Citra West Coast IPA

[KowasakiTom]

This is my first post to the forum. Thanks to all for the helpful tips, recipes, and guides from other brewers. Last weekend I brewed my first all-grain recipe which I designed by mildly altering other recipes according to ingredients I have available (I live in Geoje, South Korea) as well as my taste. I felt like a West Coast Citra IPA.

All malts were procured from Seoulhomebrew. I have named this my Sea Trial Pale Ale

13# Pale Ale Malt
1# Acidulated Malt (I read that the max should be roughly 5% recently, oh well lesson learned. I’ll see how it tastes and remember to cut back next time)
1# Caramunich II
1# Carapils – 2 row
1# Munich Malt 10L

Hops:
1 oz El Dorado 60min
1oz Chinook ~25 min
1oz Centennial - 1 min
1 oz Citra – 1 min

Dry Hop
3 days 1 oz citra

Yeast, no starter with Safale 05

I’m not sure how this one will turn out, but I figured I’d make it my first post here. I’ll keg it in two weeks and try to remember to post the results. This hasn’t been my best batch to say the least. I added too much water to the mash and sparge so the gravity was low (1.060 as opposed to roughly 1.076). I had way too much in my fermenter and winded up having yeast cake fill my air lock and spew out the top. I transferred to a secondary which is a bit smaller so I’m now at about 4.5 gallons total with the hopes that it’s not infected. It has been a good learning lesson so far. I’d appreciate some feedback on recipe or other notes if you have them.

 

[sptaylor70]

Hops - Chinook is more of a bittering hop, El Dorado more of a flavor hop. So you might look at swapping their boil times.

Fermentables - You're only at 6% acid malt. It's high, but not, I think, disastrously so. I'd try darker crystal malts for more flavor, maybe C20L and C40L (or CaraVienne and CaraMunich 3).

Yeast - You don't really need a secondary fermenter. I like fruitier yeasts in an IPA - maybe BRY-97, Nottingham, or S-04 - but that's just personal preference.

You can always boil your wort a little longer to get the OG to where you'd like it.

I look forward to your evaluation of your first all-grain brew.

 

[KowasakiTom]

Thanks, I'll try to post a photo with flavor when it's finished. When I rebrew this in a few weeks I will make adjustments based on your recommendations. I like how they sound. I'm also going to use water salts vice acidulated malt.

 

[RonPopeil]

If you want a citra IPA then cut out all these other guys and use Citra.

looks like you're close to 1.070 in your OG.

1-1.5oz chinook @ 60
.33oz centennial at 15
.33oz centennial at 10
.33oz centennial at 5
1.0oz citra at 15
1.0oz citra at 10
1.0oz citra at 5

dry hop with at least 2oz of citra and centennial.

 

[peterj]

1 pound of acid malt is way too much. It probably brought your mash pH down well below where you want it to be. I put your recipe into my water chemistry program and it's saying your mash pH was probably around 5.09 (I have no idea what your water is like but the water profile I used is low in ions). A low mash pH can cause problems in your beer. And with that much acid you will probably get a tart flavor contribution in the finished beer.

I'm not sure what you were going for with the acid malt, but it is generally only used to adjust the mash pH to the desired level (5.4 - 5.6 pH). Usually a 1-2% addition will do this, but I would only add it if you know what you're doing with water chemistry.

Also, Chinook is not strictly a bittering hop. I think it gives a good piney, grapefruit flavor and aroma.

Other than that the recipe looks fine. I think for my tastes you were a little heavy on the crystal/carpils, and I would have moved the 25 minute hop addition to 10 minutes.

 

[peterj]

Here's a good guideline to follow for salt and acid additions without getting too in depth with calculators and pH meters: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/.

 

[KowasakiTom]

Kegged and poured a sample last night. Seems good. The acid is a little high, creates a mouth watering finish. Otherwise the recipe turned out great, better than I thought. I'll condition in the keg for another week then post taste profile and brew notes, plus planned modifications.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Chadwick]

That looks nice. As for everyone's opinions about using this hop for this addition and that hop for that addition....Just have fun and don't worry too much about it. I love to bitter with Chinook. It has a nice rich bittering with an earthy backbone. However, I also use Chinook when I dry hop as well. I do the same thing with Columbus, a traditional bittering hop. I've found it lends the most wonderful floral flavor when used as a dry hop.

Point is, enjoy doing what you are doing. Although there is a wealth of knowledge from folks on this forum, hops are one of those things where you can experiment wildly and still be proud of the beer you brew most of the time. That isn't to say there aren't hop combos that are disastrous, there are. But feel free to ride the edge. It isn't like you are fermenting with Nottingham at 80F and hopping with 9oz of Citra on top of a 4oz 90min addition of Kent Goldings. -that would be disastrous.

Edit: Centennial, that is a fantastic hop. I've found it works wonderfully with any American hop regardless of when you use it in the boil. I love to bitter my dark ales with it and then add a touch at the finish. It's flavor really works for just about anything.
Also, +1 on using US-05 yeast. I've never had a bad tasting brew using this yeast. It consistently performs and attenuates better than it is supposed too for me. It is a workhorse yeast that is also forgiving at the same time. It is my #1 go-to yeast for 80% of the brews I make. You cannot go wrong using this one.