Using ONLY Citra hops

Taste like cat pee

 

Don't brew a SMaSH beer. Simple is stupid. Complicated is better. Commence with the anecdotes about everybody's great SMaSH beers. Trust me, they all could have been better.

If I had a lot of Citra to spare, I would use them about the same way in APA, IPA, and IIPA but just in increasing quantities, perhaps not totally linearly - for example:

Assuming 5 gallons...
APA - Bitter with something else, .5oz (10-15 min), 1-2oz (0 min), 1-2oz (Dry)
IPA - Bitter with something else, 2oz (10-15min), 2oz itra (0 min), 3oz (Dry)
IIPA - Bitter with something else, .5oz (30 min), 2.5oz (10-15 min), 3oz (0 min), 4-6oz (Dry, in two stages)

 

Citra is freaking awesome. It goes great with centennial and anything piney/dank(chinook, Columbus, Simcoe). Using Citra outside of 10 or 15 minutes is quite a waste in my opinion because its tropical fruit aroma is magical and enchanting. Not cat pee using it from 15 minutes and in from my experience.

Edit. Citra will be great by itself but don't bitter with it. It's a waste.

 

Below is something I posted previously which may be helpful:

I brewed an all Citra hopped IPA last spring and it turned out very good. I used Citra for bittering and I didn’t experience any strange flavors from the bittering addition. If you want to utilize another hop for bittering (Warrior), that would be OK too. What you are really looking for is the flavor/aroma from the Citra hops.

Now, let’s discuss Citra hops. I have made a lot of hoppy beers but my experience with Citra hops is that they are EXTREMELY potent. I would not recommend using more than 4 ounces for your late hop additions.

My late hopping schedule for my Citra IPA was:

· 1 ounce with 15 minutes left in the boil

· 1 ounce at end of boil

· 1.5 ounces dry hop (14 days of contact time)

The resulting IPA had a very POWERFUL hop aroma/flavor. I had the let this beer ‘age’ for several more weeks in the bottle (to let the hop aroma ‘mellow out’ a bit) before I could really enjoy drinking this beer. This beer did eventually mature into a very tasty IPA.

Some people perceive Citra hops as proving a cat pee aroma/flavor. I personally do not perceive cat pee; Citra has more of a tropical fruit aroma/flavor for me.

I gave my IPA to people who did perceive cat pee but they still really loved the beer. One of them even tried to buy a case from me.

Good luck with your Citra IPA.

Cheers!

 

I have some citra (100g) for a brew next week, never used it before so I'll be keeping an eye on the suggestions

It'll be a 3.8% blonde beer for me though

92% pale ale malt
8% wheat

Hopping....no idea yet. I'm leaning towards just from 15mins on though I don't think I have enough, so will probably have to bitter at 60mins with something else.


although it seems it is rather potent so maybe will be fine for a lighter beer

 

I particularly love obstinate statements. "Simple is stupid. Complicated is better." I will refrain from the anecdotes. I will just state that the "simple" and "complicated" beers are both complicated by there very nature. There are hundreds of physical and chemical interactions that go into making beer, some of which we have very little if any control over, regardless of the complexity of the recipe.

So I would say beer, even a "simple" recipe is already complicated. The recipe complexity is a small portion of it. Also, I would say, "Commence with the anecdotes about everybody's great SMaSH beers." kind of disproves the point. If you already know many people will have "great smash beer" anecdotes... And basically by saying "Trust me, they all could have been better.", if that is your reasoning to not do something, you basically have to give up doing everything, including "complicating beers". What can't be done better?

 

My APA that did very well in competition was a 1.060 gravity brew with a little extra crystal than normal, bittered with .75oz magnum @60, .5oz citra at 10, 0.5oz at flameout w/20 minute hop stand, 1 oz dryhopped for 7 days. I brewed it in early November last year, and it won the gold in the American pale category on feb 10th of this year, judges noted that it was exceptionally hoppy at that time, one noted a musky flavor (cat pee). My experiences with citra mirror what jack said. The first bottle I popped at one week in the bottle was like getting punched in the mouth with an old sock full of mango. after sitting for another two months in the bottles at about 60f it was perfect.

EDIT: the point of a SMaSH is to be able to enjoy the nuances of said M and H without mucking up the waters. How else will you know what each component brings to the table in a much more complicated beer?

 

I think you're over complicating this.

 

Complicated is better.

 

I knew you'd come around.

 

But only for arguments and relationships, I still prefer to not be automatically predetermined not to agree with other home brewers evidence.

 

The evidence is what is damning in my experience.

 

zombie dust clone if you have enough Citra

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/three-floyds-zombie-dust-clone-303478/

 

Last year I brewed a pale ale bittered with an oz. of Magnum and then about 3 oz. Citra on a standard pale ale schedule. It was probably at ounce at each of 15, 10 and 5 or something similar. The grain bill was 10# of 2 row. I may have used one of the 'fancy' English grains offered by MW; possibly halcyon or optic or something like that.

It was a very tasty beer and recommend it highly.

 

I brew a simple clone, which is a plain ol citra pale.

I used something like 4-5 ounces total in the 5g batch, and add it all late to get the 40 something IBU's for the beer.

I use it a fair bit in my IPA's/Pales and DIPA's. I normally keep a DIPA on tap, and my IPA's are all usually big enough to be some peoples IPA's at around 1.060-1.065 OG's.

I like to use it all inside of 15 minutes though. If it's mixed with others, I usually keep it inside 10, or 7 minutes though, if it's not the focus.

for a simple pale, I'd bitter with something if I wanted to slam it late with just Citra.

Use roughly 2 ounces in the boil, and then atleast another 2 at flame out and do a 30-45min tepid hop stand. Save another 1-1.5 ounce to dry hop with.

If you want to pair it and keep it simple, it's amazing with Amarillo, Simcoe, Chinook and Columbus as my favorites.

 

I prefer to use it for dryhopping - plenty of other high alph hops are cheaper and easier to get to be wasting it on bitterness imo. I don't get cat pee, tropical fruits/lemony/melon mostly with an herbal background similar to cat tails that grow in swampy areas. When I use it I like to use something like cascade or centennial towards the end of the boil (10mins) to give it some of that mid range depth that's somewhere between bitterness and flavor.

 

This guy turned out really well:
http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/psingle-hop-series-citra