Killa-Godzilla American Pale Ale advice needed

[killer]

Evening Lads and Lassies,

I'm brewing this tomorrow. I'd appreciate any constructive criticism/ advice or feedback. It's aimed to be a reasonably malty beer but with serious hop flavour and bitterness to balance. I'm using nearly 300g - my biggest yet and all but 30g are in the last 15min/ steep/ Dry). Trying to keep the alcohol down to a reasonable level too. Plan to mash about 67°C.
Never used Citra and Centennial together before.
Will they match well ? I see AnthonyD has a thread about mixing cascade and citra.... Am I in the same territory ?
I will be forgiving S05 it's previous sins against me and be using it to keep the malt and hops at the forefront.

Cheers,

Cillian

AG#16
Hopped up Pale Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.050
Total Hops (g): 280.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.049 (°P): 12.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.012 (°P): 3.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.81 %
Colour (SRM): 7.5 (EBC): 14.8
Bitterness (IBU): 52.1 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 71
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
3.800 kg Maris Otter Malt (75.25%)
0.450 kg Munich I (8.91%)
0.400 kg Caramalt (7.92%)
0.200 kg Flaked Oats (3.96%)
0.200 kg Torrified Wheat (3.96%)

Hop Bill
----------------
30.0 g Challenger Leaf (7.6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.3 g/L)
20.0 g Centennial Leaf (9.7% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Citra Leaf (11.1% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Centennial Leaf (9.7% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Citra Leaf (11.1% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Centennial Leaf (9.7% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Citra Leaf (11.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Centennial Leaf (9.7% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (60° steep) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Citra Leaf (11.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (60° steep) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Centennial Leaf (9.7% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g Citra Leaf (11.1% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.9 g/L)
50.0 g Motueka Leaf (7.8% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (2.2 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 75 Minutes.
Fermented at 18°C with Safale US-05

[Nofolkandchance]

Might be a bit obvious but a name change night be in order! Motueka is a NZ hop not American , unless I'm informed otherwise

[killer]

Might be a bit obvious but a name change night be in order! Motueka is a NZ hop not American , unless I'm informed otherwise

True words indeed - in fact a friend posted them to me from NZ. But I'm no stickler for BJCP guidlines - and the challenger isn't american either...or the malt, and technically I'm a little over in terms of IBU ! I just want something close to American pale ale/ IPA style.

[keith1664]

This is probably a bit late if you're brewing tomorrow but US-05 isn't the best choice if you want malty, hoppy yes. If you want a malty APA try Wyeast 1272 (Whitelabs 051 is alleged to be the same but I'm not convinced).

[killer]

This is probably a bit late if you're brewing tomorrow but US-05 isn't the best choice if you want malty, hoppy yes. If you want a malty APA try Wyeast 1272 (Whitelabs 051 is alleged to be the same but I'm not convinced).

Yeah, you are right. I guess I meant that I want a clean (non yeasty, non estery) profile strongly biased towards malt and hop flavours. I've added a fair amount of Munich and Caramalt (relative to my usual APA's) to make up for the hop forward S05. I was gonna go with S04 but was afraid that would mute the hops more than I wanted.
Appreciate the suggestion about 1272 - I'll have to put it on my to do list.

[Nofolkandchance]

Might be a bit obvious but a name change night be in order! Motueka is a NZ hop not American , unless I'm informed otherwise

True words indeed - in fact a friend posted them to me from NZ. But I'm no stickler for BJCP guidlines - and the challenger isn't american either...or the malt, and technically I'm a little over in terms of IBU ! I just want something close to American pale ale/ IPA style.

Fair dues mate. What about Killa-Godzilla! coz thats a MONSTER load of hops!!!! Will follow this thread so make sure you keep us updated with pics as well please! Good luck. Either way its gonna be cracker.

[killer]

Love it ! Killa-Godzilla it is.... Might need to get some Japanese hops though if the name is to fit BJCP naming guidelines

[Nofolkandchance]

Hmmmm? Maybe a sprinkling of Sorachi Ace? (If you can get em) Im sure most/all of any currently available are from American growers but apparently they were developed by Sapporo Breweries of Japan????

[Belter]

I'd increase percentage. I had an Arbour Ales massively hoppy beer the other day. They said in the description they wanted a really hoppy beer with a low percentage that wasn't overly bitter and all I could taste was an overly bitter beer. The hops were muted. I'd bump it to 6% at least

[TC2642]

I'd increase percentage. I had an Arbour Ales massively hoppy beer the other day. They said in the description they wanted a really hoppy beer with a low percentage that wasn't overly bitter and all I could taste was an overly bitter beer. The hops were muted. I'd bump it to 6% at least

I'd agree with that assessment, the more hops you have you generally need more malt to balance it out.

[killer]

Appreciate the suggestion about upping the alcohol and I take the point - but with 800g of Munich and Caramalt I am reasonably happy this will finish high and malty enough.
Plus the bitterness should not be mad with mostly late hops...

But it doesn't matter as todays Brewday was a bit of a nightmare !

Just as the strike water was coming up to temp I broke my thermometer... So my mash temp was ?? Not far off - I'm sure of that, but not strictly controlled either.
Mash pH was spot on. (BIAB by the way)
Nice rigorous boil for 35ish min then a funny smell - The plug housing for my boiler was melting - or rather the English to french adapter was - keeping in mind it was designed for 16A and my element is only 2kW.
So a 40 min boil. Threw in my 15 min hops and put the lid on. Separately boiled 5L of the wort with my 5 min hops. Left for 10 min. Threw in the 0 min hops and the wort boiled separately and left for 10min. IC to 60° and threw in my steep hops. Left it for 30 min.
Chilled and pitched yeast.
Finished with 23L at 1050
The cooled wort does taste quite bitter - and I can get lots of late citra flavour. Hopeful for this one yet !

[killer]

So a quick update.

This was still at 1020 after 6 days at 17°. Roused it and let it rise to 22° and it's dropped to 1017 and is not budging.
Because this only got a 40min boil the recalculated IBU's come out at about 35, and it is reasonably bitter (a little less than my recent 50ish IBU beers). It's also incredibly fruity and has a little bit of malt - it's quite IPA like (Not a million miles from Goose Island IPA) - I can clearly taste the challenger and the centennial, the Citra is kind of coming through. I'm really happy with it - was worried by the short boil but I measured the gravity today and happily polished off the hydrometer jar afterwards. Dry hopped with 100g and will leave 3 days before crash cooling and bottling/ mini-kegging.