Belgian Citra IPA

[Dan G]

Cathal O D asked me for the recipe for this beer that we had at the last capital brewers tasting, I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else wanted to give it a bash.

Targets
Batch size 19 ltrs
OG 1.060
FG 1.009
ABV 6.9%
IBU 40
CO2 vols 2.5
Wyeast 3944

Water
Ashbeck bottled water from Tesco. This is a very soft water with a pH of 6.5 and has been by far the best water source I've found so far.
Treated with 0.5 g/l gypsum and 0.2 g/l calcium chloride. My aim is to get about 200ppm of calcium, 300ppm of sulfate and 150ppm of chloride once those additions have added to the minerals in the water. I want very low carbonate/bicarbonate, less than 50ppm which this water gives me.   

Malt
Pale Ale Malt low colour 5kg
Vienna Malt 200g
Wheat Malt 50g

Hops - all leaf
90 mins
Hersbrucker 20g
Chinook 7g
Citra 5g

20 mins
Hersbrucker 20g
Chinook 5g
Citra 5g

0mins - Steep for one hour with kettle lid on, or foil.
Hersbrucker 20g
Citra 30g

Going for about 40 IBU so adjust the 90 and 20 mins amounts to get this value.

Mash was 90mins at 65C, including vorlauf time, which takes about 20mins to clear with my jug system. Fly sparged using the tin foil method, sparge water treated as per liquor and at about 75C. I start the sparge water fairly soon to keep the temperature from dropping.
I use a standard 2.4 l/kg liquor / malt ratio, plus about a ltr extra to take up the space below my false bottom.
Draw off 25 ltrs in to the kettle.

Boil is 90 mins, making the hop additions above. Chill to 18C and pitch 1 pack of wyeast 3944.

2 weeks in primary at 18C for first few days, then allow to rise to 20C. The warmer you go the more "belgium" it will become, I just wanted the dry tartness and a little of the phenols so kept it at 18C for a week and then heated up to 20C.

Transfer to secondary and dry hop with Centennial pellets about 20g, after 4 days cool down below 10C if you can, ideally down to 4C, and mature for 2 weeks at least.  The hops should drop out and leave the beer fairly clear although being a wit yeast don't expect this to be crystal clear. On the last batch my cooling system (shed + Irish springtime) was malfunctioning and it didn't get as cold as I would have liked so the hops / yeast didn't drop out completely. Theres the old bit of hop debris in the bottles but this will sink after a few hours in the fridge.

Bottle with fresh yeast, I use Nottingham as this compacts nicely. Make up a slurry of 200ml water with 1g yeast. Use 1ml per 330ml bottle, 2ml per 500ml and 3ml per 750ml. Prime with sugar or carbonation drops to get 2.5 vols CO2.

[Dr Jacoby]

I was at that meeting and thought this was a lovely beer. There was an incredible mango aroma from it and a really prominent tangerine flavour, which I associate with Wit beers. It's great to see that no orange peel was used. This suggests that the yeast and the hops are doing the hard work.

It was also a great idea to use Wit yeast in an IPA, especially since orange flavours go so well in this style. Dan, maybe you could list the yeast up top to make it clear it's an important ingredient in the beer?

For others who might want to try this recipe, I'd say you could up the bitterness just a tad to balance the lovely tangerine flavours. I think you'd then have an amazing beer.

[Dan G]

Good idea, I've added the yeast more prominently at the top, your right, that is an important part of this recipe. The hops were really fresh as well I should add. 2012 Citra used as soon as it became available. Also bumping up the bitterness a touch would be good.