Grapefruit Bomb IPA, how much zest?

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agrazela

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Had some Grapefruit Sculpin IPA the other day. Wife said, "make something like that!"

Was scraping together leftovers for a "garbage can IPA" today, when a Brazilian co-worker walked into the lab, said "Bom Dia" ("Good Day")and gave me 5 grapefruits, fresh off the tree. Karma?

And how about "Bom Dia" for the name of a grapefruit "bomb" IPA? :D

Question: How much zest to use (that is, how many of the 5 grapefruits) in a 5.5gal batch?

If it helps, here's the recipe I've put together based on what I've got sitting around. I'm thinking I want more body, less bitterness from hops, and more residual sweetness than than I'd typically do in an IPA, to offset the bitter note I expect from the zest:

Water profile somewhere between "Amber Bitter" and "Pale Ale" in Bru'n Water (~125ppm Ca++, ~250ppm SO4-, ~50ppm Cl-)
(Might scale back a bit on the gypsum)

Mash at 152°F, expected mash pH 5.3
Expect: OG 1.066 / FG 1.016 (76% AA) / 6.4% ABV / 9-10°SRM / 52 IBU

9# Am. 2-row
1# Am. 2-row (roasted to about 20°L, 300F oven for 20-30 min; would normally use C20L or Victory)
1# C40L (more and/or darker than I'd usually use for IPA, but I do want a sweet note)
0.5# White wheat malt (help head retention with all the citrus oil?)
0.5# Carapils (same idea, plus add some body)
1# 63DE tapioca syrup (don't feel like buying more base grain today)

0.5oz CTZ at 60 min (17 IBU)
0.5oz CTZ at 30 min (13 IBU)
1oz CTZ at 15 min (17 IBU)
0.5oz Ahtanum, 0.25oz Simcoe, 0.25oz Citra at flameout (5 IBU, I consider these 5 min addn's)
1oz Ahtanum, 0.5oz Simcoe, 0.5oz Citra hopstand
0.5oz Ahtanum, 0.25oz Simcoe, 0.25oz Citra dry hop
(Might swap the dry hop and hopstand amounts)

Ferment with S-04, 63°F


Comments?
 
When in the process do you add the zest? I recently had a grapefruit sculpin and it tasted amazingly fresh. I think I would add them to secondary for a dry hop and get the bitterness from the hops?
 
I do a fruit beer (multiple gold medals) that has grapefruit and lime zest in it. 1 grapefruit + 4 limes AND the juice of both is plenty for 10 gallons if you use a complimentary hop and add at the right time.

Zest goes in at flameout (use a hop spider or bag) and do a 10 min stand with it.

Juice goes in once primary fermentation is 2/3 done... so like day 3, yeast depending of course.
 
I do a fruit beer (multiple gold medals) that has grapefruit and lime zest in it. 1 grapefruit + 4 limes AND the juice of both is plenty for 10 gallons if you use a complimentary hop and add at the right time.

Zest goes in at flameout (use a hop spider or bag) and do a 10 min stand with it.

Juice goes in once primary fermentation is 2/3 done... so like day 3, yeast depending of course.

Zest definitely going in at flameout for sanitation reasons.

As for the juice, I've read conflicting things about fermenting citrus juices in the beer. But I might do it, it was going to be a garbage can IPA anyway. I was maybe thinking of adding that at flameout also for ease and for sanitation reasons, but if I was going to add it as you do, do you pasteurize that juice first?

Many opinions on the total amount of fruit to use, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and use all 5 of them.
 
I don't like adding the juice to the very beginning of fermentation due to possble pH effects. You can flash pasturize it if your OCD needs it but if your juicing is sanitary and you keep it refrigerated, should be fine. It's an IPA so I'm assuming you have plans to drink it fresh? Even if a few bugs or wild yeast got in, I doubt you'd notice it. Different story if you're planning to cellar it. I'd use a commercially prepared and pasturized juice product then. The zest is a non contamination issue as it's being sanatized by the wort.
 
Brewed over the weekend, and in case anyone's following this...

I did scale back on the gypsum, to ~100ppM Ca++ and 200ppm SO4- altogether.

I think maybe my "home roasted" malt wasn't as "roasty" as I thought, I had to add 5mL of 25% phosphoric acid to get mash pH down from pH 5.5 to target of pH 5.3

I wound up using the zest and juice from 3 good-sized grapefruits. After straining out pulp, that was ~500mL of juice. All that added at flameout. pH just before pitch was 4.8, actually higher than I expected (these fruits maybe not as acidic as I expected, we did get an unusually high amount of rain the last couple months).

Oxygenated wort and pitched 1L starter of S-04 (~250B cells as per Brewer's Friend) at 63F / 17.2C, and next morning (16 hrs later) was chugging away nicely, with a distinct grapefruit aroma from the airlock. So far looks like the acidity from the fruit juice did not hamper the yeast in any way.

Decided I'm going to add 2oz Amarillo to the dry hop amount listed in first post, 'cause aroma.
 
oh you sneaky mofo....

just wondering cuz I'd buy 25% in a heartbeat but you can't get it...
 
Thought I'd update again, in case anyone's following this.

Brew day was 1/25/2015. OG was 1.070. Forgot to mention before, but mash temp was 154°F, a little higher than target. The zest and strained juice (~500mL or 2 cups) of 3 good-sized grapefruits were added at flameout. Initial ferm temp 63°F. Oxygenated and pitched 1L starter of S-04, and visible ferm began within about 4 hours, strongly chugging away by next morning.

1/27; krausen mostly dropped, so bumped to 68°F.

1/30; activity basically done, starting to clear.

2/2; largely cleared up, SG 1.015

2/4; SG still 1.015 (79% AA, 7.5% ABV), so cold crashed at 40°F

2/7; raised back to 70°F

2/8; dry-hopped, decided to add 1oz Simcoe (instead of the Amarillo suggested earlier) to the dry hop amount listed in first post; so total dry hop 1.25oz Simcoe, 0.5oz Ahtanum, 0.25oz Citra

2/15; bottled, with priming for 2.4vol CO2

2/26 (tonght) going to crack one I fridged last night. Will report on level of grapefruitiness.
 
Id luv to hear how it turned out, this sounds like something i would love to drink
 
The color on this is very nice, and the malt backbone is very pleasing. It is a little "sweet" perhaps with all the C40, but I think that works nicely with the grapefruit. For ease, if I was to make this again I'd probably replace the 1# of home-toasted 2-row with 1# Victory.

It seems a bit more bitter than the IBU's suggest, maybe that's from the zest. Even so, it wants to be more bitter than it is; next time I'd probably do the whole oz of CTZ at 60 min, instead of 0.5oz at 60 and 0.5oz at 30.

The CTZ and Citra I think blended very nicely with the grapefruit, the Ahtanum could just as easily have been Cascade (cheaper). The extra Simcoe in the dry hop was a very nice choice I think, helped keep this from being too one-dimensionally "fruity." In future I would up the dry hop, probably 1 or 2 more oz Simcoe.

As for the grapefruit level: zest and juice of 3 grapefruits is definitely noticeable, but surely less than I wanted. Next time I'd probably go with 5. Interestingly I think with only 1 or 2 of them there'd be a note that would harmonize well with typical American hops without shouting "I have added grapefruit."

Clarity is not that great, but more time in bottle (and then time in fridge) will probably help that.

20150226_160313.jpg
 
A few weeks in the bottle cleared this up nicely. Still needs more grapefruit and simcoe (next time!)

20150326_172137.jpg
 
I brewed something based on this recently, it came out pretty good. The grapefruit comes through quite nicely. Color is a little dark due to the Crystal 60, but it is what I had.

for 5.5 gallons into the fermenter

10 lbs 2 row
1 lb Crystal 60
1 lb Victory
1 lb Wheat
8 oz Acid Malt

Mash at 152 for 1 hr

.5 oz Millenium FWH
1 oz Centennial 90 min
1 oz Citra 10 min
1 oz Citra at Flameout
1 oz Citra Dry Hop 7 days

6.6 oz of grapefruit peel at flameout (5 grapefruits)
 
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