Kit recipe: APA with the three C's

[kiwifirst]

I am a big APA fan. I love Dogfish60 and I havent really found a good APA since returning to Oz. Little Creatures is ok, but bloody expensive. So it got me into homebrewing again. I haven't stepped back up to grain brewing, so have been playing with some kit recipes.

So if you are a fan of APA's and love the citrusy flavour of Cascade hops and brewing from kits you may find this one to your liking.

I love my beer bitter and hoppy, this recipe I scaled back the bitterness due to it being shared with friends.

Coopers IPA Kit
1kg 50/50 dex/lightmalt blend
Hops
20g - Chinook - 11.4%
20g - Centennial - 9.7%
25g - Cascade - 5%

safele us-05 yeast (great apa yeast)

Boiled up 5l of water and added kit, slowly added malt and stirred.

Meanwhile, boiled up a 1l of water and added the following hops;

Chinook 10g - 20mins
centennial - 10g - 15 mins
chinook & centennial - 5g & 5g - 10mins
cascade - 20g - 5 mins

5g of all 3 at end of boil with heat off. Let site for 5 mins.

Turn off the heat on the malt and can boil.

Strain the hop boil into the wort. Pour into the fermenter. I then pour cold water through the strained hops to get that last bit of flavour.

Top up to 22l.

My starting gravity was 1040 finished at 1010 I let it ferment for 2 weeks in a cupboard in the shed. Avg temp was about 17c

I usually only make APA's with Cascade, adding the other 2 styles has added a deeper hoppy flavour, the hops are very similar, if you smell them in the bags, you will see what I mean. Yet, I do prefer this version of my APA than one with just using 60g of Cascade. Obviously the 11% Chinook is going to add quite a bot of bitterness I am guessing that if the Cascade kit is about 35IBU then this hop addition will add another 20ibu to it making it a total of 55IBU.

Love to know your thoughts and maybe share some APA recipes.

[Bum]

Looks decent to me, fella. Thanks for putting it up.

Have you tried this recipe with another kit before? I like that kit but it does seem pretty English to me - wondering if you might be able to punch out an even better brew with a more "in style" kit. Perhaps something a bit more bland and doing a longer hop boil for more bitterness and a bit of spec grain for some of that US crystally thing? Looks nice as is too, of course.

As for local beers - Kooinda Pale Ale is a nice APAish beer that can be had locally (probably a bit more pricey than LCPA even - way better beer though). Give up on finding a proper APA here though and just focus on getting them how you want them in your brewery. DFH60 is an AIPA though so probably not fair comparing APAs from anywhere to it.

[kiwifirst]

Thanks for the reply.
I have used another kit before, I think it was a canadian pale ale, forget the brand. I also used a 12% Simcoe for 45 minutes, I think 40g, then another 20g Cascade, that was very bitter, I really liked it, but the first couple fo sips caused a few surprised looks on my friends. I think the IBU was to high for "general' consumption.

I'd love to try an partial mash next. I have done one before, a while ago, now that I have a kegerator I am trying to have 2 kegs on the go. The time involved is quite a step up on a busy weekend, as I can knock up a kit mix in about an hour. But since Melbourne cup offers a 4 day weekend, maybe I can squeeze in a partial. Going ot have to read up on how to do it again.

Now, I probably should start thinking about trying for a DFH60. So I am really interested in your thoughts on what are the fundamental differences with an APA from an AIPA.