First Custom Receipt - Black IPA - thoughts?

Hello - so here is what I got, any suggestions/comments much appreciated. This was just compiled off of reading hop profiles and the limited knowledge I have on the ingredients. This will only be my second batch so I am very green to this.

Malt:
Pale Extract 6.6 lbs
Steeping:
Carafa II or III 8 oz
Cystal 60L 8 oz
Choc Malt 8 oz
Toasted Oat 8 oz

Hop Schedule
1 oz Columbus @ 60
0.5oz NorthernB @ 30
0.5oz Nugget @ 20
.5oz NorthernB @ 10
.5oz Columbus @ 0

Dry Hop
1 oz Mt. Hood
.5 oz Nugget

and I have Wyeast London ESB 1968 that I'm going to do as a starter.

Thanks for taking a peep.

umm - title should be recipe and not receipt. Gotta love posting through a phone.

I am in no way an expert but I recently did a dark IPA.

I think you could drop the oats and maybe even the chocolate (or cut it back to a few ounces)

I would also probably give it some more hops to balance out the roasty flavor from the dark grains.

The one I recently did I just used 8 oz. Debittered black and 4 oz C80. When I bottled it the other day I tasted a nice roasty flavor that was then balanced by the hops. I think I had about 60-65 IBU. I used 7lbs of DME.

Good luck. This is such a new style that everyone is still experimenting. I used Southern Tier Iniquity ale as a guide. They give a lot of info on the bottle and their website.

Thanks. What did your hop schedule look like? Any suggestions where in the additions I should add? I guess more Nuggets mixed in the boil? I really like hoppy beers so I don't want to short myself on this end of the beer.

We did a Black IPA that came out great a while back.

I've had some "black IPAs" before that tasted more like porters than IPAs, so I would probably kill the chocolate & substitute for US Special Roasted, which adds an awesome subtle roasted flavor that is in the background.

beergolf has it right - scale your hops to hit around 60 IBUs if you can.

Good luck

I'd ditch the chocolate malt and consider limiting the different hops. I'd double all the late (>20mins) adds tho.

Thanks for the suggestions. Any thoughts on doing a late extract addition on this to get more out of the hops?

I agree, I did one a while back and you really don't need alot of chocolate or toasted malts to give you the "black" in you IPA.

So just the Carafa II and Crystal 60 will give me my color? Cut out all of the Choc?

pNesh said:

So just the Carafa II and Crystal 60 will give me my color? Cut out all of the Choc?

Click to expand...

I'd say so: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/stone-xi-anniversary-clone-51521/#post517660

from what i've been reading, any or all of the three "C"s is appropriate based on personal taste... i'm brewing a CDA soon and it has crystal 60, chocolate and carafa III - very little chocolate and carafa tho. i'm also going to finely grind the carafa and just add it to the last 20 minutes of the mash to get color, not flavor.

not that it matters (that's why they make chocolate and vanilla), but oats are not part of the style for a CDA.

Was just adding oat to be different and give a bigger mouthfeel. Not worried ab guidelines - just want to make good beer that is my own.

Will lower the choc and carafa though - may try and grab an extra oz of nugget hops

jtakacs said:

from what i've been reading, any or all of the three "C"s is appropriate based on personal taste... i'm brewing a CDA soon and it has crystal 60, chocolate and carafa III - very little chocolate and carafa tho. i'm also going to finely grind the carafa and just add it to the last 20 minutes of the mash to get color, not flavor.

not that it matters (that's why they make chocolate and vanilla), but oats are not part of the style for a CDA.

Click to expand...

FYI, Deschutes' Hop in the Dark uses both flaked and toasted oats and it is one the better examples of the cda/bipa style.

Cheers!
Kevin