Amarillo/Simcoe/Centennial/Chinook

[RonPopeil]

Talking about my christmas DIPA again. Going to give this to a few family members so I'd like it to be on point. Or at least put the effort in.

So the concept is a big pine forward IPA with some citrus hop in the back to cut it. I'd like to add some orange zest to this as well just to solidify things rather than having that ambiguous orange/lemon/grapefruit thing that you can get by using hops alone.

For me Centennial has a pretty even pine/citrus split. Maybe more on the lemony citrus side of things. The idea is to use it as glue. Since it has qualities of both i'm thinking i can use it to bring the two camps together without being bipolar. Could also add some complexity.

I've not used Chinook in home brewing. I've used lots of Simcoe, Citra and Amarillo and for me Simcoe has always been more fruity. Maybe because of who I was pairing it with.

Back on topic. How do I balance my hops out? Again this is intended to be pine forward with hints of citrus and orange zest. I've been told to add the supporting flavors earlier in the boil and then bomb with your primary hop flavors at the end. The question would be: To what ratio? I'm pretty set on using Vienna as the base malt maybe with a bit of Munich. No caramel grains. Not set on the Munich either.

 

[reinstone]

My advice is to find a dipa you think fits what you want and get a good clone recipe from here or the brewing network.

Otherwise I think your thinking is in line.

 

[RonPopeil]

i guess that's the consensus. I've posted about this a few times and have been getting limited responses. I guess i'm just going to have to brew it out and see what happens.

 

[reinstone]

Cool, worthy try

 

[bnilguy]

Always interesting to hear how different people taste hops differently.

For me: Simcoe- is mostly pine some citrus. Centennial floral some fruit and citrus, Amarillo mostly fruity and a little citrus. Chinook - Pine with Spicy Earthy notes

Simcoe, Centennial, and Chinook are all pretty powerful flavor wise. Amarillo is relatively tame to me

Tough call on how to split these out.. I'd prob leave the Amarillo until later in the boil and dry hopping, plus its a little lower on the alphas. For bittering: Chinook has a bite to it..Simcoe is smooth..Centennial in between..

You could probably split the four up evenly for each of the later parts of the boil and get what you're after