Please Review: First attempt at making my own recipe - Black Rye-PA

Hello,

So I have about 10 or so brews under my belt and really want to formulate a recipe myself instead of using others and tweaking it. So I am in the mood to make a Black Ipa and decided to also use rye. Could you please review and let me know your critiques and such. Thanks!

Brew Method: All Grain -BIAB
Style Name: Black Rye-PA
Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Boil Size: 7.34 gallons
Efficiency: 70%

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.062
Final Gravity: 1.013
ABV: 6.4%
IBU: 55.1
SRM: 34.5

FERMENTABLES:
9 lb - Pale 2-Row (US) (64.3%)
2 lb - Rye Malt (14.3%)
1 lb - Wheat Malt (7.1%)
1 lb - Caramel/Crystal 40L (7.1%)
1 lb - Carafa III (7.1%)

HOPS:
1.0 oz - Cascade - 60 min - 17.2 IBU
0.5 oz - Citra - 30 min - 14.4 IBU
0.5 oz - Amarillo - 30 min - 10.2 IBU
0.5 oz - Amarillo - 15 min - 6.6 IBU
0.5 oz - Citra - 5 min - 3.7 IBU
0.5 oz - Amarillo - 5 min - 2.7 IBU
0.5 oz - Amarillo - 0 min - 0.0 IBU
1.0 oz - Citra - Dry Hop - 0.0 IBU

YEAST:
S-04 or S-05

I am undecided on the yeast. I have used both and like them both. I plan on steeping the Carafa III in a separate pot and adding it to the boil. I don't want much roasty/burnt flavors in here. I want it to be rather light and easy drinking. I added the Wheat to help with head retention. I plan on dry hopping in the keg and letting the hops hang about 8" into the beer and just leave them there until the Keg kicks. I originally was looking at using Summit as the bittering but it boosted the IBU's into the high 60's, which isn't bad per say but wanted to try and stick in the 50 range, unless its deemed that it needs more bitterness to balance the grain. Like I said this is my first Recipe and hoping others can help me refine it. I plan on brewing it in 2 to 3 weeks so I got plenty of time (though i will probably go pick the Citra hops up this week).


Thanks for the help!
Mike

Recipe looks good. If you don't want a lot of roasted flavors coming through I'd try to use Dehusked Carafa III aka Carafa Special III. It doesn't contain the husks from the barley which reduces its roastiness and astringency in the beer.

I would not use cascade hops for the bittering because it is low in AA%, I'd swap it for something higher in AA% like columbus and use less, if you want the ibu's lower.

Ok, Thanks. So I switched out the cascade for .5 oz of Simicoe for 60 min which would give me 21 IBU's. I also upgraded the hops schedule, just playing around a bit.

HOPS:
0.5 oz - Simicoe - 60 min - 21.0 IBU
1 oz - Citra - 15 min - 19.2 IBU
1 oz - Amarillo - 10 min - 10.0 IBU
1 oz - Citra - 5 min - 7.7 IBU
1 oz - Amarillo - 0 min - 0.0 IBU
1 oz - Citra - Dry Hop - 0.0 IBU

Total: 57.9 IBU

I will look for the Carafa Special III.

Do you think its enough to make black or is it going to be more brown? The color is 34.5 SRM.

Thanks.

I recently used carafa II because I couldn't find carafa III. At 8% for 5 gal ~32 SRM, and got a nice black color with dark ruby highlights. You should have black beer with 7% of Carafa III.

I recently did a Black Rye IPA with an SRM of 27 and it was plenty dark enough; not brown, but black w/ ruby highlights when held to the light as jperry stated. The only thing I would question in the proposed recipe is the 1 lb of Crystal 40. I used half a pound of c40 with a FG of 1015 which was a bit too sweet for my taste, as it masked some of the hoppiness. It's a personal preference issue, but just make sure to have a healthy fermentation as to not end up w/ too much residual sugars that take away from the hop flavors and aromas. And when in doubt, just add more hops

So I updated my recipe for the umpteenth time and settled on following.

9 lb - Pale 2-Row (US) (63.2%)
2 lb 4 oz - Rye Malt (15.8%)
1 lb - Wheat Malt (7.0%)
1 lb - Carafa III - Dehusked (7.0%)
.5 lb - Caramel/Crystal 20L (3.5%)
.5 lb - Caramel/Crystal 40L (3.5%)


HOPS:
0.7 oz - Amarillo - FWH - 13.5 IBU
0.7 oz - Simcoe - 60 min - 28.3 IBU
0.3 oz - Amarillo - 15 min - 4.3 IBU
1.0 oz - Citra - 10 min - 15.7 IBU
1.0 oz - Amarillo - 5 min - 5.8 IBU
1.0 oz - Citra - 1 min - 1.9 IBU
0.3 oz - Simcoe - 1 min - 0.5 IBU
1.0 oz - Citra - Dry Hop - 0.0 IBU
1.0 oz - Amarillo - Dry Hop - 0.0 IBU

Total IBU's 69.8.
OG 1.063


I brewed Friday night and had them do a finer crush on all them to try and help my efficiency (BIAB). The whole process was really fast this time as I had a helper who wanted to learn. Took about an hour off the total time. The mash smelt so amazing. IDK if it was the rye or what but it was easily the best smelling mash I have ever done (8 of them and all smell good). I ended up hitting 1.060 with some major boil over.


So the S-05 yeast took about 15 hours with 50 seconds of pure O2. The temp in my basement was 64-66 degrees. It was never a very vigorous fermentation but the smells!!!! Oh the Smells! I wanted to sleep next to it. It smelled of hops but had a fantastic smell of ripe raspberries. The smell was so powerful and amazing that I could taste it. The single best fermentation smells I have ever witnessed. It has since stopped yesterday so tonight I took the blow-off tube out and replaced it with a standard bubbler. While I did that I had to take a few whiffs of the beer and I really don't know If I can hold out and not drink it early. It is heavenly. I also moved the fementor to a tub of water heated to 70-72ish to help it finish.


The next month and half is going to be so difficult!!!


Thanks for the help with the recipe!
Mike

Simcoe is pretty delicious; I'd add that to your dryhop and use something more neutral like Warrior for your bitterness addition.