Luckyeddie's AG#15 - Citra Special

[luckyeddie]

OK, exchanging ideas with you young hopheads has made me turn my back on Belgian Monastery brews - just for this week. Tomorrow, I'm knocking together something just a little sharper and hoppier - a summery golden pale ale using just Citra hops. I've heard a lot of good stuff about this hop, so I'm going to try it myself.

Grainbill
Maris Otter 3.8 kg
Crystal Malt 0.2 kg
Wheat Malt 0.2 kg
Flaked Oats 0.2 kg

Hops
Citra 11.5%AA 20g @ 60 min
Citra 11.5%AA 20g @ 15 min

Yeasties
Nottingham

Looking for 20 litres @ 1044

 

[richc]

What I tend to do with these relatively high alpha hops is add more, later in the boil. My Citra APA had no hops until 15 minutes into the 60 minute boil, then loads at 15 minutes from the end then some more at flame out. It was then dry hopped with yet more Citra.

 

[luckyeddie]

What I tend to do with these relatively high alpha hops is add more, later in the boil. My Citra APA had no hops until 15 minutes into the 60 minute boil, then loads at 15 minutes from the end then some more at flame out. It was then dry hopped with yet more Citra.

Point taken - switching to 15 minutes and flame-out for the hop schedule, and upping it to 30g + 20g.

 

[luckyeddie]

Mash On.....

The grain:

In the mash tun...

Mash water added...

It was the first time underletting for me. It worked brilliantly - hardly any doughballs - just a quick rake over and a stir and I could leave it. I've deliberately gone for a runny (3 litres per kg) mash today to see if we can up the efficiency a little. I was only getting around 70% in the past.

Huge thanks to Vossy for the tubing - fantastic stuff. After much panicking and being unable to find any Jubilee clips, I just push-fitted it to my taps - and it stayed in place brilliantly. Now to make a sparge arm for next week.

 

[luckyeddie]

More brewporn...

Getting stabby with the sparge sheet. Cue violin music - ee ee ee ee ee ee...

First runnings...

Back you go...

Collecting the wort...

 

[luckyeddie]

And on to the boil.

But first - what's that hop stopper doing there? :wha:

The boiler, in the meantime...

Out you come, little worty...

:rofl:

Ah, that's better...

:thumb:

 

[luckyeddie]

Finally, boil on...

A boilover - and I never saw it. Got to clean the mess up though. :x

In with the Citra...

Bit black over Bill's Mother's - but it always looks worse when you are wearing sunglasses...

Chillin'...

Cold break...

 

[luckyeddie]

Collected 20 litres at 1044 - so my efficiency has gone up to 75%. I'll settle for that. Runny mash may have helped - also I was much more careful with the sparge this time. So now we wait...

 

[luckyeddie]

I've drunk 4 or 5 bottles of this so far - and it pains me to say that it's so bloody good, I'm going to have to put some aside. That's my first Spring Thing 2012 entry sorted.

 

[rickthebrew]

Great post eddie - i`ve a bag of citra to use so will be doing something simular to this in a couple brews time, what sort of flavours does the citra give?

 

[luckyeddie]

Great post eddie - i`ve a bag of citra to use so will be doing something simular to this in a couple brews time, what sort of flavours does the citra give?

Grapefruit - definitely grapefruit. I've just downed another couple of bottles this afternoon, and it's flipping delicious.

 

[kev]

So what hop schedule did you use in the end?

K

 

[luckyeddie]

So what hop schedule did you use in the end?

K

I went for 35g at 30 mins and 35g at 15 mins