Bristol Brewers

I recently enjoyed a Citra single hop IPA from M&S and thought i'd have a crack at making my own. I'm using a little crystal malt in the base (Southville hop uses some crystal malt with Citra - so I figure it isn't crazy).

This is the first time I've put my own recipe together and i'm also using pellets which I haven't used before. Let me know if you think this would work or if I should make changes. I was surprised at the weight of pellets needed compared to whole hops. I've used the BrewR app to put this together. Note - it's a small batch.

Beer: Citra single hop IPA
Batch size: 10 litres
Boil time: 60 minutes

Estimated OG: 1.054
Estimated FG: 1.014
Estimated abv: 5.3%
Bitterness: 60 IBU
Colour: 15 SRM


Maris Otter: 2.00 kg
Crystal Malt (~55 SRM) 0.5 kg

each Citra addition is pellet 12.7% AA -

10g @ 60 min
7g @ 45 min
7g @ 15 min
7g @ 5 min

7g dry hop

1 x American West Coast Ale Yeast (11g)

2 weeks in primary
2 weeks in secondary
prime and bottle

Advice & feedback much appreciated!

monty1 wrote:
Beer: Citra single hop IPA
Batch size: 10 litres
Boil time: 60 minutes

Estimated OG: 1.054
Estimated FG: 1.014
Estimated abv: 5.3%
Bitterness: 60 IBU
Colour: 15 SRM


Maris Otter: 2.00 kg
Crystal Malt (~55 SRM) 0.5 kg

each Citra addition is pellet 12.7% AA -

10g @ 60 min
7g @ 45 min
7g @ 15 min
7g @ 5 min

7g dry hop

1 x American West Coast Ale Yeast (11g)

2 weeks in primary
2 weeks in secondary
prime and bottle

Advice & feedback much appreciated!

crystal malt % is too high. it will be sticky. use about 5%. Mash at 65C
keep the hop additions in boil to one bittering - 1st wort and one finishing @5 mins, with the IBU's split evenly between them. don't do 45 min and 15 min additions. Add 10g of hops at flame out and steep for 30 mins before cooling. Dry hop with 10g for 7 days after 7 days in primary. For the dry hopping make a sludge of the pellets with boiled water, cool a bit then pitch in to the primary. reseal.

You don't need a secondary if you have temperature controlled the primary properly. Just rack from the primary after 2 weeks into a keg or primed bottles and let it condition.

make starter 24 hours before, after rehydrating the yeast with sterile water @30C. The starter and wort should be within 6C of each other when you pitch (as soon as you can after wort is cool) and ideally 20C.

oxygenate your wort properly - shake the cooled wort for at least 5 minutes.

don't mess about with it while its fermenting- leave it under airlock.

maintain fermentation temp at 20C

sanitise everything that touches the cool wort.

bring a couple of bottles to a BCB meeting
cheers
steve

Thanks for the advice, you saved me having bucket of sticky gloop it would seem! I didn't realise the crystal malt had such a big impact on the consistency.

I've reduced the grain down to

2.25Kg Maris Otter
0.12Kg crystal malt
which gives me 5.2% abv

If you just clarify this for me, as i don't quite understand.

keep the hop additions in boil to one bittering - 1st wort and one finishing @5 mins, with the IBU's split evenly between them. don't do 45 min and 15 min additions. Add 10g of hops at flame out and steep for 30 mins before cooling.

So this would look something like (it's the addition between the 60 min and the 5 min i'm mainly unsure of) :

10g at 60 mins
10g at 30 mins
10g @ 5 mins

10g at flame out - steep for 30 mins

according to my BrewR should give me 53.4 IBUs and 9.7 SRM.

Cheers,

Iain

My personal view is that additions before about 15 mins from the end don't really add much. You've bittered at the start of the boil. Your flavour hops are best added 5 - 10 mins from the end and aroma added at flame out and dry hop. So an addition at 45 or 30 minutes in effect just adds a bit more bitterness because the majority of the flavour and aroma compounds will have boiled off.

please read this article

http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php

he goes a bit further than i would with this approach, but the principle is valid. Hop flavour and aroma come from late additions.

cheers
steve

I'd go for 3-4 grams of hops per litre of beer at the dry hop stage. 10g is nowhere near enough.

Steve's advice on the rest is spot on.

25% crystal malt won't affect the consistency of your beer, it'll still be liquid, it would just make it overpoweringly sweet and caramelly - thats what he means by sticky.

Right, I've cut the mid boil addition. now have only 1 at the start, 1 at 5 mins and 1 at flame out and i've boosted the dry hop amount to 3gl/litre.
(recipe attached)

I'll let you know how it tastes in 6 weeks or so!

Looks tip top.