm using. Any suggestions on dropping that down to half (.50 oz)? or maybe using simcoe ? I'm not wanting this to be bitter in any way. Mostly want it to be about the citrus/floral aromas and flavors of the hops.

Finished brewing and OG came in short of where i wanted it, but not a huge deal. 1.053. Pitched wlp001 yeast Temp reading on the fermenters was 75.hard to chill wort in July below 75. But that should drop to the mid 60s throughout the evening (basement stays around 66f)

Checked on fermenters this morning. Temp has only dropped to 70F and the airlocks are bubbling away. I'm a little bit worried about this temp. causing some off flavors. Never had the WLP001 or Wyeast 1056 strain ferment at this high of a temp. (usually I brew pale ales in the spring and fall when the basement temp is right around 63F/64F). Normally, in July and Aug. I brew a lot of belgian styles since it's hard to get the wort chilled to anything below 75F (tap water doesn't get very cold - usually 75F) and the basement is a bit warmer. My basement temp is ambient right around 66F to 68F in the summer. Considering the internal temp in the fermenter might be 3F to 5F higher, just worried about off flavors.

Might be time to buy a small chest freezer for fermenting.

Interesting recipe! I'm wondering about your whirlpool additions. In you notes you cool the wort to 180 BEFORE pitching the whirlpool hops? I thought I heard Gordon strong at NHC talk about adding whirlpool hops after the boil but before the temp dropped to 180.

Something about the hop oils do not isomerize at temps below 180. I'll have to review my notes or listen to the talk again now that the sessions from this year are online.

I was wrong. In an April 2013 byo article the temp range for whirlpool hops at sub isomerization is 160-170 which will help the essential oils in the solution and keep them from evaporating.

I had it backwards.

remthewanderer said:

I was wrong. In an April 2013 byo article the temp range for whirlpool hops at sub isomerization is 160-170 which will help the essential oils in the solution and keep them from evaporating.

I had it backwards.

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Yep. I read that article. I've also tried some other temp and time combos for whirlpool additions prior. I've done whirlpool at flameout around 200 and I perceived that it was more bitter than I wanted. Since this was a pale ale , and I already had a FWH warrior addition, I was trying to go light on any bitterness and pack in as much aroma and flavor as I can. We will see.i have never tried this temp and time combo for whirlpool. I'll post notes

That said, this is easily the best aroma coming out of a fermenter that I've ever encountered. Good sign of things to come.

Kegged 5 gal. of this today (I'll keg the other 5 gal. tomorrow, didn't have enough time today to do both batches). Man, what an amazing aroma coming off this beer. I can't wait for this to carb up. I transferred to the secondary about 10 days ago and it's been dry hopping on some citra whole leaf hops. FG came in right at 1.012. I've got another 5 gal. batch and just scored some Nelson Sauvin pellets. I'm thinking about tossing an ounce of those in the other batch and letting it sit for 5 to 7 days. Not sure. We'll see.

Have it in the kegerator on 20 psi for the next 24 hours and then will drop down to around 15 psi for a couple of days and usually set it right at 12 psi for serving. Once it's ready I'll post photos and tasting notes.

Made a spur of the moment decision to do a second 4 day dry hop with the other 5 gal batch and added an ounce of Amarillo pellets and and 2 ounces of calypso pellets. Plan to keg this on Sunday. Forgot gelatin finings for current kegged batch and am worried it won't be that clear (I did do whirfloc) so we will see. Won't forget gelatin on the batch for Sunday. Dang it.

Finished product from the citra dry hopped batch. Calypso, citra,Amarillo dry hop batch is kegged and will pour a few this coming weekend. Aroma on this one is out of sight. Sweet orange and melon aromas are very prevalent. Really provides and very strong fresh squeezed orange juice type aroma and with notes of cantaloupe and watermelon rind. Pours golden orange, nice white frothy head. Taste is melon and citrus up front with a hint of grapefruit and then fades to a quick bitter lemon zest finish. Nice solid malt backbone on this one and I can pick out each of the hops on this but overall everything really melds together well. Citra really brought the melon aroma/flavor. It's interesting what the Mosiac hops provide. Really getting the lemon and citrus and a slight note of mint on the nose. Highly drinkable beer. In comparison to commercially available beers, this beer is very similar to Southern Tier Live (I didn't intentionally plan for that, just happened to be similar). Same color, similar aromas, similar taste. It's excellent. Probably the best pale ale I've ever made from an aroma/taste standpoint. Beer is still a tad hazy. I suspect it will clear up in keg in due time (if it stays in the keg that long). Really wish I would have remembered to add gelatin finings.

I'll post photos of the second batch that I dry hopped with Citra, Calypso, and Amarillo hops. I did remember to add gelatin to that one. So I'm hoping that one will be much clearer.

Well here is a photo of the pour off the kegged batch with citra,Amarillo, calypso dry hop. Amazing what a little gelatin does for clarity ! As prior noted I had dry hopped with 1oz. Citra for about 10 days for my two 5 gal. batches and then, with the second batch of this APA, I did about a 5 day second dry hopping addition with 1 oz. Amarillo and 2 oz. of Calypso. The beer is brilliantly clear and the aroma and flavor is a bit different. The Amarillo really dominates and has more of a grapefruit/grassy aroma. The sweet orange aromas are there, they just take a backseat. The Calypso also makes pear notes very prevalent. Overall, I would definitely dry hop an APA again with Calypso. I've got an IPA coming up and I think I'm going to do that one with warrior, amarillo, calypso, and mosaic and try dry hopping with some el dorado and simcoe hops in one 5 gal. batch and then doing a dry hop in the other 5 gal. batch with simcoe and calypso.

Taking another run at this again. Brewing this on Saturday in hopes that I'll have it ready for competition turn-in by 2/7 (figuring I've got plenty of time). To date, this is the best hoppy ale I've made, no matter if its an IPA or a Pale Ale. I'd compare it to Daisy Cutter Pale Ale. Not a clone, but built in the same model of that beer. I have high hopes for this one based on the last one I made.

Here's what the plan is:
Grains: Harrington 2 Row, Munich 1, Crystal 15
Hops: Warrior, Citra, Simcoe, Mosaic, Amarillo.
Wyeast 1056

Decided to up the 2 Row to 18lbs and sticking with the same hop schedule. Dry hop schedule will be 2 - 5gal batches and each secondary will receive 1oz. of each whole leaf hop - citra, simcoe, amarillo

Anticipated OG should be 1.058/1.056 if all goes as planned.

And that's it. I'll post some photos of the brew day and track the progress.

Mashing at 152f for 90m

Sparge

Ready for late additions of citra, Amarillo, mosaic, and simcoe.

OG came in at 1.060 and I ended up with 11.25 gal. Odd that the gravity reading was higher than anticipated. Would have liked this to be 1.056/58 or so. I must have mismeasured strike or sparge water or maybe the LHBS gave me more grain on accident.

On top of that, had a problem with the new hop stopper I bought. I bought the hopstopper from Innovative Homebrew Solutions that fits on any Kal clone Blichmann kettle. I will say it worked amazingly until I got down to about 1.5 gal left in the kettle and then it clogged. The reason it got clogged is because I didn't read the directions on how to properly use it. I previously have done whirlpooling with my late additions and apparently you can't do that or it will compact the pellet hops on the filter screen and clog the hop stopper. So I came up short a gallon due to clogging. Chalk it up to a learning experience. Read the directions next time !!

All in all everything worked out well. Primary fermenters are now locked in at 63f.

Looks pretty sweet ...I hope I get to judge this at KCBM

Schumed said:

Looks pretty sweet ...I hope I get to judge this at KCBM

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Yep. You are spot on. I've got some entries in the KCBM and this will be one of them. Excited to see how this one does...and I do hope you get to try it ! Thanks.

You can't got wrong with using Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, or El Dorado ever in an APA!! These are the only hops I use...most of the time unless I'm trying to brew something to mirror the BJCP. My standard house beer is a wheat/rye pale using the same hops as mentioned above. I currently split a 12 gallon batch with ale and lager yeast. My ale is almost all gone, but I'm anxious to see how much hop aroma will hang around with the lager; I still have another month or so before I try my first one.

If in doubt, add more hops!! Good luck in your competition.

Transferred to secondary. Gravity is down to 1.012. I'll add in the dry hops this evening and it will sit for about 7 days and then will keg (probably Sunday 1/26).

**Update - dry hops (3oz in each carboy) have been added (1 oz each of Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra). Will keg one of the batches on 1/26 and then will fill up bottles (probably 12 of them) with the counter-pressure filler on/around the week of 2/3. Competition turn-in is Fri. 2/7 and only need to turn in 2 bottles. IF judging was going to be near the turn in date, I'd be a tad worried the beer would be a bit young. But, since the judging starts on 2/18 and goes through 2/22, that means there is ample time for the beer to condition in the bottle. Should be perfect by 2/18. Infact, I've got a Motueka/Calypso Saison that I just bottled yesterday and I'm thinking about entering that one since it will have nearly a month of time bottle conditioning.

As for the other batch, I think I'm going to add in 1oz. of mosaic pellet hops on top of the dry leaf hops on 1/26 and let those sit for another 3 to 4 days and then will cold crash and keg that batch and let it condition in the keg for about a month.

So that's the plan....

Kegged both batches and added some gelatin to each keg. Gravity is 1.012 and samples were already quite nice. Will bottle some off the keg with the counter pressure filler next weekend.

Should be perfect for judging time. With the amount of dry hops used, your beer will still be fresh and have that punch to the nose

Bookmarked for later.

I just bought a bunch of hops similar to what you're using here and will be making some variation of what you have listed.

Looks good!

I have a question about the Amarillo, too. Did you use some from the 2013 harvest, and if so did you notice any grassy aromas/taste? There's a thread in this sub-forum about that particular issue for this years crop.

Damoxemus said:

I have a question about the Amarillo, too. Did you use some from the 2013 harvest, and if so did you notice any grassy aromas/taste? There's a thread in this sub-forum about that particular issue for this years crop.

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Yeah. I used 2013. It's stronger on the Amarillo front. Grassier from the dry hopping. Just go easy on it and maybe half the amt used and up the mosaic or something. No big deal. Just a tad bit different. That's all.

Damoxemus said:

I have a question about the Amarillo, too. Did you use some from the 2013 harvest, and if so did you notice any grassy aromas/taste? There's a thread in this sub-forum about that particular issue for this years crop.

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Yeah. I used 2013. It's stronger on the Amarillo front. Grassier from the dry hopping. Just go easy on it and maybe half the amt used and up the mosaic or something. No big deal. Just a tad bit different. That's all.

Here's a photo of the final product. This one is a bit hazier than past ones made. Didn't add as much gelatin to the keg as past ones because I didn't want to strip off hop aroma and flavor. Really coming into its prime at 3.5 weeks in the keg. Nice citrusy orange aroma. Almost mimosa like on the nose.






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So this one scored reasonably well but didn't win a medal in the pale ale category. Actually, it scored fantastic in all criteria but came up a bit short in Taste and the critique was that it was a bit too bitter for the style, bordering on IPA. So I'm sure there it was marked down a tad for that. And I agree with that. I firmly believe the Amarillo is stronger this year (2013 crop) and gave it too much bite. I did get nice comments on the use of the malts. From having done this batch previously, I know this one was good, but not as good as past ones I've made due to excess bitterness. What I'll probably do in future batches is omit the Warrior addition all together and focus on tweaking late additions (maybe adding in some additions at 30min or maybe 15min (citra/simcoe/mosaic/amarillo mix) and see what that does with bitterness/flavor/aroma. I'll be making this again in a couple of months and will update.

Planning to brew this again soon (probably weekend of 3/22). I know I'm close to perfecting this beer and just need some minor hop schedule tweaks to dial this in just right. I know the grain bill is in line and works. So no tweaks there. I am going to remove the Warrior bittering addition and attempt to obtain bittering IBUs from late hops. I'm doing a citra, mosaic, simcoe, amarillo pellet mix twice for late boil additions, and then the same mix at hopstand/whirlpool. I'm told there is about a 10% utilization on hopstand/whirlpool additions, so I should get about 2 IBUs for every oz. of hopstand/whirlpool. My previous IBU on this one was probably around 55. Would like to bring that down a tad but pack in the aroma/flavor with upping late additions. Also, the 2013 Amarillo crop is more grassy/harsh than years past, so I am backing off on the Amarillo additions. They are still there, just will take a back seat to the other hops. Also, I am going to tone down the dry hopping. I liked the dry hops on the v1.0, and v2.0 was too strong/grassy for a sessionable hoppy pale ale. So I'm going back to amounts in v1.0 but still using a mix of citra/simcoe and omitting the Amarillo. Since I do two 6 gal. carboys on the 10gal. batches, I might try dry hopping citra/simcoe and the other batch as citra/mosaic. Could also be interesting to do a Citra/Columbus in the future (I like Columbus dry hops).

>>v.1 & v. 2 Original approx. 55 IBUs <<
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>> New Schedule approx. 44 IBUs all late addition <<

Brewing this one again this weekend with new hop schedule. Hoping I'll get this nailed down once and for all.

Just brewed a similar(ish) receipe (first time on my new equipment) and I'm excited to try it out. I kegged it up yesterday evening and set it to 12psi for a slow-carb. Mine lacked the Mosaic Hops, but otherwise has a VERY similar hop profile throughout. I managed 1.053 OG, 1.011 FG, 5.2%ish. 52ibus, so more in the middle of your two last batches.

Can you post a pic of the coloring and clarity you're getting? What yeast strain?

hunter306 said:

Just brewed a similar(ish) receipe (first time on my new equipment) and I'm excited to try it out. I kegged it up yesterday evening and set it to 12psi for a slow-carb. Mine lacked the Mosaic Hops, but otherwise has a VERY similar hop profile throughout. I managed 1.053 OG, 1.011 FG, 5.2%ish. 52ibus, so more in the middle of your two last batches.

Can you post a pic of the coloring and clarity you're getting? What yeast strain?

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Funny you should ask. I'm drinking one right now. I will say I didnt cold crash the fermenters on this batch ( out of pure laziness) but I do use gelatin in the keg. You can see from past photos how clear it is when I cold crash. When i cold crash, it's commercial quality clear, if that's what you're after. This batch I make this weekend will be cold crashed eventually. I used wyeast 1056 on the last few times but will use US05 this go around. I've used us05 enough to feel confident there is no difference. Oh also I ferment at 66/67f. Here you go



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Btw that photo comes off dark. I'd say if you were actually looking at it, the color is comparable to a lagunitas IPA.


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Thanks KChrome, looks great. I pitched 1056 and got good clearing in one of my two vessels. Mixed, it's a hair cloudy, so I'm going to have to cold crash to get decent clarity I think. Mine fermented at about 62-65 degrees.

hunter306 said:

Thanks KChrome, looks great. I pitched 1056 and got good clearing in one of my two vessels. Mixed, it's a hair cloudy, so I'm going to have to cold crash to get decent clarity I think. Mine fermented at about 62-65 degrees.

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Cold crash 3 days is all you need and you'll be set. Also add a cup of H2o with a couple of teaspoons of gelatin to the keg or add to secondary when you cold crash if you bottle prime.


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Mashing in. Productive day so far. Kegged a heady topper clone and added 2 oz of citra dry hops to the keg and bottling a saison and working on v3.0 of this beer.




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What kind of changes are you looking at for v3? I'm already pretty sure my first attempt suffers the same argument the judges made at the top of this page... A bit too bitter for the style that I was shooting for. I think next time, I'll kill a few of the 60min hops and go heavier on the late additions. Also think I might toss a few crystal hops in as well.