Black IPA Recipe

Hi,

I was planning on brewing the following, and would appreciate it if anyone could offer any comments or criticisms.

The recipe is copied directly from a commercial brewer (I'd rather not say who), and has been scaled down for roughly a 10L batch.

The only thing which the recipe below omits is the addition of more Carafa III during sparge which I assume is mainly to provide additional colour and avoid too much roastiness. I wouldn't know how much extra Carafa III to add though. It has been suggested that it should be kept to less that 5% of the total grain bill. As it currently stands, it doesn't look like the colour will be nearly as dark as "black"....

Thanks,

Roddy



Title: Black IPA
Author: Roddy

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 10 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 15 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.032
Efficiency: 75% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.009
ABV (standard): 5.04%
IBU (tinseth): 63.37
SRM (morey): 14.71

FERMENTABLES:
1.2 kg - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (58.5%)
0.4 kg - German - Vienna (19.5%)
0.2 kg - Flaked Oats (9.8%)
0.2 kg - Torrified Wheat (9.8%)
0.05 kg - German - Carafa III (2.4%)

HOPS:
5 g - Chinook, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 17.69
5 g - Citra, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 11, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 14.97
7 g - Citra, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 11, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 7.6
7 g - Mosaic, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 8.63
7 g - Nelson Sauvin, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 8.63
3 g - Citra, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 11, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 1.79
3 g - Mosaic, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 2.03
3 g - Nelson Sauvin, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 2.03

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (avg): 81%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 12.22 - 25 C
Fermentation Temp: 18 C
Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / deg P)

Looks fine, adding roast malt to the sparge is a good technique for getting colour with little flavour. I would think 150g Carafa in the sparge about right. Maybe more, it's not being mashed.

I'm not sure 50g of Carafa III would add that much colour to a 10L batch, certainly not enough to get it black.

For reference, I've just tried brewing an extract black ipa with steeping grains. For my 20L batch I steeped:

500g Caramalt
250g Carapils
200g Carafa special III
100g Chocolate malt
75g Black malt

It's turning out more of a muddy brown colour, not black. I'd say bump up the Carafa III to 5%, and maybe google around to see if any other caramel malts may be worth adding to your grain bill.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Regarding adding the roast malt during sparge: any idea how long you'd need to be sparging to extract a reasonable amount of colour out of the grains without too much additional roastiness?

I would just add the Carafa at the start of the sparge. You won't get much roastiness if any from sparging it, and you won't get enough colour if you leave it late. That said, I like a bit of the roast, and I've had a number of Black IPAs that have had a roast malt flavour. The whole Black IPA thing is a bit weird really innit?!

clibit said:

The whole Black IPA thing is a bit weird really innit?!

Click to expand...

I know! I don't want to start any arguments about it, but I just really like the flavour of some. Personally, I'd just consider it as an American IPA with a little extra added. I wouldn't write it off as just a dyed-black IPA.

Thanks again for the advice.

Best I has was Weird Beard Fade to Black, keg, which was quite roasty. Crystal rye in it. Bloody good. Put me on to Crystal rye, good in dark beers. As is roasted rye. Aka chocolate rye.

clibit said:

Best I has was Weird Beard Fade to Black, keg

Click to expand...

Ah, I was over at their brewery the other weekend. I actually know the brewer Brian a little through his previous job (engineer at BBC). I was drinking their Mariana Trench on cask at dinner time. Lovely stuff.

My favourite BIPAs (or IBAs) are WB - Fade to Black, Beavertown - Black Betty, Windsor & Eton - Conqueror, and Brodie's Dalston Black IPA.....

Black Betty is excellent. I'm going to be brewing a BrewDog Libertine clone next week so this thread is a good guide for me.

I think the Yanks call it a Cascadian Dark Ale (CDA), no? Either way whatever it's called, I like it!

I've got a can of Black Betty in my fridge that I picked up from the shop near me today.

Tesco's actually have a Revisionist Dark IPA brewed for them by Marsten's and it's not too shabby. One that I tried at the London Craft Beer Festival last year (does anyone from here go?) was by Signature Brewe called Black Tongue, which was done in collaboration with the band Mastodon who actually know a thing or two about beer. It was delicious.

I used 80g of carafa III in a 10L black IPA batch, and it's BLACK. You can't see through it. It's 'clear' in that there's no yeast in suspension (you can just about see through it at the neck of a clear bottle), but through the body of a clear bottle it's like staring into a void. I put a pic on the thread:
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52948&page=3

That's really interesting. I wonder if mine was lighter because I did an extract brew and I steeped the grains at 68C for 30 mins. I did steep them in 23 litres of water of which I had added some DME to already as I'd read that if you steep in full volume, the water needs to be above 1.010. So I don't know if that was a factor.

There was a similar amount of chocolate malt in it too, not sure how colour that adds though?

Chocolate adds a lot of colour too.

I take back what I said - I just bottled my batch yesterday and it's pretty damn dark! I think the thing that put me off was the fact that I was taking samples from the tap at the bottom of the FV so the samples had lots of yeast floating about which lightened the colour.

Rodabod, how did this turn out?
I fancy doing an AG Black IPA / Cascadian dark ale and wondered about the grain bill.
Did you get any roastiness?

Hi Jamie,

It turned out very well. I'd give the base flavour full marks, but my balance of hops was biased too far towards Nelson Sauvin, so it dominates to some extent. Something to be remembered for next time. It does not taste roasty at all, really.

To describe the beer, it has a nice caramel sweetness which is counteracted by a decent amount of bitterness. The hop flavour and aroma I can best describe as being like Opal Fruits / Starburst sweets.

I'm from Morningside by the way, but down in London these days. You're lucky having Brew Store up at the Southside.

It's a small world!

Yes, Brewstore are pretty good with advice, variety and prices - I very rarely buy anything online as it's just so handy!
Thanks for the feedback on your recipe, think I'll give it a go at some point!

One thing which can be worthwhile is trying to recreate something which you can reference easily. So, for example, buy a can of X, try to brew X yourself, and then see which aspects you need to improve upon. I bought some Mikkeller bottles recently just so that I could reference them against the recipes in the Mikkeller book.