Hello. First post woo! So I'm going to be doing a 3 gal all MO APA either today or tomorrow and I know I want to use a mix of Nelson, Zythos and possibly Amarillo, but I'm not sure what my hop schedule will look like. I've got at least 4 ounces of each hop, so I'll leave it up to you guys to figure out my schedule. Any advice is welcome.
I'm not a big fan of the blends, so I'd probably just stick with Amarillo and Nelson. A standard APA would be ~35 IBUs, with ~2 oz of hops spread over the last 15 minutes, including say .5 oz at flame-out. I enjoy really hoppy pale ales, so I might go 40 IBUs of Zythos for bittering, 1 oz each Nelson and Amarillo at flame-out. Give it 20-30 minutes, then add another ounce of each and chill quickly. Dry hop with an ounce of each after primary is complete. You could do the last ounce of each in the keg if that is how you are serving it.
OldSocks suggestion would work for a really nice brew. You could also get a lot of your IBUs from hopbursting...a smaller 60 minute bittering addition with larger additions at 15, 5, & 0. I've never used Zythos, but ive done Amarillo & Nelson as a combo, and it's great. I really like Nelson, so I'd probably do something like this: Amarillo @ 60 for a chunk of your IBUs (don't waste Nelson on bittering) Nelson & Amarillo 2:1 ratio @ 15 & 5 min to get the rest of your IBUs 1oz Nelson, .5oz Amarillo at flameout Dry-hop 2:1 Nelson : Amarillo (1oz : .5oz) Don't have AA%s or beersmith in front of me, so you'll need to fiddle with the exact numbers to get your IBUs dialed, but I've enjoyed using the 2:1 Nelson to Amarillo ratio. Note that not everybody likes Nelson as much as I do...some people find it a bit off-putting. You could also pick up an ounce of a clean, high AA hop like Magnum or Warrior if you have a LHBS close by to bitter and save those really nice aroma hops for exclusive use in late additions.
I had a similar conundrum with my apa and the hop schedule. I had amarillo and citra laying around. I wound up running to the brewstore and getting some magnum for bittering. Why waste the amarillo on bittering unless you want a single hopped brew? Save the nelson and amarillo for your late additions and dryhopping. I went with 3/4 ounce magnum at 60, an ounce of citra at 15 and another ounce at knockout. I'm planning on adding another ounce of citra in the secondary. Unless you don't have a store with a decent hop selection nearby, in that case I would use the amarillo for bittering and go siingle hopped all the way.
