CTZ/Citra/Centennial Extract IPA

[LordMcALe]

Hi,

It has been a long time since I brewed, this Friday I finally have time! I created the recipe below. I would appreciate any feedback/suggestions!

Boilsize 20 liter / 5,28 gallon batch

OG: 1066
FG: 1017
ABV: 6,5
IBU: 63

2,8 kg (6,2 lbs) Light DME
200 gram (0,44 lbs) plain sugar
300 gram (0,66 lbs) CaraMalt 20

Hops are CTZ 13,5% (leaf) Centennial 8,5% (pellets) and Citra 13,3% (leaf):

45 min 1,4 oz CTZ
05 min 1,4 oz Citra
00 min 1,4 oz Citra
Dry Hop: 3.5 oz Centennial

Safale US-05 yeast

I plan to steep from cold to 170 degrees
Then add 1 lbs of DME at the start of the boil. The rest I will add at 15 minutes left in the boil.

3 quesions:
- I love hoppy, fruity IPAs (Bells 2 Hearted etc.). Should I add more hops at 5 and flame out?

- Since I have Centennial pellets, I want to use it for dry hopping (because I am not sure how to filter them out after the boil, not having all the equipment I guess). Would it be better to combine Citra and Centennial instead of separating (if so, how to get the pellets out after the boil?)

- 45 vs 60 minute boil: does it matter?

Thanks!
Lord McAle

 

[RM-MN]

Don't worry about getting the pellets out after the boil. Dump everything into the fermenter and let the yeast do their thing, giving the beer plenty of time to complete fermenting and then everything settle out. Your break material will be mixed with the hops with the yeast on top. With enough time in the fermenter that mass will compact down somewhat and it will be easier to rack the beer from above it when it is time to bottle.

Yes the boil time does matter but not to a great extent. Most of the bittering from the hops happens in the first 30 minutes so by 45 you should be pretty good. If you are doing a full volume boil you won't boil off as much water as with a 60 minute boil so that has to be taken into account. If you use top off water that wouldn't matter as you would top off to the proper volume.

Only you can tell if you have enough hops. What you have listed is more than enough for me. Any hops added before the end of the boil add bitterness and that continues until the wort is cooled below about 180 so take that into account. Dry hopping only adds aroma, not bitterness. I like hopping with Citra.

 

[LordMcALe]

Thanks!
I brewed the recipe today, smells great so far. i also did an additional hop addition after 15 minutes after flame out.

One issue: the tap on my fermentation vessel was leaking..... so what I did in the panic was wrap a plastic bag (clean, from a role of these sandwich bags) around my hand and fix the tap from the inside of the vessel.. I hope I did not cause an infection to the wort.......

Regards!

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks!
I brewed the recipe today, smells great so far. i also did an additional hop addition after 15 minutes after flame out.

One issue: the tap on my fermentation vessel was leaking..... so what I did in the panic was wrap a plastic bag (clean, from a role of these sandwich bags) around my hand and fix the tap from the inside of the vessel.. I hope I did not cause an infection to the wort.......

Regards!

If you pitched a reasonable amount of yeast it isn't very likely that you would have infected your beer. You might (might!) have introduced a few thousand bacteria cells but you also pitched 100 billion yeast cells and that will give the yeast such a head start the bacteria won't have much chance. Once fermentation starts the top area of your fermenter will be covered in CO2 and not many bacteria can survive that. Then the yeast will produce alcohol, another killer of bacteria and then the acidity will increase and that takes care of most of the rest.

The time when infections get started is if you transfer to secondary, don't do a good enough job of sanitizing or have bad luck with bacteria in your air that can survive, and leave such a large space above the beer that the CO2 dissolved in the beer cannot drive out all the oxygen.