Citra SMASH with Conan

Your beer will turn out well either way, but my personal preference would be to use a neutral bittering hop at 60 min. to get the IBUs you desire. Move the extra half ounce of Citra to the dryhop. I would move the 15 min. addition to 5 min. Don't forget to adjust the IBUs accordingly.

Cheers and Good Luck!

 

I just did one with mosaic, it'll be good. Though I doubled the hops additions plus add one at 5 min.

 

But then it wouldn't be a SMaSH

 

I'd suggest moving your 15 min addition to 5 minutes.

Instead of 1.5 at flameout, try .75-1 oz at flameout then add another .75-1 oz when you get under 200 degrees and hold it around 190 for a 30+ minute hop stand before chilling the rest of the way. Adds some time and effort to your brewday, but is well worth it.

 

This SMaSH is still one of my favorite beers that I've brewed. I think I mashed a little bit higher, don't like my pale ales finishing too dry.

 

To each his own, SMASH is overrated. Id rather have a clean bittering hop and still SMASH the MO and Citra. Using(wasting) the Citra @ 60 or FWH or Mash Hop just to claim your beer is a SMASH is silly IMHO.

Like I said before either will make a fine beer, I would just prefer the extra Citra in the dryhop. (where is will likely improve the beers aroma).

Cheers

 

Citra works perfectly fine as a bittering hop, just don't go too overboard unless you like that catty dank aroma/flavor, it can get a bit of funky feet/cheese thing going on too.

 

Never mind the haters. Citra gives you about 14% AA and makes a fine bittering hop. I made an IPA with only 3 oz Citra in the boil, plus another 2 for dry hopping.

As far as I'm concerned you can do a lot worse than trying a SMASH with Citra.

 

In my citra bomb from hell smash I admit I did use a pinch of belma at 60. However, it's only half an ounce of hops, we're probably talking about fidy cents worth of citra (at least at the price I paid for a pound). Yes it's not the easiest hop to find, but lately it's not been hard tho. MY LHBS has citra in stock and I got fresh citra two weeks ago (1/3 of my fresh hop pale ale was citra, the other parts cascade and simcoe, all fresh hops, all 8 oz packages).

Note that on my citra bomb from hell, I also purposely jacked up the hops big time, intentionally going for the "over the top" mark, just to see what the hullabaloo is about the citra bombs. Frankly, it was strongly flavored from the citra, but not in any way that half a dozen other IPAs and IIPAs I've had this year are strongly flavored from hops. Some of my European acquaintances call them "over-hopped abominations." They are obviously too used to milds and bitters, because their delicate pallets can't handle the massive hops loads of the USA! USA! USA!

Serously tho... my citra smash was in no way over the top at all, it was just hoppy, and tasty!

• 0.5 oz Belma at 60
• 1 oz citra at 15
• 1 oz citra at 10
• 1 oz citra at 5
• 1.5 oz citra at FO, then cool to 170F and let stand 15 minutes
• 1.5 oz citra after 15 minute hop stand, while wort is still hot, let stand another 15 minutes
• 2 oz citra DH

so this is a lot more citra than you're using, and the beer came out fine. It did not need a "cooling off" period in the bottle to let the citra tone down, in fact it's about four weeks since I bottled and there are only a few bottles left. At least six non-homebrewers said they enjoyed it (and it's rare six people even try one of my batches).

I'm not saying you SHOULD use more citra, in fact a more subtle approach may be the better way to go. Less is moar, right? It's just that there's probably a bit of over-hyping about citra, both advocating their use in beers, and lamenting over how strong they are, and how careful you have to be with them. They're just a hop, albeit on the top of the scale in flavor contribution, and near the top on AA. I have found simcoe is similar in that it doesn't take a lot to get a lot of flavor. 4 oz of simcoe and my simcoe/MO smash tasted like a pine forest IPA.

Good luck!!

 

If you have it, you must do it!!! My Citra SMASH used American Ale II, fermented at 62°. I decided on a clean, citrusy contribution from the yeast.

My experience drinking beers that use or reputedly use Conan yeast is that it isn't so clean. With the exception of Heady Topper, I find beers using that yeast to be noticeably hot (Rogue, I'm looking at you...).

 

Rogue's barleywine, even after a year of aging, tastes like it was just fermented and maybe even a bit unfinished. I am not an expert on off-flavors, but it could be some higher alcohols/esters that simply don't clean up, even with time. In this case hot = almost pepper-like "heat", and harsh, not at all smooth.

 

By contrast, a cool fermented Scottish or Irish ale yeast from Wyeast finishes very clean on high-gravity ales I have made. And aging only improves them. Imagine a 12% wee heavy that pours dark, yet crystal clear and drinks sweet and smooth...

 

I thought Rogue's yeast was Pac-Man.

 

I have done six batches with Conan and folks say they liked the Citra Pale Ale best of all of them.

 

Ironically, their chipotle ale is quite smooth, without much in the way of heat (IMO). It's my favorite from rogue. Price is the main reason I don't try more of their beers. Your description doesn't leave me rushing out to try and find the barleywine tho.

 

I was excited about my citra bomb from hell ale, but was also slightly apprehensive, because I thought there was a chance it would be undrinkable and would need time to "cool off" in the bottle before it was good. That's the impression I got from reading posts of people who claim they over-did it with the citra. That's also part of the reason why I chose to purposely over-do it with the citra, so I could say "been there, done that." But the fears didn't pan out, and it was so tasty right out of the bottle that I wonder now what all the hullabaloo was about.

I also found the combination of munich/citra for a smash was a good combination. However, I like munich so much that I might just find that everything goes with munich.

Now I'm getting anxsious to try my GP/fresh hops smash. Guess I need to bottle it first tho. That will get done in the next couple days.