AG#2 - Citra IPA

[timw]

My first AG brew wasn't a resounding success.... not really sure what happened, but it finished up with a pretty unpalatable 'off' flavour and despite the very best efforts of me and my hard-drinking friends at a recent Tarantino-themed fancy-dress party, I can safely say that tastiest thing there was the girl in the skin-tight Kill Bill outfit, and unforunately not my brew....

I don't know if 'over-extraction' through my failing to measure the actual runnings during sparging (I was busily reading the hydrometer by popping it into the boiler of collected wort - so perhaps I went well under 0.990?) - can that cause off flavours??

Alternatively, the yeast wasnt great - and i didn't have a fermentation cabinet at the time.

Bugger it - i'm not going to worry about it - I was able to test my kit and get a feel for it, and so on to number 2!


Having enjoyed Marks & Spencer's Citra IPA, which I belive is an Oakham Ales recipe for them I searched around for a recipe ,which I found here:

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/view ... =5&t=59511

In the end, I went for:

Maris Otter - 4550g
Munich Malt - 225g
Wheat Malt - 50g

Hops
Citra(14.8%) 15g, 60 mins
Citra(14.8%) 10g, 20 mins
Citra(14.8%) 10g, 15 mins
Citra(14.8%) 15g, 10 mins
Citra(14.8%) 50g, Flameout
This used up a full 100g pacakge nicely, and I'll open another for:
Citra(14.8%) 40g, Dry Hop

The brewday went well:

Water treatment - 1 crushed Campden tablet and 2 teaspoons of Gypsum into my boiler - Wilko fermenter bucket with two kettle elements. It feels a bit flimsy but this its second outing and so far no leaks. It doesnt have a great capacity - probably 25 litres safely, but does come up to strike temp 80degrees in about 20mins with both elements.

Last time I found that I was way under my desired 68degree mash temp, despite preheating my mashtun, so I heated the liquor to 80 before adding grain. Doughed it in at 2.5lts to the KG of grain, so 12litres of water. It was still under temperature but not by much - probably because I was in the cold utility room - so I had to add a kettle of boiling water and the doughed in.

Mash was 1hr and was probably closer to 70degrees at the start as it was down to 68 by the end.

This time roudn I'd remembered to refill my boiler as last time I hadnt and inevitably ran out of liquor to sparge with. This time, no such problem... I just lay tin foil over the grain, punch loads of holes, then gradually jug 85degree liquor over, keeping 1inch deep over top of grain, with a very slow rate of drain.

Biggest difference this time was remembering to take the hydrometer readings from the wort coming out of the tap, not the total collected. As such, I collected around 27 litres i would guess - with the last 2 in a jug as by this poiint the boiler is over-full.

On my last brew, i had filled the boiler (25lts) and then gone on to collect probably another 8litres in jugs before I realised that I was taking the hydrometer reading in the wrong place! I dont know the impact - does overextraction make it taste funny?

ANyway,,, on with the boil. This time I had deliberately not filled the boiler too much, and so didnt end up paddling! result! My mother will be pleased! I jugged back in as I went the spare 2litres of wort I'd collected.

The recipe uses lots of small additions throughout - man alive! Citra smells fantastic! Powerful, lemony scent. Really delicious.

Usual dessertspoon of Irish moss (dry) added 15mins before the end, along with the chiller to sanitise it.

This was the first time I used hops at 'flameout' - I just bowled in 50g once the boil was finished and they remained in there for the 20mins or so of chilling.

Here's the latest cock up - I forgot to fit the hop strainer! Dang it! So, I put it in my sanitiser bucket for 10mins, then poured boiling water over it while also sanitised my entire arm.... then popped it in. Not sure if that is a good idea or whether a safer option is to syphon the lot off the top of the hops?

I also realised that as i do not have a lot of dead-space in the bottom of the boiler, and because the slits in my copper-tube strainer are quite tight, with a recipe like this where there is a deep bed of hops it is very quick to block up. i had to use my beer paddle to keep dipping in and scraping the hops off.

I was waaaay off collecting much more than 15litres with loads of wort still in the boiler, so I am afraid i tilted, and moved some of the hop mass to the back to allow me to collect more. I guess that as a result i probably collected quite a lot of **** that I should have left beind?

In the end I got around 20litres with a final temperature corrected gravity of 1.050 - i forgot to take a reading at the mashing stage annoyingly....

What was very noticiable was the huge amount of fine froth generated just through the collection - I think this must have been the Wheat inclusion?

I'd rehydrated some Nottingham ale yeast, which was looking livelier than the non-brand stuff i'd salvaged from a disused Wilko beer kit for my first brew.

Sealed the Wilko fermenter lid on (i havent bothered with airlocking - the last time it seemed to work well enough - although is it a better idea?) and in it went to my STC1000 controlled fridge. This is back at my parents, so i cannot check in on it regularly but I've been assured that the temp is sat at 18.2degrees at present, so that's all working.

I intend on simply leaving it there in primary until i go back at Christmas and I plan to try bottling this time.

So that;s that. It smells good, the small amount i tasted was very bitter but perhaps not as hoppy as I'd expected. I guess the 50g dry hop will help there?

When is the best time to add the dry hops - I was thinking give it a fortnight, then sterilise the muslin bag, tie them in and just submerge that, leaving for another fortnight or so before bottling? How long should I leave them in for - is 2 weeks too long?

So, all in all the learning curve is improving.... and good fun. I just hope I get something drinkable this time!!

 

[RobWalker]

looks bang on! i think you may need a little more wheat malt to get the head retention effect, but admittedly i've never noticed much of a difference with 250g anyway :lol:

high ibu beers taste really shitty at the wort stage so don't worry.

I usually dry hop for a week immediately after fermentation. the important thing is to get the bag fully submerged, and it takes a lot of weight!

 

[johnnyboy1965]

You are relly, really over complicating your recipe. Keep it simple. Your grain bill is fine apart from the wheat malt, 50g just aint going to do anything

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Im more concerned about the "unpalletaable (sp / off flavours???...typing too quickly..

 

[Duxuk]

I think your recipe looks great :thumb: I might have put the 15 min addition in with the 20 min, ie. 20g at 20 mins, but apart from that it looks spot on. Did you use and irish moss or other finings? I just find it makes it clear, regardless of how much **** you end up putting in the FV. There are ways to fine after ferentation if you want to, of course. I was using Citra in EVERY beer a while ago, but I'm not an adict! I've weaned myself off 'til the New Year, at least. Oakhams Citra was my inspiration, as well. I can well imagine your brew knocking it into a cocked hat, I know my efforts have, in my opinion, which is what matters most to me. After all, it's me that's got to drink the bloody stuff :drink: That wasn't too painfull. I just had a slurp of AC Ace, with a blend of Amarillo and Citra..........Buuurrrrrp!

 

[timw]

Too complicated? I did wonder what the point of 50gms of wheat is, and similarly, hop additions within 5 minutes of each other. Seems a little pointless.

Whether the recipe had been developed from the chap in that other post using some software not sure

Going to be interesting to see how it works out.

 

[Vinnyc]

The hop editions seems to differ from person to person. The guys from dogfish head in the states do a 60m IPA where they do hop editions every 5 minutes for the boil.

 

[RobWalker]

and yet, some beers are just bittered and then dry hopped, no 30/20/15/10/5 mins at all. I'd be tempted just to combine the 20 and 15 for not crapping around's sake.

 

[Vinnyc]

Rob that was the point I was making different brewers different ideas when it comes to hopping. I suppose that's what makes craft beer so much fun to try

 

[Pinchy]

I say just go for it :). Looks good to me :thumb: I need to get myself some Citra hops!

 

[timw]

Well it's apparently sittin pretty in the new temperature controlled fridge, at just over 18degrees. Initially, i was worried as it seemed that when testing the heat and cool switchig, when the small tube heater was switched on (at 17degrees) it very rapidly raised the temperature to 18, but that heating continued for a while after power was switched off by the controller, heating up to around 23 despite the fridge beig switched on to cooling.

But it seems that this has stabilised now the mass of the beer is in and the temp is hopefully more constant.short of living in the boiler room and monitoring like a hawk, I can do no more.

 

[joe1002]

Well it's apparently sittin pretty in the new temperature controlled fridge, at just over 18degrees. Initially, i was worried as it seemed that when testing the heat and cool switchig, when the small tube heater was switched on (at 17degrees) it very rapidly raised the temperature to 18, but that heating continued for a while after power was switched off by the controller, heating up to around 23 despite the fridge beig switched on to cooling.

But it seems that this has stabilised now the mass of the beer is in and the temp is hopefully more constant.short of living in the boiler room and monitoring like a hawk, I can do no more.

Where is your probe? You really need to monitor the beer temp not the ambient temp in your fridge. A lot of us stick it to the side fo the fv and cover it with some bubble wrap :thumb:

 

[timw]

So I brewed this Citra IPA clone 3 weeks ago on 2 December. It's been fermenting at 18degrees since then and 4 days ago I added 50gms of Citra dry hops. I didn't have nylon or muslin bag so just added them and dunked them under with my paddle.

Today I bottled.....Spent hours... literally hours.... scrubbing and sanitising a load of glass bottles of my dad's, which had been outside and were covered in leaves and ****. Not a pleasant job, but at least it's done now and I can keep them clean once used. I just hope all that time was well spent and I don't get any infection problems.

Coming now to the beer - the dryhops had stayed on the surface and some of the cones were not really saturated, so maybe not done as much as they could have if submerged. I've now got a small nylon mesh bag which Ill weight down for the next time. Anyhoo - regardless, it smelt great.... :P

I primed using 130gms bog-standard granulated sugar into 400mls of water, boiled for around 5mins, which I then added to the bottom of a clean FV bucket, then I syphoned the beer onto that, allowing the swirling nature of the flow to mix it. Had a right game with the syphon - the dry hops bunged it up. Had to improvise with a bit of sanitised muslin.

My syphon setup was a bit of a faff, even with the bottling wand - too much tube waving around etc. I need to get a tap for the bucket and then I'll use a small length of tube to fit the wand to the bucket. So rather than having to take the wand to the bottle, I can do the opposite, sat on a chair!

Anyway - 34 pints was the final yield, Final Gravity read around 1.010 ish... OG was around 1.050 so this is a final alcohol by volume of 5% ish I guess. Probably a bit under, but that's around what I was aiming for. :party:

nice and clear, good straw colour. Tasted really good even at this stage - and that was me sampling the very trub-heavy last-dregs from the fermenter.

Managed to stack all 34 in the temp fridge, which I've now changed to 22degrees to help with the initial stages of priming conditioning.

Few questions:

*What's the right temperature for the bottling stage - is 22degrees about right?
*How long to leave at that sort of temperature?
*Am I right that after a few days at 22degrees, I can crash-cool? In other words, take out of the fridge and put in the garage, when the temperature is probably right down to 8degrees ?
*How long do you suggest - I was planning on 3 weeks as the minimum.

:

 

[caerleon]

Allowing air to enter after your primary ferment will not help - personally i have always added priming to the bottle direct - fiddly yes, but less risks of air in your beer.

I will be trying to get some Citra brew's on as I have only recently tried this hop in a IPA - fantastic brew! Well i hope that this batch goes better for you, its sometimes all hit and miss and we have all had disasters with brews as one of the other members had remarked previously - Alot of Slugs will die happy! :lol:

 

[mattyhall22]

Think most people aim for 10 to 14 days in the warm then move it to a cooler location. :

 

[Duxuk]

With 130g of priming sugar it might be a bit lively. 80g for an ale would be more usual. Still, you did a lot right and will undoubtedly end up with something fantastic : My suggestion for next time would be, as a previous poster suggested, keep it simple, but also worry less. Chances are it'll turn out OK anyway :thumb:

 

[timw]

I doubt that the extra step of racking from the fermenter to a bottlin barrel onto the suar syrup, then syphoning into bottles adds much risk of oxidisation. Seems that the majority of people batch prime using a bottling bucket - benefit is leaving behind dry hop debris while achieving a consistent prime without the fiddle of teaspoons. Some add an extra step on that by racking off primary to secondary.

I took the carbonation from a brewers friend calculator as per a American pale ale style, but did wonder if it's too much.... I can only wait and see.

Next time I'll be simplifying the recipe by hopping it less frequent intervals, although it didn't matter too much as I was hovering to prevent boil overs....!

Ithanks for the advice - I'll leave it for a fortnight then and then into the cold and get the next brew into the tempfridge.

 

[scott-ayling]

brewed today using your hop schedule with Citra hops and going to dry hop with 50g Citra too. my grains were 4kg MO , 150g wheat and 215g crystal malt , its sitting in fermentation fridge at 18 deg with Mangrove Jack M44 west coast yeast

 

[timw]

Good luck with your brew Scott - I've a few weeks headstart so will post an update in a fortnight or so when I get to test mine. That's if the over-primeing hasn't blown the lids off them all by then.....

 

[scott-ayling]

you will be fine with 130g the style of beer will suit a higher level of carbonation in my opinion.