Thoughts on an APA

[txago]

I have brewed more wheat and belgian ales more than hoppy beers, so I'm having doubts on the hopping rate. Here is the recipe:

Batch size: 50 L (13.2 gal)
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 11.1 EBC
Estimated IBU: 32.3 IBUs

84.3 % Pale Ale (6.5 EBC)
10.0 % Munich (15.5 EBC)
5.4 % Caramel Pils (4.5 EBC)
0.4 % Acid Malt (5.9 EBC)

25 g (0.88 oz) Bravo [15.50 %] FWH 20.4 IBUs
65 g (2.29 oz) Bravo [15.50 %] Whirlpool (10 mins) 8.6 IBUs
30 g (1.06 oz) Simcoe [12.90 %] Whirlpool (10 mins) 3.3 IBUs
80 g (2.82 oz) Simcoe [12.90 %] DH
30 g (1.06 oz) Bravo [15.50 %] DH

Mashed @ 67 ºC (152.6 ºF)
60 mins boil
Fermented with US-05 @ 18 ºC (64.4 ºF)

I'm concerned with the late additions and dry hops. Are they too much or just right?
Will they clash with the munich malt?
Any changes I should do to the grist or hopping schedule?

 

[thehaze]

Late hop additions and DH charges are not enough, by any means.

You are doing ... what a 10 gallons batch and will only use slightly under 4 oz of hops for dry hopping?

I use between 8-15 oz for 5-6 gallons and that's only dry hopping.

The Munich malt is fine, but if you want it even lighter in colour and flavours, then I would skip it.

 

[FatDragon]

Depends how hoppy you want it. The above suggestion of 8-15 oz for dry hopping a 20 liter APA is quite extreme for the style, and even aggressive compared to most homebrew IPAs. An APA without any dry hops is far from unusual, and I believe Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the granddaddy of them all, doesn't dry hop at all.

My personal taste for an APA, which is hoppier than many of the old school versions but not in modern IPA territory, is about 100g late boil/whirlpool and another 60-100g of dry hops, plus whatever I need for bittering (I like to keep it mild, maybe 30 IBUs or so). That's for a bit less than half of your batch size. Your current recipe for 50L would be quite mild for an APA, but within the style range.

I like your grist, though - 10% Munich is nice in an APA.

 

[txago]

Thank you both for the inputs.
I'm not really after a really hoppy ale, just a balanced beer with assertive, but not overpowering fruity notes.

Guess I will bump the dry hop and whirpool additions by about 40%.
Will that do the trick?

 

[FatDragon]

Thank you both for the inputs.
I'm not really after a really hoppy ale, just a balanced beer with assertive, but not overpowering fruity notes.

Guess I will bump the dry hop and whirpool additions by about 40%.
Will that do the trick?

I'm a week or so late. Oh well.

Your adjustment sounds about right. It looks like you're going for hoppy, but not a hop bomb, as it were. For a classic, baseline APA, taking your whirlpool and dry hop additions from the original recipe and splitting them roughly evenly between 15/5/0 (and no dry hop at all) would do the trick. Using the given recipe with a 40% bump in whirlpool and dry hop additions should get you closer to a modern brewpub-style, IPA-influenced APA; something that - with 10-15 more IBUs and another 10 points on the OG - would have been at the forefront of the hoppy American IPA category a couple decades ago but is now firmly in the category of easy-drinking, sessionable APAs.

 

[txago]

Thanks, mate!

I guess I'll stick to the whirlpool and dh additions.
I'm planning on brewing it this weekend, and will post the results.

 

[Miraculix]

I don't actually know what makes the difference between apa and ipa, but in ipas, I love munich. My best one so far had only munich as base. A bit darker than most other ipas at the end but still got a lot of compliments for the colour and the taste was the bomb. So crank that munich up!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Batch size: 50 L (13.2 gal)

25 g (0.88 oz) Bravo [15.50 %] FWH 20.4 IBUs
65 g (2.29 oz) Bravo [15.50 %] Whirlpool (10 mins) 8.6 IBUs
30 g (1.06 oz) Simcoe [12.90 %] Whirlpool (10 mins) 3.3 IBUs
80 g (2.82 oz) Simcoe [12.90 %] DH
30 g (1.06 oz) Bravo [15.50 %] DH

You're not far off one of my standard "test" brews, which is 20l of 100% Maris Otter @1045 plus 25IBU bittering and a 100g pack of hops split between kettle and whirlpool/dry. For European hops it's more in British golden ale territory, for the punchier New World hops 100g +bittering in 20l is at the bottom end of APA territory. Looking at NHC winners in APA it looks like the norm (in ~20l) is 2-4oz at 5-20 min, and another 2-4oz between flameout/whirlpool/dryhop, so you're looking at 250-500g in total for 50l excluding the bittering charge.

If you're looking for fruit I wouldn't add Bravo late - it's a bit of a one-trick pony flavourwise, it has a huge amount of geraniol which will come out as floral as a late addition but if you add it in whirlpool or at pitching some of the geraniol will be biotransformed into citrussy citronellol. I wouldn't go overboard with it though, it is a bit one-dimensional as an aroma hop.

@Miraculix Broadly APA is what the rest of the world call session IPAs, it's beers in that gap between the less hoppy golden ales and the higher ABV IPAs

 

[Miraculix]

Thx, than I am a big fan of apas. Good to know

 

[aprichman]

Late hop additions and DH charges are not enough, by any means.

You are doing ... what a 10 gallons batch and will only use slightly under 4 oz of hops for dry hopping?

I use between 8-15 oz for 5-6 gallons and that's only dry hopping.

The Munich malt is fine, but if you want it even lighter in colour and flavours, then I would skip it.

8+ oz. of dry hops is not appropriate for an APA in my opinion.

 

[txago]

If you're looking for fruit I wouldn't add Bravo late - it's a bit of a one-trick pony flavourwise, it has a huge amount of geraniol which will come out as floral as a late addition but if you add it in whirlpool or at pitching some of the geraniol will be biotransformed into citrussy citronellol. I wouldn't go overboard with it though, it is a bit one-dimensional as an aroma hop.

Yeah, my intent was to load the beer with linalool (simcoe) & geraniol (bravo) to get some citronellol.

I'm going to add half the dh bravo at primary, perhaps on day 3 of fermentation (tomorrow), and the other half along with the simcoe on secondary.

I hope the 4mmp on the simcoe will give those tropical fruit notes.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Most biotransformation happens when the yeast are at their most active, within the first 2-3 days of fermentation. So if that's what you're looking for you need to be geranioling in the whirlpool or at pitching.