Ideas for Citra hopped beer

[SeasideBrewer]

I had a few pints of a lovely cascade single hopped beer in the pub at lunchtime. Sadly I don't have any cascade hops at home but have some citra hops and would love to try a single hopped beer with only citra hops.

Am thinking of 95% pale malt and 5% crystal malt to about 4.5% abv. And then citra for the hop schedule. Have 100g of citra available. Aiming for 23 litres.

What should I do for the hop schedule? Can I use citra for bittering as well as flavour and aroma (my preferred route?)

If not I have some northern brewer and target available for bittering if needs be.

For yeast I have so4, us05, gervin and Windsor available. I'm aiming for a nice summer drinking pale ale so thinking probably so4 or us05, not sure which though.

I also have some torrefied wheat, should I add that for head retention?

By way of background I have done 10 all grains, but so far have copied recipes from graham wheeler third edition and not tried to make something up. Have downloaded Beer Engine so happy to fiddle around with a recipe if anyone can give me any ideas or pointers.

cheers

[Dennis King]

I have done both single hop and also brewed citra with challenger as a bittering hop which I really liked. In a 23lt brew I used 20 gms of challenger at the start and 50gms of citra at the end. I know other people use a lot more per brew but I thought this was a great balance.

[far9410]

all the options you have given would be good, if it were mine I would use a bittering hop to get ibu right then bungball those inlate ( 15 mins, 0 mins and dry) or forget the bittering and chuck in most at 15 mins and rest later, yes put the wheat in, is that what yiou said, bit pissed!

[Twistedfinger]

As you have GW's book why don't you have a go at adapting the Hop Back Summer Lightning recipe on page 164 and make it all citra.

Have play around and post it here for comment..

[WishboneBrewery]

You Can use citra for everything.
US-05 for yeast.

I'd be tempted by something like this

Citra Pale
Date:
Gyle Number:
Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 9 lbs. 6.3 oz 4260 grams 90%
Crystal Malt 120 EBC 0 lbs. 8.3 oz 235 grams 5%
Torrefied Wheat 4 EBC 0 lbs. 8.3 oz 235 grams 5%

Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Citra Whole 13.8 % 60 mins 0 lbs. 1.1 oz 30 grams 33.3%
Citra Whole 13.8 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 22.2%
Citra Whole 13.8 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 1.4 oz 50 grams 44.4%

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.5% ABV
Total Liquor: 33 Litres
Mash Liquor: 11.4 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 50 EBU
Colour: 17 EBC

Note: I have BeerEngine's Hop Utilisation set to 25% rather than the default Tinseth, I feel my beers are closer to Real-World bitterness now.
For my tastes, and Citra being a strongly flavoured hop, you could easily just put 30g in for the final Zero mins addition.
You could try Porridge oats (Flaked Oats) instead of Torrefied Wheat if you fancy a change.

[Skittlebrau]

I did this and it's lovely. Your grain bill would be fine, I'd think. It's the hop schedule that's important.

[SeasideBrewer]

Thanks for all the replies folks.

Think I'll try the pdtnc recipe and see how that goes, but tempted by adapting the summer lightening recipe in GW book hmmm.... whatever I do i'll repeat with nelson sauvin cos that sounds an interesting hop. Haven't got any of it yet buy will order shortly. I'm quite taken at the moment with trying a few single hopped pale ales.

Got a list of things I'd like to try to make as long as my arm and I want to try them all out now! I'll have to be patient - what a great hobby though.

[WishboneBrewery]

Got a list of things I'd like to try to make as long as my arm and I want to try them all out now! I'll have to be patient - what a great hobby though.

I've got similar feelings and I've been doing this hobby for a while now!!

[Twistedfinger]

You can never go wrong with a single hop ale..

[charliefarley]

Personally I'd be tempted to drop the crystal. Not sure the caramel goes with citrus.
Perhaps use Munich in its place.

That's my 2pence worth anyway and what I'll be brewing next week sometime.

[JonoT]

Hi,

I brewed this single hop Citra last weekend and will be bottling it tommrow. Fermented it with US-05

Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 11 lbs. 0.4 oz 5000 grams 90.9%
Golden Syrup 30 EBC 1 lbs. 1.6 oz 500 grams 9.1%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Citra Whole 13.8 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 20%
Citra Whole 13.8 % 20 mins 0 lbs. 0.5 oz 15 grams 15%
Citra Whole 13.8 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 20%
Citra Whole 13.8 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 1.6 oz 45 grams 45%


Final Volume: 30 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.043
Final Gravity: 1.007
Alcohol Content: 4.6% ABV
Total Liquor: 41 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 42.7531629004648 EBU
Colour: 11 EBC

[The_blue]

Just dry hopping a citra/cascage brew with a very similar grain bill.

My 1st thoughts on tasting was drop the crystal. In a previous IPA i added 50g black malt instead of crystal. Was too dark but flavour was better.


Think i'm gona stop using crystal altogether...

[wjohnson12321]

I know what you mean. Crystal seems to be superb for robust English bitters but I find you lose so much of your hop profile even in small amounts with light hoppy summer ales. I guess it all depends what your after.

[The_blue]

Had the 1st propper pint last night and the cyrstal sweetness had dispated some. Much better

[Paddy Bubbles]

Citra would make a really nice single-hop ale, but personally I prefer the flavour and complexity you get from using 2 or 3 hop varieties.

Citra is very, very fruity so it pairs really well with more "dank" hops like Simco, Chinook or Columbus. A nice contrast.

Just another idea for you.