Galaxy/Citra IPA recipe

[istuntmanmike]

Got a few different kinds of hops sitting in the freezer, threw together this recipe. Any suggestions? I'm going for citrusy West Coast IPA hoppiness with a good malty backbone, the gf and I don't like the really dry IPAs so much as the West/East coast hybrids that have a nice mouthfeel and a little sweetness to them. Will the cane sugar conflict with the steeping grains, should I use more DME instead?


5gal

9lb Extra Light DME
1lb Cane Sugar

1lb 2-row
.5lb C-40
.5lb Victory

1oz Apollo @ 60min
1oz Citra @ 15min
1oz Galaxy @ 15min
1oz Cascade @ 5min
1oz Citra @ 0min
1oz Galaxy @ 0min
1oz Cascade DH
1oz Citra DH
1oz Galaxy DH
1oz Zythos DH

San Diego Super Yeast WLP090

 

[DeBAD]

Looks good so far. Just a few opinions/suggestions:
1. The sugar is fine. In fact maybe add 1 lb sugar and pull out 1 lb DME. Or use corn syrup instead, whichever is cheaper. I assume you are just trying to bump the ABV/lighten the body a little anyway right?
2. I wouldn't boil the Citra. I've used Citra in IPAs several times and I think when boiled Citra puts off a slight cat pee smell. Sub it with something else in your boil and move it to flame out. Citra is my fav IPA hop but just not in the boil.
3. Just an opinion but you might be a little heavy on the grain bill. In an IPA I think only 1 lb of grain is plenty. Especially with all that DME.
4. Maybe you already have but you might want to run your recipe through a yeast calculator like Mr. Malty. I don't know a lot about the yeast you are using but you might be a little light on yeast and might need to add a package of Safale-05 to be safe. With 12 lbs of fermentables in a 5 gal batch I'm guessing your OG is over 1.07? You don't want to under pitch.

Good luck. Brew on bro!

 

[istuntmanmike]

Thanks for the reply

1. Yeah, adding sugar to dry it out a little and get a little more ABV. Just didn't know if it was pointless to add with the steeping grains that are in there, if it would cancel out what they contribute or w/e

2. Even at 15min?

3. I've made a few IPAs, all with ~2lb of steeping grains, and they have all come out quite well. I started with a Drake's IPA extract kit recipe, and it has 1.25lb C15, 1lb C40. What issue would too much steeping grain cause?

4. I make starters when necessary. The wlp090 is highly tolerant to alcohol and ferments crazy fast. Last used it in a black IPA that was ~8% ABV and it kicked ass. Dunno where you get 12lbs of fermentables, the grains are just for steeping, to get some more malty body in there.

 

[DeBAD]

You threw it out there so thought you wanted input. Sounds like you have your mind made up so go for it. No worries. Again, just opinions.


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[jmorris62]

Are you planning on partial mashing that 2-row or steeping it? Seems to me like you could leave it out as it will add very little steeped.

 

[NoDoubtAddMoreHops]

I don't recall getting a cat piss smell from my all Citra Belgian IPA, but perhaps it was masked by the yeast flavor compounds. I'm going to guess that's probably what happens to heavily Citra-hopped beers if it gets light struck or oxidized.

 

[DeBAD]

No light for sure and I doubt oxidized because I haven't had any problems. Another post recently suggested it tends to happen when using Safale-05. In fact all 3 times it's happened to me I have used that yeast. However when I moved it to flame out it didn't happen again.


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[DeBAD]

Truth be told the smell is very subtle and most people don't even notice. However once I moved the Citra to flame out, leaving everything else exactly the same, the smell went away completely.


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[Calder]

Looks good. Some comments.

The sugar will help offset sweetness of the extract. It is good to have.

You will not get much from the 2-row or victory with steeping. You should try a mini mash; steep in a small quantity of water. Heat 3 quarts water to 160 F, add grains, temp will drop to about 150 F. Maintain temp for 30 mins stirring occasionally. Remove grains and drain. Rinsing the grains in some additional water at about 170 F will yield more sugars and flavor.

You might want to cut out some extract. The 9 lbs of extract and lb of sugar will get you an OG of 1.092. If you mash the grains, that would put you somewhere around 1.105.

 

[istuntmanmike]

You threw it out there so thought you wanted input. Sounds like you have your mind made up so go for it. No worries. Again, just opinions.

If I had my mind made up, I wouldn't have posted the thread

But that doesn't mean I just take what the first person says as gospel truth, and it doesn't mean I understand the reasons of why things should be done the way they should be done. I'm one of those people who likes to understand the whys, because I have come across a TON of people, in this hobby as well as others (like growing cannabis), who say something should be done a certain way, but when pressed for reasons why, they answer, "someone else told me."

For the boiling of the Citra, I asked, even at 15min? Because I see other recipes that call for Citra being added at 15min and no reports of catpiss, I see recipes made solely of Citra and no reports of catpiss. I'm not saying you're wrong, I was just wondering why you stay away from using Citra as flavor additions whereas everybody else (that I've so far seen) seems to use it without such off-flavors.

And for the steeping grains, I asked, What issue would too much steeping grain cause? Replying with, "well you have your mind made up," doesn't really answer the question, and doesn't help much, if at all. Again, knowing why using too much steeping grains is a bad/undesirable thing is what I'm shooting for here. If there's a real reason it would be a bad idea, I'm all ears. But saying that it's simply too much, when my personal experience is that using even more than this didn't seem to negatively affect the beers, doesn't help. I'm trying to grow my knowledge, not just go off of hearsay.

Sorry if you got offended at my thirst for knowledge. I kinda thought that's what this place was for

 

[istuntmanmike]

You will not get much from the 2-row or victory with steeping. You should try a mini mash; steep in a small quantity of water. Heat 3 quarts water to 160 F, add grains, temp will drop to about 150 F. Maintain temp for 30 mins stirring occasionally. Remove grains and drain. Rinsing the grains in some additional water at about 170 F will yield more sugars and flavor.

You might want to cut out some extract. The 9 lbs of extract and lb of sugar will get you an OG of 1.092. If you mash the grains, that would put you somewhere around 1.105.

So if I understand correctly, any crystal malts can (or should be...?) steeped, whereas any base malts must be mashed?

What would happen if the grains are only crystal malts and are steeped? Works just fine?

What would happen if the base grains were only steeped and not mashed? Is it that it causes too much starch in the beer, or that it simply isn't flavorful enough, or ?


I got an OG of 1.082 in BrewersFriend, I have it set to 5.5gal batch, 6.5gal at start of boil. Is it that their calculator doesn't factor in added gravity from the grains? I've tried using BeerSmith and there's just soooooo many variables it's difficult for me to use, much more so than BrewersFriend. It's near impossible for me to get the same numbers in both calculators and I don't know why

 

[istuntmanmike]

Oh, can I measure the gravity after steeping/mashing and get an accurate reading of what I actually get out of it? Because I've read plenty about how steeping doesn't actually contribute any gravity points, yet my OG is almost always way higher than calculated in any recipe builder

 

[Calder]

Steeping crystal will add sugars and affect the gravity. All you are doing is rinsing/dissolving sugars in the grain. You will get about 50% efficiency, or about 18 points per lb of crystal. If you mash crystal you will get more sugars as it also has starches which can be converted. Crystal needs a base grain to be mashed with to extract the additional sugars.

Base grains like 2-row require mashing. It contains only starches, no sugars. Just steeping it might extract a small amount as the enzymes are still there, but are so diluted, that conversion would be very low.

Yes, measuring geavity after steeping or mashing will tell you how much sugar you extracted. I don't know what you get from steeping 2-row. Probably a little flavor, and a bit of starch. I don't know if starch is a bad thing; I know it is not a good thing.

Different calculators will give you different numbers, based on what sugar content they assign to different ingredients. I use 46 gravity points for both DME and cane sugar. 10 lbs of that in 5 gals is 1.092. You are using 5.5 gals. That would put it about 1.084. This is without any contribution from the grain.

 

[istuntmanmike]

Thanks for the explanation, explains a lot.

So if I'm steeping only, might as well not even bother with the 2-row, and just use specialty grains if I want to add body and flavor, correct?

What would be the benefit to using 2-row and mashing?

 

[jmorris62]

Mashing the 2-row in conjunction with the C-40 and Victory will give you more fermentable sugars making your OG higher from the start.

 

[istuntmanmike]

Is there any benefit to doing that vs just adding more DME to get more fermentables?

 

[jmorris62]

I would partial mash the grains over adding more DME IMHO. I prefer to have some control of flavor and color in my brews. My post was never meant to deter you from using the grains, only to clarify that to get the most out of your current grain bill it would need to be mashed. You could still steep them and it would make beer, but I believe you would have better results if you mashed.

 

[judsonp]

Partial-mashing two-row (or really any base grain) doesn't contribute a lot of flavor. So I would say there's not really a significant difference between using the two-row or using an equivalent amount of DME.

The reason people partial-mash base malts is to provide enzymes for converting specialty malts.

You can steep crystal and roasted specialty malts. Conventional wisdom seems to be that crystal malts are already fully converted and roasted doesn't contribute fermentables, so you don't need to mash them. Some testing suggests that this isn't quite true, and that you can get additional sugars out of crystal by mashing it. Whether or not that's a significant contribution worth additional effort, I don't know. (Certainly, I wouldn't worry about how much fermentable sugar crystal is contributing, that's not what it's there for. I would wonder if mashing vs. not has a flavor impact.)

You should mash other kinds of specialty grains, like Victory. Those specialty grains have more flavor than base malt, but they're still mostly starch on the inside. People certainly do just steep them, but it's better if you mash them. If you mash them, you probably need the additional enzymes from some unmolested base malt for the mash to work well.

So that's the short story as to why you see partial mash recipes that are a little bit of 2-row + a mixture of specialty grains. The 2-row is there for enzymes. The recipe-maker selected partial mash over just steeping because one of the specialty grains is the "should mash" type.

I would partial-mash your grains there. I don't think it's a lot of grains for an IPA. The 2-row has no flavor contribution, so it's 1/2# crystal and 1/2# Victory in an IPA, which seems low to normal (good for a dry IPA). Though I suppose it really depends on how dry your DME ferments out.

Note that just steeping at a decently well-controlled temperature in "not too much" water is fundamentally a mash.

Alternately, you could cut out the two-row and Victory and steep the crystal.

Still alternately, you could cut out the two-row and steel the crystal and Victory, even though ideally you shouldn't.

 

[DarthCitra]

Let us know what you are going with and how it comes out! i'll be subscribing to this thread to hear, im very interested in the citra-galaxy combo. I was hoping for just those two on the hop additions but cant hurt it with some cascade! Ive never heard of Zythos, what is the AA% on that along with the aroma?

Sounds like an awesome brew with proper timing for hops. Its a little much on the DME for me but who knows!

 

[DeBAD]

Is there any benefit to doing that vs just adding more DME to get more fermentables?

Dude obviously it's none of my business at all but judging by previous posts your OG is already north of 1.09 for this beer so do you really want to go higher? Judging by your hop schedule, and I think you mentioned in another of your posts you are going to boil 6.5 gallons, I'm guessing your IBUs are going to be close to 100 right? Are you sure you want to brew an Imperial IPA?

You mentioned your girlfriend in your first post. Maybe you don't plan on her drinking this beer but does she actually like Imperial IPAs? First of all I'm guessing only maybe 25% of women even like IPAs in the first place. Then truth be told maybe only half of those honestly really do like them and would actually buy a 6'r for themselves at the grocery store. Then of those I promise you only a fraction might like Imperial IPAs. Dude if you have one of those, marry her tomorrow. Haha!

You said you guys are West Coast IPA drinkers right? If you haven't done so already do yourself a favor and go buy a 6'r of Sierra Nevada Hoptimum. That sucker is an Imperial IPA at an OG around 1.09 and 100 IBUs. If you both like like it, buy that girl a ring on the spot! If you don't, you are gonna be stuck with 50 bottles just like it if you brew your beer.

Good luck. Brew on bro!

 

[istuntmanmike]

Let us know what you are going with and how it comes out! i'll be subscribing to this thread to hear, im very interested in the citra-galaxy combo. I was hoping for just those two on the hop additions but cant hurt it with some cascade! Ive never heard of Zythos, what is the AA% on that along with the aroma?

Sounds like an awesome brew with proper timing for hops. Its a little much on the DME for me but who knows!

(General AA%: 9.5-12%) Zythos is a new "IPA style" hop blend created to optimize and exceed the aroma characteristics of the traditional, and sometimes hard to get, IPA hops. Hopunion had a team of professional hop sniffers blending combinations of hops. The interesting thing MoreBeer! learned is that blending hops is like blending wine - the blend actually ends up being different than the sum of the parts. Pretty cool.

This is a perfect hop for West Coast style hoppy Pale Ales and IPA's. With that said we have seen, sniffed and tasted all kinds of traditional styles made with aggressive IPA hops. You are only limited by your creativity.

So what are the flavors? MoreBeer! went right to the source and interviewed our friend Will Harrison of Hopunion who led the team that developed the Zythos hop blend. He has this to say "I get lots of citrus and tropical fruit notes. The hop was blended to get a little of everything in one pellet. We went for citrus, tropical, pine, and spicy as the main flavors in that order. It also has some experimental varieties to make it more complex".

Experimental hops come from breeding programs and are available to Hopunion but not yet available to the public. So if you choose this blend you will be tasting into the future of IPA hops! Sign us up, our fermenters are already bubbling.

Hop Statistics
Alpha Acids: 10.9%
Beta Acids: 5.2%
Alpha-Beta Ratio: 2.1
Cohumulone: (% of alpha acids):29.6%
Total Oils in mls per 100 grams dried: 0.90
Storage(% alpha acids remaining after 6 months storage at 20° C):70%
Similar Hop Varieties: Simcoe, Amarillo
http://morebeer.com/products/zythos-pellet-hops.html

I might bring the ABV down a bit, but let's just say I'm not much of a session beer drinker lol

Dude obviously it's none of my business at all but judging by previous posts your OG is already north of 1.09 for this beer so do you really want to go higher? Judging by your hop schedule, and I think you mentioned in another of your posts you are going to boil 6.5 gallons, I'm guessing your IBUs are going to be close to 100 right? Are you sure you want to brew an Imperial IPA?

You mentioned your girlfriend in your first post. Maybe you don't plan on her drinking this beer but does she actually like Imperial IPAs? First of all I'm guessing only maybe 25% of women even like IPAs in the first place. Then truth be told maybe only half of those honestly really do like them and would actually buy a 6'r for themselves at the grocery store. Then of those I promise you only a fraction might like Imperial IPAs. Dude if you have one of those, marry her tomorrow. Haha!

You said you guys are West Coast IPA drinkers right? If you haven't done so already do yourself a favor and go buy a 6'r of Sierra Nevada Hoptimum. That sucker is an Imperial IPA at an OG around 1.09 and 100 IBUs. If you both like like it, buy that girl a ring on the spot! If you don't, you are gonna be stuck with 50 bottles just like it if you brew your beer.

Good luck. Brew on bro!

I didn't mean higher than what it is now, I mean in general, using grains to replace DME or vice-versa.

I appreciate your concern but I'm a HUGE hophead. I have no qualms whatsoever with brewing and drinking an IIPA, as a matter of fact I drink IIPAs more than any other type of beer.

As for the gf, she does indeed enjoy hoppy IPAs. She prefers Belgians and barleywines but when I bring home a 6er of, say, Rampant, I have to tell her to not drink them all. It's a blessing and a curse, believe me I keep making the beers stronger in hopes she'll stop drinking them lol

I love Hoptimum, have had it on tap as a matter of fact. Our biggest local brewery is Tioga-Sequoia, and they've put out their Batch 250 and Tecumseh IIPAs, both 10%+ and 120+ IBU. Batch 250 is one of my favorite brews from them. I think my first love was Ruination, and I still love that beer.

We have yet to make any beers that have been undrinkable. The only thing close was what was intended to be a Raging ***** kinda-clone, but came out more like a barleywine. I called it "Son of a *****!" (cuz it didn't come out as planned), and the gf loves it.


I just noticed you're in Iowa. I know what an IPA is supposed to clock in at, but over here, an IPA is pretty much 7-9% ABV. There's another local brewery, Riley's, that has what they call a Double IPA, but is only 7.5%. It doesn't do all that well in sales, not because it's a bad beer by any means, but because most craft drinkers around here expect a Double IPA to be more like 8%+. Plus it leans dry rather than malty, and like I said, we prefer malty IPA anyways so an IIPA is just twice as good

 

[divrguy]

Didn't read any of the other posts because I got stuck on the comment about Citra at 15. IMO I love Citra at 20, 15, 5 flameout and dry hop. Only because I have tried it one at a time in smash brews to get the flavor. Never got cat pee.

I did however notice one great thing about Citra. I never need that much of it. No matter where I put it, I can taste it and smell it in very small quantities so I really love this hop!


Cheers!

 

[ricshayne]

One person's cat pee is another person's Passion Fruit..........

 

[2ellas]

how did this beer turn out?