lesson learned: too much citra

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joenearboston

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Wanted to share my brewing disaster to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

I made a great IPA with Simcoe, but ruined it with too much Citra.

1 oz Chinook @ 60 min
1.5 oz Simcoe @ 20 min
2 oz Simcoe @ 0 min, whirlpool with heat off for 30 minutes

So far so good. Very hoppy and piney as one would expect with Simcoe.

But I wasn't satisfied...wanting to amaze my hop head friends...I dry hopped with Citra at 1 oz / gallon for 24 hours with agitation at 65F.

24 hours later the beer tasted like pineapple / mango juice - and not in a good way. It didn't even taste like beer anymore. My beer tasted like breakfast fruit juice. I've had a Heady Topper and Hill Farmstead beer before...those are amazing...mine wasn't.
 
I'm too scared to dry hop with Citra. Hell, I'm scared to dry hop with anything.
 
I brewed a single-hop beer with Citra once. Thought the hops smelled amazing on brew day. I felt very differently when the batch had matured. At least it mellowed in time. I've since come to learn that Citra can be a nice background hop at least.
 
I bottled my first brew using citra today. The recipe uses 1.5oz in the boil plus an oz in dry hops for a 5g batch and going by the smell and taste of the flat beer it's nice and tropical/citrus-y but I don't think I'd want to add any more. From what I've read a little goes a long way.

I'm sure your beer will mellow out into something delicious. Time is the best healer after all. :)
 
I did 2oz/5 gal dry hop along with 1 oz centennial and my IPA is awesome!!! 5oz citra would have been crazy.
 
y'all need to harden the F up. I made a paste with baking soda & Citra to brush my teeth with. I dry hop my coffee with it. I use it as deodorant. I quit chewing tobacco and started chewing whole leaf Citra.


ok, I lied about all that. I do agree with letting it mellow. then drink the hell out of it.
 
Yeah man, let it sit for a bit with the dry hop. It will mellow out and likely be super good.
 
Gonna have to defend Citra here. I make a killer IPA that's a Simcoe/Citra/Amarillo combo using 3oz Citra at 5 min and another 3oz for dry hop along with amarillo. Give it a little time to come into its own. Of course this is my opinion and ymmv.
 
Another Citra defender. I made a very simple brew, Marris Otter, magnum for bittering, safale 05 for yeast and a 3 oz citra hop stand (180F for 40 minutes). 'Twas a flipping awesome brew.
 
imo citra is good to compliment other hops. i personally have had bad luck using it as the main hop or using large amounts of it in addition to other hops. ive had better results using small amounts to compliment other hops.

that being said, i know that it can be done right as the main hop as there are many tasty commercial examples that showcase citra.
 
another citra tropical fruit lover here. but does it work well with simcoe? i've always kept those two away from each other
 
I love the tropical fruitiness of citra. I just did 2oz in pellets plus .5oz of whole leaf cascade for my dry hop and it smelled off the charts delicious.

I think citra played out very well in my coffee ipa. I liked it so much, I might make the same recipe again and hold the coffee as for great hot summer drinking IIPA
 
I made a citra smash with 6 oz of citra. It was really good when it was young, but over time the citra mellowed out. Give it time if its to much.it should fade a little over time
 
I just won our local Pro-Am competition with a Citra IPA, and I dry hopped with 1.25oz per 5gal batch, and that was PLENTY to get a nice citrus punch.

I also used it for flavoring and aroma additions, but nothing before 15 mins left, or else you risk imparting weird flavors from it.
 
I brewed a pale ale in early April using Citra hops for the first time: 1 oz each of Chinook (60min), Cascade (15min) and Citra (5 min). This weekend I opened the first one. The stuff is liquid crack! I can't get enough of it.
 
I LOVE Citra! The batch I have in secondary was brewed with .5oz for 15 min and is now dry hopping with 1.5 oz. it's not my primary though, as I used Columbus at 60 and centennial at 30. But I can't get enough of the aroma! Great for summer.
 
I brewed a single-hop beer with Citra once. Thought the hops smelled amazing on brew day. I felt very differently when the batch had matured. At least it mellowed in time. I've since come to learn that Citra can be a nice background hop at least.

Yeah, I did the same thing! I made an all-citra beer.

I sampled it. And it screamed MANGO at me. Badly.

I dryhopped it with cascade in the keg, hoping it would help.

I still call that my "Juicy Fruit Gum Beer".

Ick.

I like citra as a tiny (very tiny) addition to a complex hops bill. But alone? No sir.
 
Billy-Klubb said:
y'all need to harden the F up. I made a paste with baking soda & Citra to brush my teeth with. I dry hop my coffee with it. I use it as deodorant. I quit chewing tobacco and started chewing whole leaf Citra.

ok, I lied about all that. I do agree with letting it mellow. then drink the hell out of it.

I smell a Chopper IPA brewed entirely with Citra and Summit. Harden the F up!
 
Everyone talks about it being a fruit bomb, but has anyone ever had this hop go garlic? We brewed a zombie dust clone with all citra, and it came out out with garlic/onion. They were Freshops hole cones, maybe it was just the batch, I don't know.
 
I had an all citra ipa at my local brew pub and it was delish
 
Veedo said:
Everyone talks about it being a fruit bomb, but has anyone ever had this hop go garlic? We brewed a zombie dust clone with all citra, and it came out out with garlic/onion. They were Freshops hole cones, maybe it was just the batch, I don't know.

I use a lot of Citra and I can't say that's ever happened to me.

I think the thing that should be said is taste is subjective so you might not like the characteristics of a heavily Citra hopped beer. You may just like a tiny bit complimented by other hops, or you might not like the hop at all. Personally I like it for aroma additions and dry hopping because of the mango flavor/aroma but someone like Yooper doesn't like it for those same reasons. Its something each person has to draw their own conclusion on.
 
Mango. Cool to hear someone say that cause I never tried a citra beer till this weekend and that's definitely what jumped out at me. BTW ... It was Widmere bro's summer citra ale. Love it.
 
Wanted to share some recent observations.

I recently made two similar beers differing only with respect to their flavor/aroma hops. Both consisted of Marris Otter (13 lbs) and Magnum for bittering (52.4 IBU). Both were fermented @ 63F X 2 weeks with Safale 05, cold crashed, kegged, and force-carbed.

One beer had 4 oz Citra added in a hopstand (40 min X 180F). The other had 1.33 oz each of Cascade, Chinook, and Amarillo added in a hopstand.

Initially the Citra beer was the clear stand out; amazing tropical fruit flavors and aromas, no onion. Lovely beer. However, over the four months it took for the keg to kick, the tropical fruit dropped and the onion asserted itself. I was happy to see it go.

The tri-hop beer initially was good but not outstanding (it tasted like a more traditional IPA/Pale ale). However, the flavors stood up and I dare say, improved (integrated???) over this time span.

Curious whether anyone else has observed aging playing such an acute role in the contribution of Citra hops.
 
Wanted to share some recent observations.

I recently made two similar beers differing only with respect to their flavor/aroma hops. Both consisted of Marris Otter (13 lbs) and Magnum for bittering (52.4 IBU). Both were fermented @ 63F X 2 weeks with Safale 05, cold crashed, kegged, and force-carbed.

One beer had 4 oz Citra added in a hopstand (40 min X 180F). The other had 1.33 oz each of Cascade, Chinook, and Amarillo added in a hopstand.

Initially the Citra beer was the clear stand out; amazing tropical fruit flavors and aromas, no onion. Lovely beer. However, over the four months it took for the keg to kick, the tropical fruit dropped and the onion asserted itself. I was happy to see it go.

The tri-hop beer initially was good but not outstanding (it tasted like a more traditional IPA/Pale ale). However, the flavors stood up and I dare say, improved (integrated???) over this time span.

Curious whether anyone else has observed aging playing such an acute role in the contribution of Citra hops.

Wow....4 months is a long time. I usually try to drink IPAs within the first month.
 
I have an IPA carbing up in the keg right now that I used Chinook for bittering, then Simcoe and Citra for flavor and aroma. The uncarbed, warm sample I tasted when checking the FG was great. It's been carbing up (at serving pressure) for a week now. Going to pull a sample tonight.

As for the onion taste, I have only gotten that once, in Oskar Blues Gubna. Will never touch that beer again. Unless I need to boil some brats.
 
well this thread is making me nervous....got a 5 gallon batch with 1oz of Magnum (at 60) and 4.75oz citra staggered throughout boil...

waiting on a 3oz citra dry hop this weekend if FG is achieved...

;)
 
CHUM_ said:
well this thread is making me nervous....got a 5 gallon batch with 1oz of Magnum (at 60) and 4.75oz citra staggered throughout boil...

waiting on a 3oz citra dry hop this weekend if FG is achieved...

;)

Don't be nervous just consume whilst fresh.
 
I brewed an APA with a lot of late additions and dry hopped with Citra. It had a huge aroma punch and had a bit too much mango fruit flavor. That flavor mellowed over a few weeks and it was a pretty pleasant beer. I would avoid using too much crystal malt with citra - the two seem to clash.
 
well this thread is making me nervous....got a 5 gallon batch with 1oz of Magnum (at 60) and 4.75oz citra staggered throughout boil...

waiting on a 3oz citra dry hop this weekend if FG is achieved...

;)

Sounds delicious.
 
Yeah man, let it sit for a bit with the dry hop. It will mellow out and likely be super good.

I agree...My best IPA to date was a 2.5 Gallon Batch with 2 dry hop charges (1 oz citra, 1 oz columbus in each)--that would come out nearly 1 oz per gallon of citra. It was a little catty when I bottled it, but after about 3 weeks it was phenomenal! That batch lasted about a week (my neighbors loved it!).
 
I brewed an APA with a lot of late additions and dry hopped with Citra. It had a huge aroma punch and had a bit too much mango fruit flavor. That flavor mellowed over a few weeks and it was a pretty pleasant beer. I would avoid using too much crystal malt with citra - the two seem to clash.

In fact, I tend to avoid using crystal at all in any heavily dry hopped beer . The hop oils almost lend a "sweet" character to the beer that if you use with crystal can almost amplify the perceived sweetness.
 
well this thread is making me nervous....

don't be nervous. My house pale (brewed once a month, 10 gal at a clip) is Marris otter and Crystal 20.

2oz Nugget @ 60
2oz Citra @ 20
2oz Citra @ 10
2oz Citra @ 5

1oz Citra per 5 gal for 5 days with American Ale II. This beer has a hard time staying on tap in my house.
 
don't be nervous. My house pale (brewed once a month, 10 gal at a clip) is Marris otter and Crystal 20.

2oz Nugget @ 60
2oz Citra @ 20
2oz Citra @ 10
2oz Citra @ 5

1oz Citra per 5 gal for 5 days with American Ale II. This beer has a hard time staying on tap in my house.

Sounds amazing! What's the OG/FG on this?
 
OG 1.050 ish
FG 1.010 ish

The fruity esters of the American Ale II (1272 I think?) play nice with the Citra.
 

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