We're back with another great session IPA recipe. This one is made with citra and lemon drop hops, as well as orange simple syrup and candied orange peel - all made from scratch. If you're into hazy session IPAs, we highly recommend this recipe. It's a very balanced beer with just the right amount of citrus aroma and taste as well as body and bitterness. And because it's a fairly low ABV beer, it's "highly crushable." In short, it turned out 100% awesome and you should definitely brew it if any of this sounds appealing.

Full Brew Day Video 

Brewing Water

We first added 7.9 gallons (29.9 liters) of tap water to our kettle.

Grains

After heating the water to strike temp, we inserted the grain basket in our kettle and added the following grains to the grain basket:

• 2 Row Pilsner (2.0 SRM) - 6lbs (2kg 721.6g)
• Flaked Oats (1.0 SRM) - 1lbs (453.6g)
• Flaked Corn (1.7 SRM) - 1lb (453.6g)
• Flaked Wheat (1.6 SRM) - 1lb (453.6g)

We finely crush all of our grain in a mill before mashing with it

Mashing

We mashed at 160F (71.1C) for 60 mins.

Mashing in

It's important to stir your mash in order to break up any clumps

We mashed at a bit higher temperature than we have in the past for this style of beer. The goal was to increase beta amylase activity, which should boost the amount of unfermentable sugar, giving the beer a bit more sweetness and body.

Citrus Zest

While mashing, we worked on processing some citrus zest. We took the peel from 3 oranges and 1 lemon and blanched them.

We just used a normal peeler to peel our fruit

Here's a quick guide to blanching citrus fruit:

1. Add peels to pot of cold water (enough water to cover peels)

Submerging peels in cold water

1. Heat water to a boil
2. As soon as boil starts, remove from heat, strain peels, and dump water.

Straining peels

1. Add more cold water to pot along with strained peels
2. Begin process again.

Repeat this entire process 3 times and make sure to remove the pot from the heat and strain the fruit as soon as a boil is reached. This process reduces the bitterness of the fruit. However, if you leave the peels boil, bitterness will actually increase.

Making Candied Citrus Peel

After blanching we moved on to creating candied peels. To do this we made some simple syrup by dissolving 400 grams of sugar in 400 grams of water (a 1 to 1 ratio). We then added the peels and simmered for 45 minutes.

Citrus peels in simple syrup

Citrus peels after 45 minutes of simmering

After that, we put the peels in a food dehydrator and let them sit on low heat for about 24 hours.

Boiling / Hops

We boiled for 60 minutes and added the following hops, etc:

• Citra (0.25 oz) / (7.1g) at 60 minutes (the start of the boil)

Adding Citra hops at the start of the boil

• Citra (3 oz) / (85g) & Lemon Drop (1 oz) / (28.35g) hopstand after completing the boil and cooling the wort below 170F (76.7C).
• Simple Syrup was also added with the hopstand hops.

Adding the simple syrup that was simmered for 45 minutes

Fermentation

After leaving the hopstand hops hang out for 20 minutes, we chilled the wort to 68F (20C) and added it to a sanitized bucket.

Transferring wort to a sanitized bucket

We pitched White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001 and let it ferment for 3 days.

Pitching yeast

After 3 days we added another ounce (28.35g) of citra and an additional ounce of lemon drop hops.

We also added candied orange peel at this time.

Our candied orange peel was dry and stiff after sitting in a food dehydrator for 24 hours

We put all of our dry hops and citrus peels into a mesh bag that was then added to the fermenter

Fermentation kicked off again (because of the sugar in the candied orange peels) and finished a few days later.

Additional Benchmarks

• Starting Gravity: 1.046
• Final Gravity: 1.015
• ABV: 4.07%

Tasting Notes

This beer is one of the best we've brewed. It was super balanced and had a perfect blend of bitterness, hops flavor, and sweetness. The lemon drop hops and orange made for a very pleasant aroma. It tasted like a light citrus IPA, but the orange flavor came through nicely. It was present but not at all overpowering. We really liked the balance of sweet and bitterness as well. We rate this recipe 10/10 and highly recommend brewing it.

Equipment

• We brewed this beer with Clawhammer's 10.5 gallon, 120V Electric Brewing System.
• We used an Excalibur Food Dehydrator to make the candied peels.
• Shallow depth bartender's peeler.

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