Mix and Match

I ordered some ingredients from Northern Brewer the other day and my plan is to create my own recipe. This will be my third brew and was just curious to what you think of my plan and if there is anything you would tweak as far as volumes and weights of ingredients.

Here is what I made on hopville: http://hopville.com/recipe/968236/home-brew/new-recipe-idea

I plan to ferment it in a Mr. Beer for a few weeks so it will only be at most a 2 gallon batch. Things I am curious about is how much water I should use for my wort and ingredient amounts. Thanks!

too much crystal malt and a waste of citra. its generally recommended to keep crystal malt <20% of the grain bill (2lbs of DME is roughly equivalent to 3.33bs grain). citra is best as a late or dry hop, just using it to bitter is kinda a waste of its best properties.

why style are you going after?

+1 to the Citra....it is a GREAT aroma hop, not so good as a bittering hop. Get a good bittering hop, like Magnum, Columbus, or Centennial, and add the Citra at 15 and 5.

+1 for effort and don't stop experimenting. TopherM offered good suggestions on bittering. That being said its a 2 gallon batch. It's perfect to play around with. I say go for it. Just because it's not to style doesn't mean it won't be good. Do it and learn from it. If anything, you will know what Citra can do and what Caramel 60 tastes like.

Thanks for the help! I will most likely take the advice about using the citra hops later in the boil. I suppose I was going for a lighter red beer but I'll see what comes out. What are the disadvantages/or advantages to using that much DME in my recipe as well as the steeped grains?

Also, how much water would you suggest that I boiled with to achieve an ending amount of 1 gallon? I plan to add water after the boiling inside the fermenter to bring it up to 2 gallons.

I updated the recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/968236/home-brew/new-recipe-idea

With my first beer I threw the citra hops in at the beginning of a 60 minute boil and then again at about 5 minutes before the end. Turned out pretty good but I will take into consideration using another hop for bitterness and then the citra for aroma. Great info

TopherM said:

+1 to the Citra....it is a GREAT aroma hop, not so good as a bittering hop. Get a good bittering hop, like Magnum, Columbus, or Centennial, and add the Citra at 15 and 5.

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I don't know about that; I have a hoppy American Wheat bittered with Citra and a bit of Sorachi Ace later in the boil.... darn good beer and one I'll make again. If you're in the PUB Guild you should come to this weekend's meeting and try it! www.pubguild.com -FB's page is the better choice than the website.

looks much better, just needs a bittering add or to bump up the citra a little more. I'd say aim for around 30IBUs. looks like a solid american amber with a nice juicy hop nose.

for the water, it differs system to system. usually, evaporation rates are around 1 gal / hour, so id go with 2 gallons to start.

another reason to nix citra as a bittering add is that it can develop a catty flavor when used early in the boil.

dcp27 said:

looks much better, just needs a bittering add or to bump up the citra a little more. I'd say aim for around 30IBUs. looks like a solid american amber with a nice juicy hop nose.

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I totally agree with dcp27. I'd bump up the 15 min add instead of adding a 60 min add, especially with Citra. You'll get the same IBU's but you'll get a smooth bitterness with an insane aroma.

Is there a reason you're doing a partial boil with such a small batch? From what I read, full boil is the way to go.

tennesseean_87 said:

Is there a reason you're doing a partial boil with such a small batch? From what I read, full boil is the way to go.

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I'm doing a full 60 minute boil, however I plan to just add the hops in the last 15 minutes of the boil. I'll get some pictures up of the process/end product once everything is said and done.

You are going to want a bittering (60 min) hop in there somewhere, or else your beer is just going to taste like grain and smell like Citra. You need a bittering hop to balance the grain flavor. It would be better to use part of the Citra as a bittering hop than have no bittering hop at all, if you don't want to go out and buy anything.

Either buy a proper bittering hop to go at 60, then split the Citra between 15 and 5, or go ahead and put 1/3 of the Citra in at 60/15/5. That should be plenty for a 2 gallon batch. My last Citra recipe had 0.5 oz of Citra at 15 and 5 in a 5 gallon batch, and there was PLENTY of aroma.

TopherM said:

You are going to want a bittering (60 min) hop in there somewhere, or else your beer is just going to taste like grain and smell like Citra. You need a bittering hop to balance the grain flavor..

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absolutely wrong. hops are there to balance the sweetness, they do nothing for grain flavor. as long as hops are boiled, there will be bitterness added, a 60min add is not a necessesity. in fact, theres a pretty popular technique called hop bursting that does this. http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php


phillipb115: since this is an extract batch, if you don't plan on doing a 60min hop add, I wouldnt bother with a 60min boil, its unnecessary. I'd just go with a 20min or so one.

dcp27 said:

phillipb115: since this is an extract batch, if you don't plan on doing a 60min hop add, I wouldnt bother with a 60min boil, its unnecessary. I'd just go with a 20min or so one.

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Thanks for that! I still have plenty of time to reconfigure my recipe. I could even do two recipes with a 60 minute boil and a 30 or 20 minute one.

TopherM said:

You are going to want a bittering (60 min) hop in there somewhere, or else your beer is just going to taste like grain and smell like Citra.

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I agree this is wrong. I did this Simcoe/Citra Pale Ale recipe and it was unbelievable and the first keg to kick at a party I had. Plenty of bitterness but not harsh.

8 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 80.0 %
2 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 20.0 %
0.25 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 3 4.7 IBUs
0.25 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 4 4.8 IBUs
0.25 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 3.7 IBUs
0.25 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 6 3.8 IBUs
0.25 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 2.8 IBUs
0.25 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 8 2.8 IBUs
0.25 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 2.3 IBUs
0.25 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 10 2.4 IBUs
0.75 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 11 7.0 IBUs
0.75 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 12 7.1 IBUs
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [35.49 ml] Yeast 13
0.25 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
0.25 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 15 0.0 IBUs

Bitterness: 41.3 IBUs

First post, as another Noob to the board... But I found this thread and couldn't help but to throw in my .02cents. I JUST finished doing a "hopped amber" at a local brew fest near here last weekend. It went over pretty well, I had a few people who did not like it, but that's to be expected I suppose.

I used strictly Citra & Amarillo hops. My first addition was Citra at 30 min. Then the next was 20 min along with the Amarillo, then similar additions at 10 min & 1 min. I also dry hopped with both as well.

I ended up liking the end result quite a bit, I will say I am going to do the "same" recipe again except I am going to use Centenial in place of the Amarillo to give the flavor a little more of the "tart" citrus vs the sweet citrus that I got from the Amarillo.

Your recipe does look good, but i'll add another +1 with going with some more bittering hops and using the Amarillo more for Aroma.

Scoundrel...how long did you boil your wort for?

phillipb115 said:

Scoundrel...how long did you boil your wort for?

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Sorry, standard 60 minutes.

just to clarify this, scoundrel's was AG so it needs a 60min boil to remove DMS and such. in extract, thats already done so you only need to boil it long enough to sanitize it.

dcp27 said:

just to clarify this, scoundrel's was AG so it needs a 60min boil to remove DMS and such. in extract, thats already done so you only need to boil it long enough to sanitize it.

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Excellent point!

phillipb115 said:

I'm doing a full 60 minute boil, however I plan to just add the hops in the last 15 minutes of the boil. I'll get some pictures up of the process/end product once everything is said and done.

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I was referring to boil volume, not time. Surely size of your kettle isn't an issue here! Don't most people think a full volume boil is better with extract, or is that just a myth?

tennesseean_87 said:

I was referring to boil volume, not time. Surely size of your kettle isn't an issue here! Don't most people think a full volume boil is better with extract, or is that just a myth?

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Haha sorry. I plan on starting my boil with 2 gallons of water and then boil it for 60 minutes. I'm planning on the water level to be down to around one gallon by then.

Or perhaps maybe not so long from what I read about extract brewing...?

Oh yeah!

tennesseean_87 said:

I was referring to boil volume, not time. Surely size of your kettle isn't an issue here! Don't most people think a full volume boil is better with extract, or is that just a myth?

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It's not a myth. It's your first step towards graduating to AG. With full boils you can reduce the additional darkness of the beer which is characteristic of extract. Plus you're boiling everything.