Help with my Citra IPA recipe

Hello everyone, so I'm thinking I'm going to go with an all Citra IPA to highlight it of course. This is going to be my second batch ever and my current morebeer IPA is only 1 week in primary, which will be bottled on Friday.

Here's what I have right now

Specialty Grains:
12 oz cyrstal 40L 7.9%
4.8 oz Biscuit Malt 3.1%

8.5lbs light LME 89% Added with 15 min left in the boil

2 oz Citra 60 min
1 oz Citra 15 min
1 oz Citra 5 min
1 oz Citra 0 min
3 oz Citra 7 days Dry Hop


Any suggestions are welcome! I'm hoping to improve this recipe I have. I'd like it to be hoppy and bitter, but balanced as well. Something that will be drinkable to those that aren't beer geeks like my friends and roommates

I'd secondary you first batch for 2 weeks before bottling maybe dry hop during that period

I'm not going to secondary my first batch because I don't think it's necessary. It's just a simple IPA recipe kit.

Comments:

1) I don't think the biscuit will do anything in a steep. It needs to be mashed. It could result in some starches and make the beer a little cloudy.

2) Extract beers seem to end high. IPAs should attenuate well for my preference. I'd take out a lb of LME and replace it with plain sugar.

3) Hoping looks good. Citra is a scarce resource, you might think of using a different hop for the 60 minute addition.

4) 3 ozs dry hop is a lot. Might be too much for "those that aren't beer geeks like my friends and roommates"

I would move or spilt the 2 oz. bittering Citra to the last 15-20 mins. I personally Just do not care fr Citra as a bittering hop.

If you're going to add a bittering additon, a little Centennial would be a good choice IMO. What yeast are you using?

I'll take out the biscuit malt, 1 lb of DME and add 1 lb of sugar. I'm thinking about making this beer a bit tropical, which is why I was thinking about Citra. However, I'll probably add some other Hops in my hop additions.

One of my criteria is good balance, but I have no idea how to do so as I'm still a noob. It's ok that it'll be very bitter, but I'd like it to be balanced in hoppyness and maltiness like the Pliny that I recently tasted.

I was thinking

7.5lbs Light DME
1 lb table sugar

Specialty Grains
12 oz Crystal 40L
Should I add something else here???

Hops
2 oz bittering hops, 60 min. Still not sure but I'm thinking either columbus, centennial, or simcoe, or Amarillo... Something that'll fit the citrusy tropical notes.
1 oz Nelson Sauvin 15 min
.5 oz Citra 15 min
maybe .5 oz Galaxy 15 min
.5 oz Galaxy 10 min
.5 oz Citra 10 min
1 oz Citra 5 min
1 oz Amarillo 0 min

1 oz Citra Dry Hops
1 oz Galaxy Dry Hops

15 min, whirlfloc or irish moss??


I have no idea on what yeast I should use. I was thinking maybe safale us-05, Wyeast Forbidden Fruit 3463, or WLP001


Thanks everyone for the comment. Sorry for being such a noob at this. Only my second batch of beer ever.

Tropicitra - Imperial IPA (14C)

OG 1.074 FG 1.018
ABV 7.2% Bitterness 183.1 IBU (Rager)
Color 8.5 srm (Morey) Calories (per 12 oz.) 244

Fermentables

Total grain: 8.625 lb
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Sugar, Table (Sucrose) Sugar 8.000 oz No Yes 100% 1.0 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L Grain 12.000 oz Yes No 74% 40.0 srm
Honey Malt Grain 6.000 oz Yes No 80% 25.0 srm
Dry Extract (DME) - Extra Light Dry Extract 4.000 lb No Yes 95% 3.0 srm
Dry Extract (DME) - Extra Light Dry Extract 3.000 lb No No 95% 3.0 srm

Hops

Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Magnum 13.5% 1.000 oz Boil 60.000 min Pellet 58.4
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Boil 60.000 min Pellet 51.9
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Boil 15.000 min Pellet 13.8
Nelson Sauvin 12.5% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Pellet 11.7
Galaxy 13% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Pellet 12.2
Nelson Sauvin 12.5% 1.000 oz Boil 5.000 min Pellet 10.0
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Boil 5.000 min Pellet 9.6
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Boil 0.000 s Pellet 8.6
Galaxy 13% 1.000 oz Dry Hop 7.000 day Pellet 0.0
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Dry Hop 7.000 day Pellet 0.0

10 hops total

Misc

Name Type Use Amount Time
Whirlfloc Fining Boil 1.000 tsp 15.000 min
Yeast

Name Type Form Amount Stage
WLP001 - California Ale Yeast Ale Liquid 2.367 tbsp Primary
WLP001 - California Ale Yeast Ale Liquid 2.367 tbsp Primary


This is what I formulated... Not sure if it'll be good or not.

What sized batch is that?

5 gallons

Not a partial mash guy so don't know how much honey malt will come through. Basically just color probably. But the hop schedule looks great. I did a Nelson/Citra IIPA that I'm drinking now out the keg. Nottingham kicked its @ss and its awesome. Usually I use 05 or Cali for IPAs but was out.
Surprised by notty. The descriptions say crushed goose berry. (What the hell is a gooseberry) Along with tropical passion fruit and of course citrus. I get mango grapefruit citrus out of mine.

How many gallons are you doing for your boil? Not sure where 183 IBU came from. My calculator gives 160 IBU in a 7gal boil and 132 IBU in a 5gal boil.
I'm pretty new to this, but 2oz at 60min seems like a lot to me. I like bitter beers, but not THAT bitter. I'm curious to see what a 160 IBU beer tastes though...hint hint

dcocch said:

How many gallons are you doing for your boil? Not sure where 183 IBU came from. My calculator gives 160 IBU in a 7gal boil and 132 IBU in a 5gal boil.
I'm pretty new to this, but 2oz at 60min seems like a lot to me. I like bitter beers, but not THAT bitter. I'm curious to see what a 160 IBU beer tastes though...hint hint

Click to expand...

[/QUOTE]
The soluability limit of iso-alpha acids tops out at about 110 IBUs. This has been tested and proven numerous times, beers with calculated IBUs of 200 or 300 or 1,000, when tested in a lab, will come back as having no more than 110 IBUs (and usually lower than this due to loses during fermentation). For example, Pliny calculates out as having over 200, but when tested comes back as being in the 90s.
Homebrew42, Jul 24, 2012 [/QUOTE]

Here's my most recent recipe using Citra:

8oz Caramel 40L
7lbs Extra Pale LME
2lbs Buckwheat Honey (Flameout)
1oz Columbus (60mins)
.5oz Citra (10mins)
.5oz Citra (5mins)
1oz Citra (Flameout)
Dry Hop 2oz Citra (1 week)
WLP001 (Washed/1L Starter)

1.061 OG
63 IBU

Just brewed this on Friday and the smell was amazing. The wort tasted great as well although cloyingly sweet. The buckwheat honey adds nice color and flavor to the mix. I hope the beer retains some of that malty/honey flavor. I think the Columbus blends nicely with the grapefruit of the Citra.

Thanks for the recipe.

I'm thinking about not just doing all citra, and just doing tropical.

No prob. I only have 1oz of Citra left so I was thinking of doing Citra and Cascade for the dry hop if my lhbs doesn't have any Citra on hand. Either way would be great methinks. -)

If you want it to be maltier you should look into using Munich malt extract. That way you don't have to mash but you can still get the maltiness of Munich.

Also you have WAY too many hops. Like Stevo said, there is just no point in using that many hops for bittering. You literally can't make it any more bitter than ~90-110 IBU so anything over that is pretty much a waste of hops unless you are using them for flavor or aroma addtions. So I would move the 60 min Citra to a later addition. Also, are you doing a full boil or a partial boil with top up water added? If you're doing a partial boil it's going to be hard to get the IBUs you want because you're diluting the IBUs by adding the top off water. So I would suggest doing a full boil or as close to one as possible. For IPAs you usually want your BU:GU (Bitterness:Gravity) ratio to be around 1. So if your gravity is 1.074 you should bitter to ~74 IBU to make it a balanced IPA.

Also I would replace more of the extract with simple sugar. Extract is pretty high in unfermentables so it always ends with a high FG which will be too sweet for an IPA. I would use maybe 1-1.5 lbs of sugar and take the OG to 1.060-1.070.

If I don't do any late extract additions, my IBU's come out as 52 ish with 9 oz total hops..

Batch Size 5.000 gal Boil Size 3.000 gal
Boil Time 60.000 min Efficiency 70%
OG 1.075 FG 1.019
ABV 7.3% Bitterness 51.2 IBU (Tinseth)
Color 5.9 srm (Morey) Calories (per 12 oz.) 249
Fermentables

Total grain: 9.000 lb
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Dry Extract (DME) - Extra Light Dry Extract 6.000 lb No No 95% 3.0 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L Grain 8.000 oz No No 75% 20.0 srm
Sugar, Table (Sucrose) Sugar 1.500 lb No No 100% 1.0 srm
Briess LME - Munich Extract 16.000 oz No No 78% 8.0 srm
Hops

Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Boil 15.000 min Pellet 9.3
Galaxy 13% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Pellet 7.3
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Dry Hop 7.000 day Pellet 0.0
Citra 12% 1.000 oz Boil 0.000 s Pellet 0.0
Falconer's Flight 11.4% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Pellet 6.4
Galaxy 13% 1.000 oz Boil 5.000 min Pellet 4.0
Warrior 15.5% 1.000 oz Boil 60.000 min Pellet 24.1
Falconer's Flight 11.4% 1.000 oz Dry Hop 7.000 day Pellet 0.0
Misc

Name Type Use Amount Time
Whirlfloc Fining Boil 1.000 tsp 15.000 min



Sorry if that looked like a mess, but here's a screenshot of it.

Here's my 2 cents... go with your gut... don't overthink it.. It's just beer, it will be good(better than bmc) Citra is an amazing hop it will set your beer off with an amazing taste

Late addition of extract has little to no effect on hop utilization. Recipe software vastly overestimates it. I would still add the extract late but don't use the late addition feature on your recipe calculator. I would also try to do as large a boil as you possibly can in order to get enough IBUs in the finished beer. Also, I put your recipe into my calculator at brewersfriend.com and it gave me 66 IBU with tinseth and 90 IBU with rager which sounds about right.

The recipe looks great to me! Should be just what you're looking for. I might add more munich extract because it's actually a 50/50 blend of munich and 2-row, but that's just me.

Thanks for the comments.

So, 21 days in primary and then 7 days in secondary for dry hopping... Then 14 days of priming or whenever the beer tastes good.

Does that sound fine?

I recommend changing your 60min hops to a first wort hopping. I recently made a very similar IPA to yours the and the FWH really "smoothed" out the bitterness, made it much more drinkable to the uninitiated.

I've been fine with 14 days fermenting big ipa's, but you can go 3 weeks, then dry hopping for a week. I never get past a couple days in the bottle, because I get anxious, and it always tastes so good. 2-3 weeks if you can really wait, but whats the fun in that!??

Citra is a nice hop, for my first ipa, i used it with amarillo, simcoe, and centennial.. talk about tropical!

Yeah, 2 weeks plus 1 week dry hopping will be plenty. Then the 3 or so weeks to carb and it should be good. Recently I've just been putting the dry hops in the primary rather than transfering to a secondary to dry hop. Way less work and less chance for infection/oxidation. I just did a Citra APA that used a little centennial. Flavor and aroma with Citra and Centennial then dryhopped with Citra. Very tropical, very delicious, and very gone!

I switched out the galaxy for motueka hops because my LHBS doesn't have the galaxy and I'd think that motueka would be somewhat similar to the galaxy. Also, it'd fit the tropical theme.

I made a low gravity all Citra hop brew and it turned out really good, great Summer beer. But its really amazing how far that hop goes, I used 2.5 oz in total and that included dry hopping.


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/zombie-head-wheat-ale-352010/

Today was Brew day!

I ended up doing a 4 gallon boil thanks to fermcap-s!!!
Everything is doing great so far, I already have fermentation going on...
Smells good!