Citra/Chinook APA help

Hey everyone,
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this hop combo and might give me a bit of advice on my hop schedule. I'm shooting for a APA with a ton of hop flavor and aroma, and a nice smooth bitterness. I did an all Chinook IPA kit a year or so ago and really enjoyed it, but I'm starting to experiment with my own recipes and could use a bit of feedback on this one since I've never worked with Citra before.

Heres what I've got:

5.5 gallons
OG - 1.051
FG - 1.013
IBU - 41

9 lbs Northwest Pale
1lb Vienna
8oz Caramel 30l

1/2 oz Chinook @ 60 (11.8%/3%)
1/2 oz Citra @ 15 (13.4%/3.4%)
1/2 oz Chinook @15
1/2 oz Citra @ 0
1/2 oz Chinook @ 0
1 oz citra dry hop 5-7 days
1/2 Chinook dry hop 5-7 days

Mash @ 152 for an hour
US-05 yeast

Thanks!

Looks like a pretty sweet hop sched to me! My only recommendation would be to up the glamour additions to 1 oz each

BuckSwope said:

Looks like a pretty sweet hop sched to me! My only recommendation would be to up the glamour additions to 1 oz each

Click to expand...

You mean the additions a flameout?

Yes, I like it!

I'm not a huge citra fan, at least with citra by itself, but I do like it when combined with chinook or cascades.

I think this will be a very tasty beer, and I wish I could sit down and drink one with you.

coolharry said:

You mean the additions a flameout?

Click to expand...

Hahaha ya. Glamour courtesy of autocorrect on my iPhone.

Love this hop combo. If it were me I would ditch the 60 minute addition and just do big late hop additions. Also I would up the dry hop to 2 oz of each.

Thanks for the ideas everyone! I just picked everything up today and plan on brewing Saturday. I picked up an extra ounce of Citra since I know it can be hard to get sometimes. They didn't have crystal 30l, so I split it between 20l and 40l, but no big deal there. The hops are a bit higher in AA% than I had planned but not enough to throw anything off track.

What would I gain by dropping the 60min additions in favor of more 15 min additions? Similar IBU with more flavor contribution? Smoother bitterness? I'm curious about this one, I never thought about doing anything hoppy without a 60/FWH addition.

coolharry said:

Thanks for the ideas everyone! I just picked everything up today and plan on brewing Saturday. I picked up an extra ounce of Citra since I know it can be hard to get sometimes. They didn't have crystal 30l, so I split it between 20l and 40l, but no big deal there. The hops are a bit higher in AA% than I had planned but not enough to throw anything off track.

What would I gain by dropping the 60min additions in favor of more 15 min additions? Similar IBU with more flavor contribution? Smoother bitterness? I'm curious about this one, I never thought about doing anything hoppy without a 60/FWH addition.

Click to expand...

try it. dropping the 60 minute addition is going to cut out a lot of bitterness. you can then add those IBU's back by pouring hops in late. it takes more hops to get the same IBU's but you're adding all your hops at the best time to preserve flavor which makes your hop flavors intense.

I like the term "glamour additions." Phrase coined.

This sets up an interesting experiment now. I think I'm going to brew three batches with this grain bill and do one like it is above, one with FWH in place of the 60 min additions, and a third with no 60 and beefed up glamour additions (you're right, this term needs to stick!) and see how they all compare. I'm planning on using this, or a variation depending on how it turns out, as my house pale ale so I might as well plan a few variations right away.
Thanks for the input everyone. Ill update with every new batch and tasting.

Just got everything cleaned up and she's sittin in the carboy cooling down to pitching temps as I type. Hit my mash temps (153) and OG (1.051) right on the nose, according to the original recipe in ibrewmaster. But converting the recipe over to ibrewmaster 2 gave me an OG of 1.053 instead of the original 1.051. Beautiful color and the gravity sample tasted great.