What's wrong with this formula
 

So this just didn't turn out near as good as hoped. The big hop flavor and aroma was missing and the malt flavor just didn't work. Is there anything obviously wrong with the formula? I'm thinking I just didn't get the right hops and wasn't familiar with columbus which I substituted for centennial hops. Maybe I messed up in the mash. It was drinkable and no real off taste, just didn't really work. Hopefully some aging will help.

Malt & Fermentables

% LB OZ °L PPG
80% 18 ~ English Pale
7% 1 8 American Crystal 60L
7% 1 8 American Victory
3% ~ 12 Briess Chocolate 350 L
3% ~ 12 Carafa I


Specific Gravity
1.053 OG
measured by brewer
(1.057 estimated)
13.1° Plato
1.014 FG
(1.012 to 1.015)
3.6° Plato
Measured Values
Edit Gravities / Edit Color
Color
26° SRM
51° EBC
Dark Brown to Black
Mash Efficiency
70% measured
(75% used for O.G. estimate)
Hops

Usage Time OZ AA » IBU
boil 60 min 1 ¼ Columbus ~ pellet 15.2 » 32.3
boil 30 min 1 ½ Columbus ~ pellet 15.4 » 30.1
boil 10 min 1 ½ Warrior ~ pellet 15.0 » 13.9
boil 2 min 2 Cascade ~ pellet 5.5 » 1.6
dry 7 days 1 Sorachi Ace ~ pellet 13.7 » 0.0
Bitterness
77.8 IBU
ƒ: Tinseth
19 HBU
BU:GU
1.37
Yeast

California Ale (WLP001)
yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation and 76% attenuation
Alcohol
5.2% ABV
4% ABW
(5.7% est. ABV / 4.0% est. ABW)

The Sorachi ace should have been very prominent in aroma; lots of lemon.

I would have thought the Cascade would have come thru in the aroma too.

I don't see any flavor hops. Warrior is not known for flavor, and the Columbus is just bittering.

Not sure what you were expecting from the beer, but there really is no flavor hops. the Sorachi and Cascade should certainly be there in the aroma.

I would think that 30min hop addition would provide some flavor, but more aroma as Calder said from the cascade and sorachi ace. Could be that you have a water profile that doesn't accentuate hops, the hops were covered up too much by the darker malts (chocolate and carafa), or that your calculations are off. Do you know what your water is like?

Get some Munich in the bill and maybe some oats for body

What style were you shooting for with this?

In terms of the lack of big hop flavor, I'll agree with the others that to start, you'll want to have big hop additions in the 20 min or 15 min ranges, as once you get past 10 min you're getting mostly aroma out of them. I'd bump the 30 min columbus to 20 min, and sub out the warrior for something with more prominent flavor - warrior is pretty mild.

Your grain bill looks like a brown ale of some sort. If that's what you are going for, then good, but if you are looking to really let the hops shine, I'd consider cutting back on the specialty malts, since they'll just compete with hop flavor.

Biggest thing is rearranging your hop schedule- I'd do that before worrying about water chemistry.

Thanks for the input. I got messed up at the LHBS when they wouldn't sell me the centennial hops and I ended up getting hops I wasn't familiar with. I see I should have put the warrior in first as its pretty much best at bittering. Maybe the cascade should have been in for 20 minutes as well.

I thought I was light enough on the chocolate and carafa. I wanted an black IPA that had a bit more malt character the usual IPA. Perhaps it was also just too much of the strong dark flavor. I'm hoping another month or so of aging will smooth it out.

Ahh I gotcha. Grain bill is prob fine for a black IPA, just need to load up the flavor hops then. I'm sure it'll still come out fine.

I think it's too much victory malt. I'd definitely cut that way down, to .25 pound or less. For a black IPA, English pale malt is a very malty choice. That's fine, if that's what you want, but it's harder for the hops to shine.

I'd rework that recipe a bit, using more late hops and fixing the grainbill and I think it'd work out much better.

I couldn't disagree more. I use Columbus all the time for flavor, bittering & have even dry hopped with it.. Excessive amounts can be annoying, but it's one of my favorite hops.

I think perhaps I did as well try to get too much malt flavor. I would cut the victory malt as was suggested next time as well. I really appreciate the input.