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Hi fellow brewers,

Was looking for some advice for improvements to the following brew...

Maxi-BIAB APA

Grain Bill (5900g)
4800g (76%) Simpsons Ale - Maris Otter
1000g (17%) JWM Light Munich
300g (5%) Weyermann Carahell
100g (2%) JWM Malted Wheat

Mash in at 65C for 90 mins.
2 x dunk sparge (progressively added to the boil).
90min boil.

Hop Schedule
20g Chinook 60min
20g Cascade 10min
20g Citra (hop tea into fermenter with dilution water)
10g Citra (dry hop after primary ferm completed)

Wyeast American Ale 1056 (smack-pack into fermenter without starter).

The hop additions are a timed like that because I no-chilled into a cube.
It started at 1.058 and has finished at 1.008 in the space of a week at 18c (a bit quicker than I thought).
Then I added the 10g Citra and cold conditioned for 2 weeks, then kegged.

Undoubtably, this is the best beer I have ever brewed !!
The bitterness is on the high side for an APA, but that's how I like it (the Citra is awesome!).
Next time I want to get a bit more malty sweetness to balance out the extra bitterness.

Is there something in my process I could change to achieve this (mash temp?/hop schedule?), or should I modify the grain bill?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Jake.

I would suggest adding some more crystal grains to increase sweetness if you're happy with the body

Carahell is very light coloured, perhaps try a sweeter stronger crystal instead

Melanoiden will increase the maltiness which is what you might want too

Man, that looks yummy! I'm going to make that soon only I'll change the 60 minute Chinook to a FWH (should smooth out the bitterness) and see what happens. Can you please post the aa% of the hops you used? Thanks.

---Todd

Chinook 11.6%
Cascade 6.2%
Citra 11.4%

FWH...would be interesting to see how that turns out, how many gs would you use for the FWH addition?

I'm kind of reckless so I think I would do:

20g Chinook (FWH)
20g Cascade (cube hop)
20g Citra (hop tea into fermenter)
10g Citra (dry hop 5-7 days)

That schedule should give a bit of flavor from both the Chinook and the Cascade but more importantly results in a very smooth bitterness (still end up @ 40 IBU's). The Citra as a tea and then dry hopped adds that Citra flavor and aroma that we love.

I might even swap out the Carahell for a light crystal (C-20?), it would darken it a bit but would add a bit of sweetness.

--Todd

Here's my standard grain bill for all my APA's, I simply play around with the hops to make different beers:

Pale Malt (2 Row) 85.7 %
Cara-Pils/Dextrine 3.6 %
Caramel/Crystal 120 Malt 3.6 %
Munich Malt 3.6 %
Vienna Malt 3.6 %

Mash around 152-153 F.

Nottingham yeast is fine, so is Safale S-04 or US-05. I use PacMac just because I have a bunch of it.

Figure your grain bill to get an OG of 1.058-1.060. I make a version of this with all Cascade hops (5-6% aa) doing 14 grams (.5 oz) as a FWH and 154 grams (5.5 oz) cube hope. After 3-4 weeks in the bottle/keg it is incredible! (It's my "house pale ale".)

--Todd

Thanks Stux and Todd!!
I will replace the carahell with a slightly stonger chrystal and see how it goes.