Citra IPA

I have a weakness for the IPAs found here in the north west. The almost overwhelming abundance of hop flavor and aroma, backed up by full bodied malty goodness just can't be beat. I wanted to make something similar to that, but with a slightly toned down version. The 100IBU beers are great, but I wanted something that wouldn't wreck the palate after drinking (this is a fairly novel concept here in the NW). The new Citra hops are now readily available, so decided to use them in this beer. This beer was brewed on 1-16-2010, racked into the secondary on the 23rd, dry hoped on the 30th and kegged on 2-6.

Batch size 5 gallons
Boil size 6.8 gallons
Boil time 60 minutes
Grain weight 12.5 pounds
Efficiency 65%
Original gravity 1.059
Final gravity 1.015
Alcohol (by volume) 5.8%
Bitterness (IBU) 68
Color (SRM) 9.8°L

2 Row Base 1.5°L 11 pounds 88%
Crystal 60L 60°L 1 pound 8%
Carafoam 1.5°L 0.5 pounds 4%

Nugget Hops 1 oz FWH (home grown)
Nugget Hops .5 oz @60 (home grown)
Citra Hops 1 oz 20 min 13.5% AA
Ahtanum hops .5 oz 5 min 6% AA
Cascade hops .5 oz 5 min (home grown)
Citra hops .5 oz Dry for 7 days
Nugget hops .5 oz Dry for 7 days

Yeast wyeast 1764 (pacman)

I originally planned on dry hoping this beer with 1 oz of citra hops. I tasted the beer when racking it into the secondary and the grapefruit flavors were almost overwhelming. I decided to cut the citra in half and add a half oz of some home grown nuggets that a friend had given me. I think this was the right call. If I would have used a different flavoring hop I don't think the citra would have been overwhelming, but since I did, the nuggets in the dry hop turned out really nice.

The beer came out with a strong grapefruit and floral hop aroma, citrus flavor and a nice strong bitterness to back it up. The after taste lingers, but will not kill the palate. This makes it enjoyable to drink with any meal, or even to follow it up with a different kind of beer. The body of the beer is full, but again not overwhelming. Like I said before I have a weakness for the big bodied beers, so I might step on the grains a little more next time to bring the body and alcohol content up.

On a side note, I've only been getting about 65% efficiencies with my system. During this batch I had found that my thermometer was off by about 8 degrees in the 150 degree range. This was a turkey frier style thermometer that was marketed for home brewing. I changed back over to the glass thermometer on my next batch. I've always just gone off of a mash time as well instead of look for the conversion to complete. On my next batch, I'm going to be getting some iodophor to check for complete conversions.

As always, feel free to use the recipe, or modify for your own tastes. Happy home brewing!

Oatmeal Stout

I have been looking at stout recipes for quite a while and decided to try my own. I had a few issues that I'll go through at the end, but all in all this beer turned out really good. I would like to make some minor tweaks to it next time, but will definitely be brewing this again. The following recipe was brewed 10-31-2009.

Batch size: 6.5 Gallons

Boil size: 8.6 Gallons

Boil time: 60 minutes

Efficiency: ~68%

OG 1.054

FG didn't measure... tasted OK, so kegged. ~1.015

Color (est) 37.0L

Grain bill

2 Row Base malt 11 pounds

Chocolate malt 1.5 pounds

Crystal 120L 1 pound

Flaked oats 1 pound

Roasted Barley .25 pounds

Hops

1 oz Columbus FWH (12.6%, whole leaf)

1 oz Columbus 60 min (12.6%, whole leaf)

1 oz Ahtanum 10 min (6%, whole leaf)

Yeast

Wyeast 1056

Fermented 8 days and kegged on 11-9-2009

Forced carbonated for 5 days and enjoying now!

The beer tastes great. It has a nice roasted and a slight hop scent. The head is thick and light brown as you can see from the pictures. The oats really bring out a thick and full mouth feel. It has a deep bitter chocolate taste and finishes with coffee fading into a hoppy bitterness.

I had some issues in the brewing process. I'm working on getting my efficincy up over 70%, so I really slowed down my sparge. I sparged with 5.5 gallons for 50 min and I think that it helped remove a lot of the sugars I was leaving behind in the past. The issue is that I left my brew calculator at 6.5 gallons when I wrote the recipe for 5.5 gallons. I was shooting for OG of 1.07, but the final result was good by my OG was low, which makes my efficiency look bad, and worst of all I had to toss about a gallon of wort.

Here are a couple things I may change next time I brew this beer.

1. I will have my calculator set correctly so my final volume is correct.
2. I would either add lactose to change to a milk stout, or add cocoa somewhere in the boil to bring out more of a chocolate flavor.
3. I definitely would move the final hop addition to 20 min to reduce the hop finish and may reduce the AAU's of the final addition. It's good, but I don't think it fits the style very well.

I hope you enjoy the recipe. Feel free to brew this and comment with any thoughts, suggestions, or questions.

Welcome!

I've been a home brewer for several years now. I have a simple 3 stage, gravity feed, 5 gallon system. I've had several beers that came out really nice, but i seem to lose my recipes. I thought this would be a good place to post them for me to remember and others to use. More to come in the next couple weeks.