Citra IPA with: Apricots or Peaches?

Brewing an IPA with Citra hops. After the primary I was thinking of halving it into two 3 gallon secondaries. I've decided one will be dry hopped and the other, well... it's gonna get one or the other: Apricots or Peaches.

Recipe (5 gallons)
9# Pale Malt 2 Row
3.5# Pilsner
3# Munich
1# Crystal 120
1.5 oz Citra 60 mins
1 oz Citra 30 mins
1 oz Citra 10 mins
Dryhop half with 1 oz Citra 7 days before bottling.
Wyeast 1056

Estimated outcome.
OG 1.086
FG 1.017
IBU 82.5
SRM 15.1
Bitterness Ratio 0.961
ABV 9.2

This will be my first beer that ventures into the creativity of home brewing. Most of my brews, until now, have been fairly textbook. Now that I'm more confident with brewing its time to branch out.

Its been a few weeks since I've tasted citra hops and can't fully remember it other than absolutely loving the fruity flavors. So that's where I'm hoping to get someone else's opinion. I've read another post about peaches working out well and I may just roll that way. Has anyone brewed with/drank citra hops recently that would agree apricots would be a viable choice?

Another question: Does 1 pound of Crystal 120 sound unreasonable to anyone else? It is a 16.5 pound grain bill so I figured it'll balance out. I'm still looking for a redish color and Beersmith is saying that it'll turn out red.

Thanks for the help!
-Bhen

Wow - BIG beer! Here are my thoughts, please take them with a grain of salt:

1.) I think you need more hops - you are making a GIANT beer, you'll need hops to balance it out.
2.) I would prefer apricot in this style because they are more tart than peaches and I also think that citra would be more complimentary to apricots.
3.) a pound of 120 does seem like a lot - I would do .5# 120 and .5# 40/60/75.
4.) Here's an awesome trick for *red* color - add 1-2 oz of chocolate malt. It will be enough for color, but not flavor.
5.) I'm not sure about having pilsner, 2 row, and munich. I try to stick to 2 base malts at most when creating a new recipe.

1. I think you are within the IBU range for an IPA, and probably on the lower end of the range for an IIPA
2. I would also say Apricot for your fruit, Peach is just too subtle in beer IMO
3. 1 lb of 120 does seem like a lot, but it represents only 6% of your grain bill, so I think you are okay on that front, if that's what you are shooting for.
4. Instead of adding chocolate, you can sub the pils for Maris Otter, and perhaps add a bit of biscuit/victory, however your color is within range as well.

Other than the large addition of 120 everything seems okay IMO, you could up the hops a touch, but with your dry hop addition I think you will be fine.

Bear in mind, I do not know the AA% of your hops or your Mash/Brew House efficiencies, so this is my best guess. Plus this is on my system, so your loss amounts, and total water volumes will likely vary. I had reset my mash eff. to 75% for you, but I normally get about 85% mash eff. and 79% total brewhouse eff.

I don't know what brewing software you are using, or if you are, but here is what BS2.0 come up with:


Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.83 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.50 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.086 SG
Estimated Color: 13.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 65.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 89.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 54.5 %
3 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsen Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.0 SRM) Grain 2 21.2 %
3 lbs Munich (Dingemans) (5.5 SRM) Grain 3 18.2 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.1 %
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 30.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 6 23.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 11.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 8 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 16 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 20.75 qt of water at 163.6 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 3 steps (Drain mash tun, , 2.33gal, 2.33gal) of 168.0 F water

After I posted it I was feeling somewhat the same way about the 3 malts. The pilsner was somewhat of a side thought. I've never brewed with it before. I was thinking for base malts:

12.25# 2 Row
3 # Munich

I'll rethink the 120 as well. It may take a day or two for me to settle on the rest of the malt bill. Victory malt may make an appearance as suggested.

For the hops:

2oz 60 min (12 AA assumed until they're in my hand I can always adjust later)
1.5 30 min
1 10 min

It brings the IBU up to 110 and the Bitterness Ratio up to 1.297 (I use BeerSmith2, but its on a different computer without current internet access). That brings it to the higher end of the style. I was thinking that since one secondary is getting the apricot, dryhop won't be necessary if its at the higher end. Any other thoughts on hops?

Also, I'll be using 1.5 pounds of apricot since its a split batch. It seems others have used around 3 pounds per batch.

Thanks for the input so far. It has been very much appreciated.

Just my .02 but I would use different bittering hops. Citra is an amazing flavor/aroma/dry hop. Using it at 60min just for alpha acids kind of seems like a waste to me. In the end it doesnt really matter because u have he IBUs you want, but the more citra towards the end of the boil the better!

Also my vote is for the apricots!

My vote is to wait 'till the fruit is in season....

Apricots...now thats an idea I'm gonna have to steal!

apricots!
centennial for bittering hop and citra after that would be much better i think

and why not apricot puree in the mash?

thedasha said:

and why not apricot puree in the mash?

Click to expand...

All the aromatics of the apricots will be lost in the boil.

x2

Plus you end up with more of a cooked fruit flavor as opposed to a fresh fruit flavor.

i think the IBU in your original recipe was fine - I would suggest more late hops flavor and aroma

maybe bump the 30min addition to 1.5 at 20min and add that other 1oz at flameout IMHO

So from the feedback I've gotten from here as well as other homebrewers I think the recipe will look something like this.

12# Two Row
3# Munich
1# Crystal 60
(Perhaps a few ounces of Victory... we'll see)
2 oz Centennial 60 mins
1.5 oz Citra 20 mins
1 oz flame out

OG 1.085 FG 1.016
About 9 Percent
81 IBU .958 IBU/SG
11 SRM

The the batch is split half apricots half dryhops.

Thanks for the help thus far! Its been very useful.

Also, wide open to yeast suggestions.

I love citras and agree apricots would work well. Dogfishhead makes an "Aprihop" IPA that is quite tasty.

Easy (and inexpensive) yeast would be 2 packets of S-05 direct pitched.

I vote for WLP-002

That recipe sounds promising to me.

TarheelBrew13 said:

I vote for WLP-002

That recipe sounds promising to me.

Click to expand...

he'll have a hard time getting the FG down with wlp02 with an OG of 1.085

S-04 - Mash @ 149. that yeast will eat through it fast with a low mash temp.

I like your last grain bill the best. I'd try to source English Crystal for it though. Believe it or not, all crystal malts aren't the same. The english crytals seem to have more character. use at least 1/2 pound of victory. . . or consider melanoidin malt, just a few ounce of that though. I like WLP001 for this one or 1056. the 04 would probably suffice though. They are all pretty similar. the 04 tends to produce a peach like ester which would work well with apricots (most people use apricot in place of peach). IDK your water chemistry or if you've ever messed with it but maybe some gypsum would help to make those hops pop. Don't waste those citra hops on bittering, my personal preference is CTZ but any high alpha/low co-humolune hop will work well. Concentrating on layering late hop additions in will give you beautiful hop flavor and aroma and, IMHO, helps to smooth out the bitterness. I'd definitely call that an IIPA. in my 110 IBU IIPA my bittering additions only account for roughly half of beersmiths Calculated IBUs using the rager formula. And for the love of beer, PLEASE use more than 1 ounce of dry hops.

One last piece of advice, make this five gallon batch without apricot purree. Instead use extract at bottling time. Bottle some up without it, then put some into taste. I don't think you'll regret using the apricot, I just don't want to see you fruit a beer you've never brewed then have you hate it bc of the fruit or the beer. Plus it's almost like a 2 for 1

How did this turn out? My club picnic is in 7 weeks and this looks like my contritubtion to the jockey box everyone brings the good stuff to the picnic so a simple bitter wouldnt cut it, this fits th bill. I would call it Apracot "Dust"!

How did this turn out?? Considering making this or something similar next week. Any recommendations/advice on it is appreciated!

Cheers,
Saul

Ok this turned out great. I used one can of oregon puree ( I think its 4 1/2 pounds) then at kegging I kicked it up with some aprocot extract! I dry hopped it with 2 oz of citra and it all went that night. My only regret was i did a 5 gallon batch! Next time it's 10 gallons for sure!