American Pale Ale Citra Pale Ale- Oddsides Clone

OK. So I got my brewday in last night. If I had to pick one word to describe it was: CHAOS

Recipe
- Pretty well matched the recipe bang on except I eyeballed the flaked wheat, and scaled up for a 10.5 gal recipe.
- ingredients were exactly as listed except for hops - did the same 15, 10, 5, 0 minute additions except then I hit a snag - more on that below.

Brew Steps
- mash went well. Initially was a bit high - so stirred until temp came down below 160. Then it really dropped. I really don't like my thermometer/setup. It seems to "stick" a lot especially in mashing. It'll read an initial temp - maybe the grain around it insulates it a bit and causes temp stratification within the mash tun (keggle)
- then temp went down to 145. I added some hot (180F) water to bring it up, when again I had the "stuck thermometer" issue. I used my Thermapen to confirm that the top of the tun (mostly water at this point) was 156 F and the bottom must have been what the temp dial read (1). Assuming it all worked out in the end - aiming for the listed 152F. This is one of my challenges with my setup.
- Then drained, batch sparged until I got final boil volume of 12.5 L - probably was a bit over (13.0?) as my BK was pretty full.
- SG before boil was only 1.035, which I considered low, so I decided to boil for 75-90 mins and test OG along the way.
- Boiled away and checked at 75 mins and OG was 1.062!!! Not sure if that is really what happened or if my initial reading was either off or low because wort was hot (?)

The Issue
- then I hit my big snag. for all of my hop additions I used muslin bags filled with either whole hops or pellets.
- My last hop addition I said to heck with it and added whole hops (1.0 oz) straight in. Problem is that I don't have a screen on the bottom of my BK just a dip tube.
- started to drain the wort and nothing happened. Got really pissed off, trying to unplug the jam using many techniques, most of which potentially infected the batch (we'll see). After about an hour of trying gravity feed, solar pump, and other techniques, I was resigned to cleaning my mash tun keggle, and transferring all the word from the BK into that so that I could run it through my blichmann plate chiller. By this time it was midnight and I was not a happy camper.
- from here on it things went well. I believe my final volume is right around 10 G into 2 fermenters. Although I have a real mess to clean up when I get home tonight, plus it's St. Paddys day so this probably isn't gonna get dealt with until tomorrow!

Fermentation
- running two split batches (5G each) both with Safale S-05. This morning there was action in one, and nothing in the other. Worried that one of the S-05 packages might have been dud. If there's no activity after 2 days.

OK. So I got my brewday in last night. If I had to pick one word to describe it was: CHAOS

Recipe
- Pretty well matched the recipe bang on except I eyeballed the flaked wheat, and scaled up for a 10.5 gal recipe.
- ingredients were exactly as listed except for hops - did the same 15, 10, 5, 0 minute additions except then I hit a snag - more on that below.

Brew Steps
- mash went well. Initially was a bit high - so stirred until temp came down below 160. Then it really dropped. I really don't like my thermometer/setup. It seems to "stick" a lot especially in mashing. It'll read an initial temp - maybe the grain around it insulates it a bit and causes temp stratification within the mash tun (keggle)
- then temp went down to 145. I added some hot (180F) water to bring it up, when again I had the "stuck thermometer" issue. I used my Thermapen to confirm that the top of the tun (mostly water at this point) was 156 F and the bottom must have been what the temp dial read (1). Assuming it all worked out in the end - aiming for the listed 152F. This is one of my challenges with my setup.
- Then drained, batch sparged until I got final boil volume of 12.5 L - probably was a bit over (13.0?) as my BK was pretty full.
- SG before boil was only 1.035, which I considered low, so I decided to boil for 75-90 mins and test OG along the way.
- Boiled away and checked at 75 mins and OG was 1.062!!! Not sure if that is really what happened or if my initial reading was either off or low because wort was hot (?)

The Issue
- then I hit my big snag. for all of my hop additions I used muslin bags filled with either whole hops or pellets.
- My last hop addition I said to heck with it and added whole hops (1.0 oz) straight in. Problem is that I don't have a screen on the bottom of my BK just a dip tube.
- started to drain the wort and nothing happened. Got really pissed off, trying to unplug the jam using many techniques, most of which potentially infected the batch (we'll see). After about an hour of trying gravity feed, solar pump, and other techniques, I was resigned to cleaning my mash tun keggle, and transferring all the word from the BK into that so that I could run it through my blichmann plate chiller. By this time it was midnight and I was not a happy camper.
- from here on it things went well. I believe my final volume is right around 10 G into 2 fermenters. Although I have a real mess to clean up when I get home tonight, plus it's St. Paddys day so this probably isn't gonna get dealt with until tomorrow!

Fermentation
- running two split batches (5G each) both with Safale S-05. This morning there was action in one, and nothing in the other. Worried that one of the S-05 packages might have been dud. If there's no activity after 2 days I'm gonna re-pitch with another S-05 package. Pics will be posted soon.

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That sucks to have those issues. Hopefully in the end all is good. I've brewed this recipe three times, the last time I used Denny's Fav and it was better than the previous two where I used US-05.

if no activity tomorrow in fermenter #2 (i.e. 58 hours from pitching yeast) I am going to re-pitch with hydrated S-05 yeast. Initially I just pitched dry yeast into fermenter (it was late.....).

No activity so I re-pitched today. Let's see how long this takes. Should have taken a gravity reading but I'm paranoid of infecting - my syphoning or sampling techniques are not good

Repitched yesterday at noon. Shazam! She's rockin now. And that smell!!!! And it's not even dry hopped yet. I just hope it got enough bitterness from the hood. I'm not a fan of my hop bags in the boil kettle. Need to get a good screen for my BK.

Here is the photo of the two fermenters now. Right is about 3 days behind the left, but bubbling away.
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I will let these babies sit for 2-3 weeks and then plan to dry-hop for 7-10 days. I have an oversees trip planned for them and when I get back this should be ready!

2 weeks in and they are happy. at week 3 (next Friday) I am going to add my dry-hop additions - 2 oz of pellets per carboy straight to the fermenter. Then I'm off to Tokyo for a week and when I'm back I'll transfer to kegs and carb this badboy up!

Gonna brew this one again soon. I have three small batch SMaSH brews scheduled then a Russian River then Oddsides. The last time I made this one I split the batch and one I dry hopped with Citra/Galaxy and I preferred that over the original.

Checked my FG and its at 1.006 in the left fermenter! I'd say that's pretty good attenuation from 1.064 OG.

Taste is spot on! Great flavour, maltiness, and it's probably perfect if a touch bitter due to my extended hop timing.

Dry hop is on!

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Wasn't sure if I should change the dry hop amounts, but decided to stick with the recipe. 2oz in each!
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5 min after adding pellets. Will do this for a week.

Does anyone swirl the hops or just leave them be to hydrate?

Going to brew this today this afternoon. Any chance somebody has a beersmith file of this recipe?

All kegged and ready to drink! I think it's been a month since I brewed and it's quite good! Damn good I'd say. Not too bitter, although as above my extended hop additions probably resulted in an IBU closer to 60-70 than the target 45. But colour and flavour are bang on what I expected. A bit more than the Kona Big Wave Golden Ale, which I like. I bet in another month this will hit its stride.

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I think I can feel what the flaked head does to this beer and I like it a lot! First time using that ingredient. I could see adding it to a brown ale as well or even stout. But maybe that's what the oats do as well in those recipes?

Ps my first glass gave me wicked heartburn - this happens from time to time with me. Anyone know what this is? I initially thought got it might be from hops or from carbonation, but if anything I think this leg is slightly undercarbonated.

scaesare said:

Going to brew this today this afternoon. Any chance somebody has a beersmith file of this recipe?

Click to expand...

Well, I went ahead and built a Beersmith recipe for it, and brewed it today. I added the recommendations from the Brewing Water Chemistry Primer Thread, as well as included ClarityFerm (to make it gluten reduced). If anybody is interested in the file, let me know.

I also only added one yeast packet (rather than 2), as the 11.5 gram packet seemed to be all that the calculators and manufacturer called for (was the original recipe using smaller packets?)

Beersmith's estimates for pre-boil gravity and OG were slightly different than the those in the original post, and I hit those almost exactly.

Going to ferment it the suggest 10 days, and then do a secondary.

Hopefully this AG recipe will replace the extract Citra I had brewed previously...

Was

Well, crap.

My FG after 10 days in primary is waaay low. 1.003. It's a 7.9% ABV beer rather than 5.9%...

Not sure what happened. Factors that may have affected this:

- My mash temps were a tad low... I drifted down a couple of degrees... so actually heated a gallon or so of it back up over low heat and stirred it back in about 30 mins in.

- My Pre-boil gravity was about 2 points low, so I let my mash tun drain for a loooong time and got another 1.75 gts or so to add to my boil and boiled a tad longer. Hit an OG actually about 2 pts above target

- I dry-hopped in the primary, as the recipe didn't call for a secondary (I've always dry-hopped in secondary's previously).

So, I'm a bit bummed. I'm afraid I'm going to have a thin dry beer.

Any thoughts as to why this may have happened? I'm at a bit of a loss as to why if I had sufficient sugars in my wort at OG time, the yeast would have digested so much more than anticipated...

(I've read a but that low mash temps can perhaps affect this, but I'm a bit unsure as to why...)

-sc

How low are we talking? Lower temps will cause the enzymes (I want to say it's b-amalzyze here) to chop the starches up into shorter, easier to digest sugars, so the yeast can more readily chew through things. This seems excessively low however. Did you taste it to make sure there isn't an infection or anything else chewing through things?

The recipe calls for a 152deg mash... I think I dropped down to 150 for a bit before I heated some of the wort up and stirred it back in (I also added another couple of quarts of ~165 water at one point.

I could have hit 149 at some point, but if so, not for any length of time...

I have a hard time believing that is it, but I'm not sure. Did you taste the sample? What temp did you ferment at?

Probably a dumb questions but did you check to make sure your hydrometer is accurate?

I did taste it... it had a good flavor, but warm and flat it was hard to tell if it was too thin tasting. I also don't have a reference, as this is my first brew of this recipe (I have an extract Citra recipe I am fond of, this is a potential AG replacement).

My fermentation temps probably fluctuated between 67-69 or so. The keg was in my basement bathroom, which typically is in that range at this time of year. In summer weather I'll use water bath/towel (i.e. swamp chilling).

I've fermented a few dozen batches there, including with Safale-05, and never had the fermentation overshoot like this...

A few months in and this is shaping up pretty good. It's quite bitter, and the hops need to mellow out a bit, but I suspect it'll be a winner in the end. I'm hoping to enter it in our first annual homebrew contest - curious to see how that would go.

I'll be brewing batch#3 in a month or two. I started adding my bittering hops as a First Wort addition. I find it helps smooth out the bitterness. The Citra hops are added at the 10 min and at flameout. Also dry hop for 5 days. I may take the flameout addition and add that to a 30 min whirlpool at 150 degrees next time to see how that works.

Hi all. What is the exact amount of hops please? I get the 60/10. flameout and dry hop, but what quantity's?

Finally brewed this one, smells great so far. Fermentation almost complete. Will dry hop for 5 days then bottle/keg. Looking forward to it. Thanks for researching and posting this recipe OP.

When dry hopping is it best to move to a secondary or can I just add to the primary on the yeast cake?

I brewed another version about 6 weeks ago. Used Notty and hops were citra and amarillo. Probably best one yet.

Recently I had the Cigar City citra pale ale and loved it so much I want to brew one, so I've been looking for a good citra pale ale recipe. I do extract right now but earlier in this thread someone mentioned how to convert this to a mini-mash, so I may give this a shot for my 3rd homebrew.

I too enjoy Citra and Amarillo together. Last time, I got pune mango, with some other tropical fruit in the background, slight citrus and some bits of dankness. Very nice.