Help with hop schedule in American Amber

[underdog378]

Brewing my first all-grain brew coming up this weekend and have come up with a recipe for an american amber. I'm leaning towards something with good hop flavor and aroma and balanced bitterness. I have 2oz of Amarillo and 2oz of Centennial that I'll be using, here is what I have so far:

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Est. Original Gravity
1.059
Est. Final Gravity
1.015
Color
15° SRM
Mash Efficiency
70%

malt & fermentables
79% 10lb American Two-row Pale
8% 1lb Briess Caramel 40L
8% 1lb Victory Malt
5% 10oz Briess Caramel 80L
0% 1oz Chocolate Malt (Cold steeped, added at mash out for color)


hops
60 mins 0.75 Centennial
30 mins 0.25 Centennial
10 mins 0.5 Amarillo
10 mins 0.5 Centennial
0 min 0.75 Amarillo

yeast
Pacman harvested from Rogue Mocha Porter

Using beer calculus and the tinseth IBU calculation I get 38 IBUs, was thinking of possibly bumping the 30min centennial addition to .5 or add some amarillo at the 30 min mark as well. Any thoughts or ideas would be great.

 

[deepsouth]

i just made an awesome ipa using amarillo, centinnial & simcoe.... this was my hop profile...

hops (all pellet).....

.75 oz amarillo @ 60
.25 oz centennial @ 60
.75 oz simcoe @ 60
.75 oz amarillo @ 10
.75 oz simcoe @ 10
.5 oz amarillo @ 0
.75 oz centennial @ 0
.5 oz simcoe @ 0

dry hops (added after one week in primary).....

1 oz amarillo
1 oz simcoe



og was 1.072
ibu was 72

it turned out to be my best ipa hop schedule to date.

if you have easy access to simcoe, you may want to add some in.

just throwing that out there. hope it helps.

 

[SuburbanBrewer]

I've never had any luck with 30 minute additions. They always seem to be a no mans land. If you want more aroma, focus on your 20 minute to FO additions. As far as bitterness, you fall within the BJCP guidelines for an APA.

 

[JasonOdd]

I could be wrong...
What I have read (can't remember where now of course!) 30min additions don't add much in smell, flavor or bitterness.

I would skip the 30min add and put those hops in at 60 if you want it more bitter or 5min if you want more smell... that said 38IBU seems right on for an American Amber

I like this hop schedule...

60 mins 1oz Centennial
5 mins 1oz Amarillo
5 mins .5oz Centennial

 

[beergolf]

I've never had any luck with 30 minute additions. They always seem to be a no mans land. If you want more aroma, focus on your 20 minute to FO additions. As far as bitterness, you fall within the BJCP guidelines for an APA.

Agree. I like to do a 60 minute addition and then most of my hops at 20 or under.

 

[underdog378]

Thanks guys, sounds like I'll probably bump my 30min addition up to 60min, tweaking the amount a bit to keep my IBUs in range. I don't have the hops in hand yet so I don't know the AA%, so once I get the hops I'll tweak the specific amounts to get the IBU range I'm looking for.

I played with adding a 20 minute addition but that really bumped up my IBUs probably a little higher than I am looking for.

Here's the updated, which looks like it gives me around 39.7ibus, so not a huge jump by moving my 30min addition to 60min:
1oz Centennial @ 60min
.5oz Amarillo @ 10min
.5oz Centennial @ 10min
.75oz Amarillo @ 0min