Dry hop pale ale experiment

[DJL531]

I have a base extract pale ale beer recipe I use to test hops' flavor. It is as close to a SMaSH as you can get with DME. Single hops in this have really come through. I did a Medusa on one brew and a Motueka on another and was really impressed with the flavor. It is a quick 30 minutes brew making 2.5 gallons. Reason I do this is I have a subscription to the Yakima Hops HopBox. Ever 3 months I get 8 new 2oz cans of hops. Well, I have a lot of unused hops I have not had a chance to use over the last 18 months.

Here's my solution. What I am looking to do is do a 5.5 gal (in fermenter) all grain beer. Going to bitter to about 35 IBU with Magnum and then dry hop with the hops I have.

Base recipe is 5# Pale Ale malt, 5# Pilsen malt and 1# Crystal 10. US-05 yeast to keep things neutral.

My concern is some hops I have will be fine standalone, but the overly fruity and floral ones I need to mix in to balance out the flavor.

Here's my first/oldest hops I plan on using with this experiment. I have 2 oz of each and they are in nitrogen sealed cans.
Mosiac
Enigma
Pacific Jade
Vic Secret
Triumph

To balance out the fruity and floral hops, I have a decent amount of usual C group - Citra, Chinook, Cashmere. If this works, I have the ability to split a batch into two 2.75 gallon beers and dry hop of different hops in each. I play soccer in an over 40 league and have plenty of tasters. LOL!

Looking for advice on amount of dry hops to use. I've seen starting numbers of 1.5-2oz per 5 gallon all the way up to 4 or 5 oz of a mix. Only looking to dry hop for 7-10 days max and starting the dry hop at about day 5 where I have enough alcohol in the primary to safely add dry pellets.

 

[easttex]

I would not dry hop for 7-10 days. I would be concerned about picking up grassy flavors. I generally try not to go over 5 days over dry hops.

Kinda jealous at your hop selection. I have hops in both freezers myself...but still, those are some tastey selections.

Since the hops you list above usually have a fairly high Alpha Acid percentage, look at bittering with some of them instead of Magnum. It sounds like you have enough hops onhand to try a DIPA if you wanted to. Maybe look at some DIPA recipes for a suggested hopping schedule?

 

[DJL531]

Thanks, I'll do that as 5 days fits better into my process. I brew on the weekends and everything revolves around a Saturday or Sunday. As far as hops go, the ones listed above are the oldest, from Jan-July of 2020 and most are year 2019 crop. I must have 30 different hops and a new hop box arriving in about a month.