Black IPA Grain Bill?

Hey all!

Hoping to brew a Black IPA tomorrow, pretty much decided on the hops (Willamette for bittering, Nelson Sauvin for aroma) and yeast (US-05 for a nice clean ferm) but I'm still undecided on the malts. I have a large amount of low colour Maris Otter, so I think that will be the base malt, but how should I "blacken" it? Chocolate, Roast Barley or both? Should I mix in some pilsener, or would that just overcomplicate it?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

dangloverenator said:

Hey all!

Hoping to brew a Black IPA tomorrow, pretty much decided on the hops (Willamette for bittering, Nelson Sauvin for aroma) and yeast (US-05 for a nice clean ferm) but I'm still undecided on the malts. I have a large amount of low colour Maris Otter, so I think that will be the base malt, but how should I "blacken" it? Chocolate, Roast Barley or both? Should I mix in some pilsener, or would that just overcomplicate it?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

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Hey there dangloverenator, I just did a black IPA and it turned out great! Here's my grain bill for it



I used all different hops. One of my new favorite brews. Good luck on the brew!

You want the dark color and rich flavor without the harsh acrid roasty flavors of most dark malts. Most recipes I've seen black IPA use "special" dehusked dark malts that add the color and flavor without the bitterness of typical dark roasted malts. Also, you don't need much to make the batch black. Even 8 oz in a 5 gallon batch will do it. Check some established recipes from BYO, Zymurgy, Northern Brewer, etc for examples.

I don't know why you would choose to use special roast and carafa II together in a IBA. Brewers typically use carafa malts to get color without roastiness, yet you then used SR with has 50L worth of roasty/coffee flavor. Otherwise why not just use roast barley etc and skip the carafa?



As to the OPs question, you can make a great IBA by milling the chocolate or roast separately and adding it at the very end of the mash. That will restrain the roastiness somewhat. Many brewers use the carafa malts (carafa I, II, III) to get color without much coffee/chocolate flavor. "Midnight wheat" is used similarly. Carafa II is my grain of choice in my IBA because I want a dark colored beer that doesn't taste like a hoppy stout. I added the carafa at the end of the mash. My bill is 70% base, 12% munich, 10% C40 and 8% carafa II. Good luck! It's a fun beer to brew and drink.

HomebrewMTB said:

You want the dark color and rich flavor without the harsh acrid roasty flavors of most dark malts. Most recipes I've seen black IPA use "special" dehusked dark malts that add the color and flavor without the bitterness of typical dark roasted malts. Also, you don't need much to make the batch black. Even 8 oz in a 5 gallon batch will do it. Check some established recipes from BYO, Zymurgy, Northern Brewer, etc for examples.

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Thanks, yeah that's what I was thinking - think I'll avoid the roasted barley for this reason. Am I right in thinking that chocolate malt is de-husked? Or should I head to my LHBS and pick up some sort of carafa malt? I've also got some Munich that I could add in conjunction with a small amount of chocolate. How would that work?

bigbeergeek said:

I don't know why you would choose to use special roast and carafa II together in a IBA. Brewers typically use carafa malts to get color without roastiness, yet you then used SR with has 50L worth of roasty/coffee flavor. Otherwise why not just use roast barley etc and skip the carafa?.

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It was my first time brewing a BIPA. I was told this was a good recipe So I tried it and it turned out great! I was told it had both so that it had a real opaque black, Alittle roasted flavor and using All the grains have to offer as far getting good alcohol content. They figured and I do as well that making a black IPA isn't just about taking an IPA and adding "food coloring" it's about making a unique beer with different flavors.

t-jarks22 said:

They figured and I do as well that making a black IPA isn't just about taking an IPA and adding "food coloring" it's about making a unique beer with different flavors.

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Agreed. Carafa isn't food coloring. It contributes roastiness, albiet restrained roastiness, to the final beer. Examples of India Black Ales run from almost no perceptible roastiness to Russian Imperial Stout style roastiness.

It's all a matter of preference. I like my IBAs with as little roast character as possible so the hops and other malty flavors can shine too -- but there's going to be a roast component as long as you aren't using food coloring. Having said all that, I still don't understand the objective of the special roast/carafa combination.

Agree with all of the above, however for this beer I want to let the Nelson hops shine through, because they're one of my favourite varieties and I think they would work well in a BIPA/IBA/CDA. Just to throw it out there, what do people think about the possibility of adding wheat to give it some dunkel-like flavours? Worth a shot?

bigbeergeek said:

Agreed. Carafa isn't food coloring. It contributes roastiness, albiet restrained roastiness, to the final beer. Examples of India Black Ales run from almost no perceptible roastiness to Russian Imperial Stout style roastiness.

It's all a matter of preference. I like my IBAs with as little roast character as possible so the hops and other malty flavors can shine too -- but there's going to be a roast component as long as you aren't using food coloring. Having said all that, I still don't understand the objective of the special roast/carafa combination.

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I can definitely appreciate a strait hop blast beer with little competition from coffee flavors. It is a preference thing, though I like both styles now. Like I said I was just going off a recipe that I was given.

As far as the combo,they may seem unnecessary but all grains have different things to offer. Each adds something to the beer. Though some may seem small to insignificant when put with another they can still contribute to a great brew! It's all about experimenting and having fun with the process! I think I will try a less roasted IBA a few brews from now

Based on what I've actually got at home, and all your awesome comments, I'm now thinking something along these lines...

75% Low Colour Maris Otter
15% Wheat Malt (to hopefully make up the body that LC Maris Otter lacks)
5% Crystal (in the UK, crystal malt is just "Crystal," we don't tend to have the different grades, but IIRC it's about equivalent to Crystal 60)
5% Chocolate Malt (haven't got my recipe software to hand, but depending on the colour, this may be adjusted up or down)

Thoughts? EDIT: My biggest concern with this is that the wheat would compete with the hops, but if I use a neutral yeast like US-05, this shouldn't be a problem right?

Slightly off topic, but I've just remembered I also have a bag of Centennial hops in the freezer. Definitely throwing some of those bad boys in too!

i just brewed up a BIPA a few days ago and added some black patent in the last 5 mins of the mash (was considering last 10 mins but figuring double batch sparge was going to take 15-20 mins, there would be enough time to get some roast from malt). brew store didnt have any carafa special or midnight wheat. considered buying briess blackprinz debittered as 3rd choice but already had black patent at home i need to use up. 1st runnings went from copper to dark brown at end. 2nd runnings were dark brown-black (when wort started collecting) and detected roast taste and aroma (during boil whole apartment smelled like i was brewing a porter). has another 1.5 weeks to ferment so i can't speak accurately about the results but here's what i was reading when formulating recipe:

http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2010/11/black-color-without-roast-flavor.html
http://ahomebrewlog.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-lodge.html?m=1
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=73867&view=previous