Thinking about brewing an APA tomorrow using the malt bill from the Zombie Dust clone but using a combo of cascade, citra & amarillo. I've brewed will all of them separately, but never together. Will they play together nicely? I haven't decided on a hop schedule yet but was thinking a 60/15/10/5/1 + dry hop combo of sorts. What hop would do well in the 60/15 range? Attempting to brew a solid "Florida" pale for my gym's anniversary in 6 weeks so the pressure is on.
One of my favorite hoppy beers is bear republic cafe racer 15 which uses those three hops plus chinook, so I'd say they'll play together just fine. Some people don't care for citra as a bittering hop, so you may want to avoid adding until late if you're looking for a crowd pleaser
I just brewed an IIPA with those and a little Centennial. I tasted it for the first time today and I'm not sure I really like what I'm tasting. I know it will take a few more weeks for the beer to get where I want it, but there's something just a little off with mine. It's not hop juicy like it should be at this point.
I'm starting to wonder if switching out the cascade for simcoe or subbing warrior for bittering may be a better bet? Really looking for a strong citrus/tropical fruit presence on this one.
There would be nothing wrong with that at all. It's a matter of preference and both would make desirable beers.
Absolutely. Kern River makes a Citra IPA (rated 100) that is heavy citra & amarillo (search Google for recipe) which I have cloned with good results. Of course cascade is a universal playmate. I would personally bitter with something like Magnum, but both citra and amarillo have low co-humolone composition which should deliver smoothness. I've heard others report citra is not ideal for bittering, but SN uses it to bitter Torpedo (93/99). I wouldn't be afraid to use it.
I brewed a solely Citra hopped IPA a few years ago and I was happy with the resulting beer. Bittering with Citra resulted in a tasty beer to my palate. Below are the ingredients for Sierra Nevada Torpedo from the SN website: “Ingredients Yeast Ale yeast Bittering Hops Magnum Finishing Hops Magnum, Crystal, Citra Malts Two-row Pale, Caramel” As you can see, Sierra Nevada utilizes Magnum as the bittering hop in Torpedo. Cheers!
In my opinion, you should ditch the centennial if you want juicy. I love centennial and use it often, but it has too much bite if you are going for juicy. OP: Yes those hops will play together very nicely. If you took cascade out and subbed simcoe (a great 60/15 minute hop btw) in, I'd say best friends in the sandbox
Where did this urban myth begin that Torpedo has Citra in it? In no way does it have any Citra like qualities to it, in my mind. And I used to drink quite a lot of it.
Citra in Torpedo is no myth. See my post above where I copied the ingredients of Torpedo from the SN website. To the extent that the Citra qualities in Torpedo are subtle, I agree with that. Cheers!
Those hops all roll together fine. Cascade is a friend of everyone, and Amarillo and Citra work perfectly together. Simcoe is a good one to work with all of those. I'm going to do a Simcoe, Amarillo and Cascade pale next week since I didn't get to it this weekend.
I brewed an all citra ipa that turned out great, and was a huge hit with my friends and family. Pretty much the same hopping schedule you're looking at doing op. I just did a fwh to smooth out the bitterness. I don't know where people are getting the info that citra isn't good for bittering, the citra pellets I used were 14.1% aau's and did a fine job with a fwh of .75 oz in a 1.061 og brew.
“I don't know where people are getting the info that citra isn't good for bittering,..” I am a loss at understanding that as well. My all Citra hopped IPA turned out well too. I know that some people perceive Citra flavor/aroma as being cat pee but why would you associate a flavor/aroma as being from bittering hops? Cheers!
You can still get some flavor/aroma from a bittering addition in a beer that isn't too busy. It leave a different taste bitterness. Akin to I guess why some people think FWH adds smoother bittering and aroma... I think it has more to do with people thinking Citra shouldn't be "wasted" on a bittering charge.
I regret posting this as I did. The beer was only about 3 weeks old and just hit the keg. It's already rounding out nicely. I'm SO glad that the Citra I used was only late hop additions. It's playing nice against the Cascade and I'm not tasting any onions yet. I'll have this keg gone by June and won't have to worry about the hops fading. It's still not juicy, per se, but I really like the malt bill I found for this recipe.
Yeah that's a nice combo. I'd use a cleaner bittering hop at 60 (magnum or warrior). You should play around with some blend of the finishing hops though, you ask 10 people about that and you'll get 10 different answers. Maybe just an even blend of the 3 throughout would be a nice marriage or doing a cascade/amarillo blend up until an all citra at KO? 1oz each at dry hop?
