Citra Pale: When to Dry Hop for Upcoming "Competition"

[MrDarcy]

My first ever opportunity to share my beer with anyone other than my close friends and family is approaching on April 26, and for whatever reason, I brewed something a bit outside my usual repertoire for the occasion—an extract Citra pale ale with a 30-minute boil. I brewed on March 12, and my most recent taste today (about 2.5 weeks in primary) tastes VERY tropical, and I get the impression that there should be a bit firmer bittering in the background. Whatever the case, I was also planning to dry hop with 3 oz of Citra. I guess my primary question is, if I want to pour the beer on April 26, when should I dry hop and for how long. My second question is, should I dry hop at all if I’m concerned about the Citra-ness and overall bittering of this beer…? My third question is, if I won’t be adding IBUs via dry hop, is there anything else I can do, and/or perhaps some other dry hop combination that might give the impression of more bittering or spiciness or SOMETHING to break this rounded tropical flavor I’m experiencing?

Some notes:

• Again, I brewed on March 12 and the beer's been sitting in primary since.
• I hope to rack to rack to keg sometime in the next week or two, and then carbonate over 2 weeks until April 26 when I pour.
• The FG is turning out a bit lower than the 1.013 BeerSmith calculated—I’m at about 1.018 today.

Here’s the recipe (largely based on a Three Floyd’s “Zombie Dust” clone recipe):

5.5 gallon batch
30-minute, full wort boil
5.5 lbs Pilsner LME
1.5 lbs extra light DME
6 oz carapils
6 oz crystal 40
6 oz melanoiden malt
12 oz Munich 10
.75 oz Citra (14%) at 15 min.
1 oz Citra at 10 min.
1 oz Citra at 5 min.
1 oz Citra at 1 min.
3 oz Citra dry hop

Anyhow, that’s the gist. Thanks so much for your time, attention, and any help you can provide!

p.s. Isn't there a way to more efficiently share a recipe in this forum, other than typing it out by hand? I use BeerSmith 2—shouldn't there be some easy export function...?

 

[IL1kebeer]

Dry hop right before you package, whenever that is going to be. You really want that hop aroma to be as fresh as possible for competition.

 

[OneImpBrewery]

In beersmith click on the recipe the will be a drop down menu at the top. Click on plain text. Highlight it, right click copy then paste

 

[MrDarcy]

Thanks for the response, y'all. But any particular advice on my particular dry hop questions? How long should I dry hop (I'll rack to keg on the last day...)? Any combination of hops (other than Citra) that I could/should consider if this brew already tastes like a tropical bomb? Am I crazy to consider a 3 oz Citra dry hop? Thanks!

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

If at room temp of say 20c then technically as long as the hops are very well mixed then 24 hours is long enough. But getting the hops to fully mix is difficult (they float and if you don't use a hop bag etc then they leave a lot of trub and using a hop bag means they mix less) so I leave at least 3 days at room temp. A week is good.

I try to use a weighted hop bag (paint strainer) for dry hopping in the carboy and panty hose (finer mesh) if dry hopping in a tapped keg.

Leaving longer won't be an issue. If they are in the beer for months then yes you can get some grassy or other vegetable flavours.

Colder you dry hop then the longer you need to dry hop.

 

[Queequeg]

If you can not happy with the IBU's you could in theory make a hop tea by boiling a high AA hop in water (water suitable for brewing) and adding that you your priming bucket. This will be of course haphazard. But you can get more selection of hops this way and you can boil some for 30 mins as flavour additions.

Alternatively you could buy some hop extract and add that in a similar way at priming.

I have never tried either, but those are the options I can think of.

You can use a different hop along side Citra to contrast it at the dry hop stage, something less fruity but it would need to be pungent to stand up to the citra.

 

[Thedutchtouch]

I would dry hop today, bottle in 5-7 days. That will give your beer ~3 weeks to carbonate/bottle condition before pouring.

 

[DocScott]

I think you've gotten some good advice. To your questions:

1. Assuming you do not plan to cold crash or add finings to your beer, dry hop 3-4 days before you keg. Since you plan on 2 weeks to carb, that means dry hop on April 8/9.

2. Dry hop away. It's supposed to be a citra pale. I like citra. If you're really concerned, maybe only use 1.5-2 oz in the dry hop

3. Other than blending with another beer or adding "hop tea" there isn't much to do to increase your bitterness. I don't recommend blindly adding a hop tea though, I think you'll regret it.

It's also important to know why your beer isn't bitter. The reason for this is that you need to boil the hops for longer to extract their bittering potential. Your 30 min boil and mostly late hop additions did not give you nearly enough bittering to balance this beer. For future brews, adding a bittering addition at 60 min will give you the bittering you want. Hop additions added later (<30 min) will give flavor, mildly contribute to bittering. Hop additions late (<5-10 min) will give aroma.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

If your waters chloride/sulfate ratio is high on the chloride side you could get a more malty less bitter feel.

 

[MrDarcy]

Thanks so much for the great responses!

Yeah, this was my first attempt at "hop bursting," and I figured I could just do a 30-minute boil (I mean, why not? I wasn't adding hops until 15 minutes left in the boil, after all. Why couldn't I have done a 15 minute boil...?). It was kinda two experiments for me. Anyhow, BeerSmith seemed to think I'd be achieving the IBUs I was after, despite the 30-minute boil...

I tasted it recently and it's not bad—rather tasty and drinkable, quite frankly—but maybe I'm just not a fan of the all-Citra flavor and aroma. Again, not bad, but it's just too rounded and tropically for me. I was planning on dry hopping with 3 oz more of Citra, but I'm wondering if anyone thinks any of the following hops might make a good compliment to Citra in the dry hop, maybe give it a bit of a spice or piney note and complexity; some kind of an edge. I have on hand:

• 2 oz Horizon
• 1 oz Chinook
• 1 oz Zythos

Any thoughts? I ideas? Thanks! I'm learning so much.

 

[Queequeg]

Personally I would go chinook. The other two are both quite tropical fruit which is what you already have a lot of. Chinook is nice and piney, a bit peppery/smokey a few commerical beers use the citra/chinook combo for late additions too.