First Partial Mash recipe... Critique Please

I'm making a partial mash Cascadian Dark Ale (aka Black IPA)

It is my first de novo partial mash recipe. Any suggestions/alterations?


Mash at 153F for 1 hr:
3 lb 2-row malt
2 lb De-husked German Carafa III
.5 lb British Chocolate malt
1 lb Breiss caramel 80

Other Fermentables:
3.15 lb Munich LME (Northern Brewer)
1 lb corn sugar (late edition)

Hops:
1 oz Yakima Magnum (60 min)
1 oz Cascade (15min)
1 oz Amarillo (10)
1 oz Cascade (5min)
1 oz Amarillo (1 min)
1 oz Amarillo (dry hopp)

Yeast: Wyeast American Ale II

Est OG: 1.06

Oh yeah...

I'm doing a standard 5 gal batch with a ~4 gal boil
Too much chocolate?

Too much dark malts in general... Carafa III shouldn't be more than 5% of the grist, it's almost 19% of yours.

Not sure that the Carafa III is needed at all in the recipe... Actually, just pulled it out and you're still at 25.6SRM... I would also reduce the 80L and chocolate malts... Cutting them in half, would still make for a dark brew (18.3 SRM)...

Go with 5# of 2 row, removing the Carafa III, which will help you get a decent OG...

Did you run the recipe through any software? If not, I would highly recommend doing it... I use Beer Smith, but there are other options if you don't want to spend ~$22...

Curious as to why you added the corn sugar to the brew.. Are you just trying to boost the ABV? If so, I think you'd be better served by increasing the base malt amount, and mashing a bit lower... In the 150-152F range would help it finish a bit lower... Basically, I would mash as much grain as you can and use DME to get to the OG you want...

Consider this for the grain/malt bill...
2# amber DME
7# 2 row
12oz Caramal 80L
4oz Chocolate malt

0# corn sugar

If you can mash 8# of grain in your setup, then you're set... Your OG should be about 1.061, assuming 75% efficiency... If you're using the BIAB method, then that's a pretty safe number... If you can't mash that much, then post up how much grain you can mash so we can adjust the recipe some... I do think you'll want to reduce the hops a little... Or provide the AA% of them. Otherwise you could be looking at over 70IBU. If you're good with that, then you're fine with the hop bill.

THANK YOU. I think you are correct. Too much dark stuff. However, in researching this style one common thread about Black IPAs seems to be that they all use some Carafa III.

The max grain I can handle with my setup is ~7lb

How about:
5 lb 2 row
.5 lb Carafa III
.25 lb Chocolate
1 lb Briess Caramel 80

Corn sugar is to boost abv while keeping the body light and not overloading the malt profile

I ran my original recipe through beer calculus and got 71 SRM and 57 IBU

tbeahrs said:

THANK YOU. I think you are correct. Too much dark stuff. However, in researching this style one common thread about Black IPAs seems to be that they all use some Carafa III.

The max grain I can handle with my setup is ~7lb

How about:
5 lb 2 row
.5 lb Carafa III
.25 lb Chocolate
1 lb Briess Caramel 80

Click to expand...

I'd go a different direction- I don't like the flavor of chocolate malt much and I'd reduce that for sure, and keep the carafa III (dehusked, not the regular!). That's a lot of crystal 80L. If you like sweeter IPAs, you could keep it but I don't use much crystal malt (if any) in many of my IPAs. You may want to use .5 pound to balance some of the roast flavor of the malt, though.

Pull the chocolate then... I would reduce the CarafaIII to either 4oz or 6oz, but no more than that... I would also drop the 80L to 12oz again... You'll need to increase the DME to either 2.5# or 3# to offset the lower grain amount.

revised:
2.5# Amber DME
6# 2 row
.75# Caramel 80L
.25# Carafa III

Color estimate: 20.9
Estimated OG: 1.060
Estimated FG: 1.015

With the recipe as above, you don't need the corn sugar to get to 1.060... You should have an ABV of at least 5.5%-6% (depending on how well the mash goes)... Mashing in the 150-152 range will also help you to get a lower FG... Using more malt, mashing a bit lower (or a lower range) will help the malt really come through...

I would suggest increasing your mash capacity as soon as possible... Being limited to just 7# really makes things difficult...

Golddiggie said:

revised:
2.5# Amber DME
6# 2 row
.75# Caramel 80L
.25# Carafa III

Color estimate: 20.9
Estimated OG: 1.060
Estimated FG: 1.015

Click to expand...

This looks great. Thanks for the help. Last thing is that I have 3.15 lbs Munich LME (see original recipe) I was planning on using. Will this make a big difference compared to the 2.5 lbs amber DME you are suggesting? (Other than slightly increasing the OG)

Not sure about the spec's of that LME, but it probably won't increase the OG much at all. It could make the brew significantly darker though. I would just use the DME if it was me and not worry about it... Save the LME for another brew. Maybe something really dark that will benefit more from the LME...

BTW, I have four cans of dark LME sitting on a shelf... I was going to use it to make a stout... But, I switched over to all grain brewing before then... I have the specialty grains vacuum bagged, but I'm not even sure if I'll use those now. Especially since I have a grain mill now too. So it's no big deal if you don't use the extract you had picked up for a brew for a while...

I need to see if I can find an extract brewer that would like to take that stuff off my hands while it's still good... :/

I believe stone ssr is 5% carafa III and 5% crystal 60. I used something very close to this when I made a black ipa. I would use as much 2 row as you can mash and light dme to get to target gravity.