The Grapefruit Express

For my third batch of home brew I decided it was past time for a hoppy brew. After looking at several different recipes I settled on an Amarillo IPA recipe that I found on the home brew forum at BeerAdvocate.com courtesy of Homebrew42. It is a single hop recipe that uses Amarillo hops for all the flavor and aroma additions. Amarillo is known for its distinct grapefruit aroma, hence the name. I added a pound of sugar to help lower the final gravity, my first two brews both ended a little higher than I wanted.

Pours a hazy dark golden color, almost copper with a fluffy white cap that leave plenty of lacing on the side of the glass. Aroma starts with a load of grapefruit with little else, maybe a little grassy. Just a hint of bready malt as it warms.

Flavor follows the aroma, a little sweetness up front followed by a big grapefruit blast from the hops. Solid bitterness with a grassy/chalky finish. Carbonation is just crisp enough to help wash away all the delicious hop resin.

Overall this is easily my best brew to date and it didn't take me very long to drink it all. As a result I've already brewed another batch, with a slightly different timing on the hop additions, but no major changes, to replace this one.

Recipe & Notes

Original Gravity: 1.075
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU: 80-85
Boil: 75 minutes
Pre-boil Volume: 4.5 gallons
Final Volume: about 5.5 gallons
Apparent Attenuation : 76%
Estimated ABV: 7.7%

Extract:
Muttons Extra Light DME 6.0 lbs.
Corn Sugar 1.0 lbs.

Steeping Grains:
Crystal 20˚ 8 oz.
CaraPils 8 oz.

Hops:
Nugget 13.7%, 75 min. 1.0 oz.
Amarillo 8.6%, 20 min. 1.0 oz.
Amarillo 8.6%, 10 min. 1.0 oz.
Amarillo 8.6%, Dry Hop 2.0 oz.

Yeast:
Safale US-05 Dry Ale Yeast 2 packets

Water:
Spring water from Welpman Spring in Morgan County, MO

Notes:
Brewed on 03/26/2009 by myself.

Steep grains for 30 min. at 150˚ in one gallon of water. While the grains are steeping heat 3.5 gallons of water up to about 170˚ in the boil kettle. When the steep is finished take the bag out and dunk it around in the boil water for about 5 minutes.

Add the steep water and 3 pounds of extract, turn heat up. Boil for 75 minutes, adding the hops (all pellets) at the intervals listed above. At 5 min. add the rest of the extract, the sugar, and the chiller to sanitize it.

Chill wort to about 70˚, transfer to carboy, pitch both packets of yeast.

03/26/12:45 pm – pitched yeast at 72˚

03/27/11:45am – Fermentation has already started, about 2-3 inches of kraeusen. Ferm temp = 67˚

03/28/around 8:00 – Kraeusen blew out the top of the fermenter had to clean it up and put a new piece of foil on top. Still smells delicious.

4/16/10:20am – Added the 2oz of dry hops and moved carboy to the beer cave for cool conditioning.

4/23 – Bottled 24 12-oz and 12 22-oz bottles for a total of 4.31 gallons (552 oz.) used 2.5 oz. Of priming (corn) sugar at around 65˚, which should get me about 2 volumes of CO2. FG measured at 1.017.