APA Brew Day

6 lb DME
.5 lb Crystal 20L
.5 lb crystal 40L
.25 lb Crystal 120L
1 oz Cascade (60 min)
1 oz Centennial (20 min)
.75 oz Amarillo (15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (10 min)
.5 oz Cascade, .25 oz Amarillo (5 min)

Started out with a starter (1.5Liter, 5.75 oz DME).

Blending the crystal will give a broader crystal flavor. Using one will define flavor a little more but the blend spreads the flavor more throughout the taste.

My methodology for hops, while very scattered in practice, was as follows:
I wanted to add Amarillo to Cascade to vary flavor up. Centennial as a higher powered cascade will add citrus in theory, but at 20 minutes the hope was that it would give less a citrus flavor than the amarillo's orange/lemon or cascade's grapefruit.
The ideal of using most of the hops late rather than early was to eliminate late-hopping and add a lot of bitterness without too much at the front end. Late-hop bittering adds a lot of flavor and aroma, and does add bitterness, but it's a less efficient and therefore less harsh bitter.

Post-Boil Results and Style Comparison
*Post-OG tasting left a very divided taste - sweet on the front end, hoppy at the back end.
*Smell test at two days left a strong citrus smell in range of various fruits, along with a solid malt smell.
*This finished at 1.052 OG (adjusted from 80 degrees F). Compared to style guidelines, that's a little high but inside reason.
*High crystal addition left the beer at a Promash-expected 13.0 (range for style is 8-14).
*4 total oz of hopping left the beer at a Promash-expected 54.6 IBU (range for style is 30-45+), giving range to fit hoppiness in, but that's for West Coast styles, whereas East Coast tastes would be less. Definitely over range, though with a month or two aging would be more within style.

For fairness to the IBUs, switchng even one more ounce of hops to the front end changes the beer to an 80 IBU range, just by boiling for 50 more minutes without any additions. The hop cost was high but it seems for aroma and flavor the beer is very good and sharp, without a sharp bitterness normally necessary to achieve that aroma and flavor.

It took a day to break into fermentation, but at 36 hours had broken into the airlock. At that point, it had a wonderful aroma. Initial concerns of infection or letting the beer sit too long before fermentation started were somewhat unfounded, though the expectation was that the starter would aid in quickness for the beer.

Learned from this:
*Kits aren't the best idea anymore, I'll screw with it until it's unrecognizeable.
*Continue to improve on sanitation to reduce paranoia
*Let the yeast take time to act, don't spazz.

Tips for next time:
*If it's still extract, either back off on pale DME and add either English Pale malt or English Pale LME.
*If having to partial mash instead of just steep (crystal didn't need mash), add munich and back off on crystal. Reduce total to 12-14% of grain bill to let hops come through.
*consider blending hops for late hop additions.

This beer should be very fragrant and tasty right up front. As time goes on, the hop degradation may make this more consumable, but with a high crystal take and pushing most of the hop to the back end, there should be drinkability in people who don't like hop bitterness to the level of a normal IPA.