Recipe – Citra Pale Ale

Though Citra is one of my favorite American hop I haven’t brewed a single hop beer with it before. It is certainly robust enough to carry a beer by itself as one of my favorite commercial pale ales, Oakham Ales Citra proves. So for my next hoppy beer, I decided to brew a Citra Pale using my usual Pale Ale recipe of pale malt, some pale crystal and a “headgrain”, this time with my usual choice of wheat malt as the torrified barley I used in Motueka Pale Ale didn’t really contribute anything different in my opinion.

Since the late hop “bursting” has worked well in my Micro IPA’s and Pale Ales I’m using the same hop schedule with this one as well. From now on I’m leaving the IBU’s that my software counts from the hop-stand addition out of the total IBU’s listed in the recipe, since it really doesn’t seem to add that much bitterness on home brewing scale and the figure just doesn’t seem right. I have to dry-hop this one in the secondary since I only had plugs available. Given where I live I count myself lucky to have any Citra to brew with…

Otherwise, nothing really out of the ordinary in this recipe. I’m a bit behind posting and this beer is already in the keg dry-hopping and should take the place of the Double-ish IPA on tap that I’m finally close to finishing. Big beers are nice occasionally but it takes some time to finish them. I think my next hoppy beer will be another session strength Micro-Ipa.

Recipe
—————-
Target Batch Size (Litres/Gallons): 17.00 / 4,49
Total Grain (Kg/Pounds): 3,1 / 6,83
Anticipated OG: 1.047
Anticipated SRM: 6,8
Anticipated IBU: 34,1
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Fermentables
—————–
87,1%  2,7kg / 6,39 lbs  – Pale Ale malt, Viking
6,5%   200g / 0,44 lbs  – Pale Crystal malt, Thomas Fawcett
6,5%   200g / 0,44 lbs  – Pale Wheat Malt, Weyermann

Hops
——–
30,0g / 1,05 oz. Citra (Plug, 12%  AA) @ 15 min for 23,8  IBU
30,0g / 1,05 oz. Citra (Plug, 12%  AA)  @ 5 min for 10,3 IBU
70,0g / 2,46 oz. Citra (Plug, 12%  AA)  30 minute hop-stand
70,0g / 2,46 oz. Citra (Plug, 12%  AA)  Dry hop for 5 days

Extras
———-
1 Teaspoon of Irish Moss @ 10 Min.
½ Teaspoon of yeast nutrient @ 10 Min.
6g / 0,21 oz Gypsum in mash
2g / 0,07 oz Calcium Chloride in mash

Yeast
———

Mangrove Jack’s M79 Burton Union, 1 packet rehydrated

Mash
———————–
23,66 Litre BIAB @ 66 Celsius for 60 mins (6,25Gal/151F)

21/9/14 Hit the target gravity spot on. Collected about a 1½ litres less wort than usually, the plugs absorb a lot of wort. Shaken for two minutes and added the rehydrated yeast.  Left to ferment at 19C.

22/9/14 Some trub has risen to the surface but no other signs of fermentation. Previously the yeast took of  sooner but the last two have shown longer lag times.

23/9/14 Healthy fermentation visible and the freezer smells absolutely divine.

1/1/14 Yeast has flocculated well and the beer is very clear. Ragged to a flushed keg with the dry-hop contained in a nylon stocking.

8/1/14 Lifted to kegerator to carbonate under pressure. FG = 1.012, ABV% 4,6. Sample smells of lychee and peach.

19/11/14 Tasting here. After carbonating the tropical aromas were more of the papaya – mango variety. Nice beer.