Citra/Amarillo Pale Ale

As I prepare in my first foray into tweaking recipes I've decided to come here for some advice.

I recently ordered the Amarillo Pale Ale kit from Midwest brewers. The recipe is as follows (all extract).

6lb Gold LME
1lb Light DME
8oz carapils and 8oz Caramel 40L steeped for 30 minutes
1/2 oz Columbus at 60
1oz Amarillo at 20
1oz Amarillo at 0

According to beer calculus this, with a 3 gallon boil, will give me a beer with 36.3 IBUs.

Now here comes the question. I just purchased 2oz of citra hops from my LHBS after I've heard so many good things about them. I would like to adjust the recipe to use the citra hops and create a nice citrusy note in the beer. I don't, however, want to turn the beer into an IPA as I will be brewing one of those in the next week as well. I really want to keep this a nice refreshing beer, around the 35-40 IBU level for all my non-hophead friends.

Ok, so that last paragraph was just a bunch more facts. Here is the questions. First, will Amarillo and Citra blend nicely together or should I use one or the other and save the leftovers for another recipe? Second, how do I go about creating a hop schedule to blend the two? All I know is that hops added at the beginning of the boil are usually for bittering and later additions are for aroma and flavor (or at least I think I know that). Also would dry hopping be useful in this situation?

Sorry for the list of questions. If someone knows of resource to point me at, that would also be great.

They go great together actually.

You can add your Citra late in the boil (or in dryhop) without increasing your IBUs too much.

Add an ounce at 5 minutes and an ounce with the flameout addition of Amarillo, and you'll get a very hoppy flavored and smelling PA, without the giant bitterness of an IPA or IIPA.

Sounds tasty!

jbaysurfer said:

They go great together actually.

You can add your Citra late in the boil (or in dryhop) without increasing your IBUs too much.

Add an ounce at 5 minutes and an ounce with the flameout addition of Amarillo, and you'll get a very hoppy flavored and smelling PA, without the giant bitterness of an IPA or IIPA.

Sounds tasty!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I'll try messing around beercalculus in a little bit and post what I come up with. Also, does dryhopping not increase a beers IBU?

Here is the recipe I came up with. Any feedback would be great. Original recipe called for 2oz of Amarillo (1oz during boil, and 1oz during flameout). I now have 1.5oz of Citra and Amarillo (.75 of each) added during the boil and 1.25 of each for dryhopping.



% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L LATE

75% 6 0 Briess GOLD LME 34 5 ~

13% 1 0 Light Dry Malt Extract 45 8 Y

6% 0 8 Cara-Pils/Dextrine 33 2 ~

6% 0 8 American Crystal 40L info 34 40 ~

Batch size: 5.0 gallons edit
Original Gravity
1.056 / 13.8° Plato
(1.050 to 1.058)
Final Gravity
1.014 / 3.6° Plato
(1.012 to 1.015)
Color
8° SRM / 16° EBC
(Gold to Copper)
Mash Efficiency ?
75% edit
Late Boil Additions
Show | Hide
hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA

boil 60 mins 0.5 Columbus pellet 15.4

boil 20 mins 0.25 Amarillo pellet 7.0

boil 20 mins 0.25 Citra leaf 13.0

boil 10 mins 0.25 Amarillo pellet 7.0

boil 10 mins 0.25 Citra leaf 13.0

boil 1 min 0.25 Amarillo pellet 7.0

boil 1 min 0.25 Citra leaf 13.0

dry hop 7 days 1.25 Amarillo pellet 7.0

dry hop 7 days 1.25 Citra leaf 11.0

Boil: 3.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes edit
Bitterness
37.0 IBU / 8 HBU
ƒ: Tinseth edit
NOTE: IBU results higher due to late boil additions
BU:GU
0.66
yeast


Alcohol
5.6% ABV / 4% ABW
Calories
184 per 12 oz.

Personally I'd get rid of the 20 minute addition and either move it to 15 or 5. If possible I would up the hops to .5 additions as well. I know you say you don't want an IPA but I think if you do 15, 5, 1 half ounce additions you will get a lot of the citrusy flavor without that much bitterness. I did a Citra/Amarillo pale that came out great with tons of hop flavor and not much bitterness which is exactly what I was trying for. Here's my recipe:

Beyond the Pale

Est OG: 1.044
Est FG: 1.010
IBUs: 53
Est ABV: 4.5%
6lbs Pale LME
.5 lb Carapils
.5 Crystal 10

.35 oz Columbus @ 60
.5 Citra @ 15
.5 Amarillo @ 15
.5 Citra @ 5
.5 Amarillo @ 5
.5 Citra @ 0
.5 Amarillo @ 0

US-05 Yeast

Dry hop 1 oz Citra, 1 oz Amarillo for 7 days