Fix my 'a little too big' APA

Chinook and Columbus are good choices for piney. Simcoe will help too. I like the Citra in there to help toss the citrus flavors in there too.

 

Then you want Simcoe . . . try it at 10/0/DH . . . Mmmm. (I found Chinook to be a little mild)

 

For APA and IPAs I usually go with lower crystal malt. 40L or 60L (in that order). So 1/2# of either with 1/2# of carapils or dextrin. This number will go up a tad if you do an IPA. I always take out a pound of base malt and add a pound of Munich for either style. Instead of mashing high, I make sure the malt bill has more crystal in it. I don't think I've tried mashing over 152 on either style.

So an APA recipe for me would look like this:
8# MO British malt
1# Munich malt
1/2-3/4# crystal 40L
1/2# carapils

Mash @ ~151F

Hops @ 60
@ 10
@ 5
@ Flame out

You don't need more than 3 or 4 ingredients to make a great APA

Hop to ~45IBU, mostly late in the boil, like you have it. If you have to divide your hops to add them later, I'd do that instead of so much @ the 10 mark. Personal preference.

You'll want to dry hop with about 2 oz of something. If you have any more citra and chinook, an oz of both should do just fine for 7-10 days.

Chinook's a good choice!

 

used the white labs cali ale yeast with my west coast ipa. wonderful! over the top taste and aroma! your recipe looks sweet!! use some simcoe at 15 and flameout. centennial would give you a nice grapefruit bomb. haha. try out some Ahtanum as well. or in lieu of the chinook. also add some munich. maybe a couple lbs

 

Other than maybe switching that crystal to a lighter grade (I would pick 10 or 20, not 80), it looks good. Also I agree with the "simcoe for piney" assessment. I do not recall getting any grapefruit bombs from chinook tho. So if you haven't already picked up the recipe, you might want to consider those ideas.

Oh, and dry hopping and munich* are also good ideas!! (just read the rest of the replies, lol)

*munich is one of my favorites, you can't have too much munich

 

Looks fine, although I would mash lower (150-152) if I wanted dry. And, if it was my beer, I would go with with C60 or C40 rather than C80. And add a little munich and/or wheat to give a little more character. But what you have will work fine, I'd say.

 

Chinook throws flavors like pine trees making love to pineapples in my pale ales. I really like it, and citra brings the mango and "dank". I love these two hops together.

 

Despite packing my citra-bomb chock full of way too much citra, I never really got "dank" out of it. I get lots of tropical fruits, some extra pineapple on top of that, and a smidge of "mowing the lawn," but no dank. Curious.

 

Is subbing out a lb of marris otter for a lb of munich really going to make an appreciable difference in this beer?

 

Im gonna focus on the malt in this beer, let others debate your hop choices. If you want it drier with a 'bit' of malt character I would cut out the crystal entirely and add ~0.5-1# of sugar to this beer. This will cut through the sweetness of the MO and dry the beer out a bit. It definitely will still have quite a bit of malt character but wont be quite as thick.


If you add a # of sugar I would keep the mash temp the same, but if you dont add the sugar I would drop it to 150F

 

To me it is. It's just a brewhouse rule.. Munich goes in everything. It is in the sky, in the sea, and in childrens' dreams.

 

That's cute, but nonsensical and silly to recommend unless you have a real reason for it.

 

I have serious doubts that anyone other than a Cicerone could pick out the difference between a lb of munich or marris otter in a heavily hopped beer.

 

With this in mind, I might suggest dropping the mash temp down to 150° but upping the crystal addition to 8-10%. The Maris will give plenty of malt character as well.

Even a Cicerone probably won't tell the difference, a slight maybe if it is side by side.
I use small amounts (10-20%) of munich in many beers, but with an American 2-row base. I am also not sure if it makes sense in a MO based beer.

 

Totally agree here. Adding Munich to add something to 2-row makes more sense to me than adding Munich to Marris Otter, which I believe have similar characteristics anyway. The reason I said a Cicerone probablycouldn't tell the difference is I'm sure I'd have 3-4 from around here telling me I'm wrong.

I know for certain my palate is not fine-tuned enough to differentiate between the two malts in a beer where you have a few other taste factors involved.

It's because of this that I prefer to make relatively simple IPAs in terms of neutral malts and yeast, not that anyone asked.

 

Is this where I tag you guys in so that you can make a comment about helping the OP? `Cause you haven't. Wrap up making fun of my recipe (which wouldn't change) and throw some advice on the table.

 

Currently, I have an IPA/PA tweener made with Maris and an English crystal. It's very good, although I have to say that I might appreciate the hops more if I a US 2-row. It seems boring, but I think it does free the hops up.

 

There is nothing wrong with your recipe. Brew it!