Specialty IPA: Black IPA Hurt by The Man in Black IPA

Grain Bill -- Mash at 150°F for 60 minutes

11.0 lb - 2-Row
0.75 lb - Caramel/Crystal 80L
0.4 lb - Extra Special
0.3 lb - Chocolate
0.3 lb - Victory
0.3 lb - Black Malt
0.3 lb - Roasted Barley

Hop Schedule

1.0 oz - Northern Brewer - 60 min
1.0 oz - Cascade - 30 min
1.0 oz - CTZ - 30 min
1.0 oz - Cascade - 10 min
1.0 oz - CTZ - 10 min
2.0 oz - Cascade - 5 days Dry Hop <-- I might consider upping this to 3 oz on the next batch.

WLP001 or US-05. I used WLP001.

Carb to same levels as a traditional IPA.

very nice I have been looking for an IPA and a Black IPA would be even better

next two brews are already to go but in 2 weeks I will give it a brew

thanks for putting it up

S_M

Seems like an awful lot (21%) of specialty grains. Also, the numbers are a little suspicious.

It looks like your total potential sugars were 1.098, so if your OG was 1.066, that suggests an efficiency of 67%. 11 lbs of 2-row has the potential for 84 points, so at 67% efficiency, that means 56 of your OG points were fermentable, and the other 10 were not. So if your FG went all the way down to 1.012, 10 of those points were unfermentables, leaving only 2 points as residual 2-row sugars, which suggests an attenuation of 97%, which is off-the-chart high. US-05 typically caps out at 81% attenuation.

Something's not right - that much unfermentable sugar should not have fermented out so dry. Are you sure your calculations and measurements are correct?

Specialty grains are 18% (To be exact, 17.6%). I've put this into 3 different programs after reading your post and every one of them has come back at 1.066 @ 75% efficiency.

When I brewed it, I hit 72% efficiency and my OG was 1.063.

It did in fact finish at 1.012, I checked it 3 days in a row and it did not move. BrewToad and BeerSmith both suggest FG will be 1.015. I am unsure how to really mess with mash temps in the apps and if it would even change the FG. Mashing at 150, got me down to 1.012.

Feel free to check it out on BrewToad.

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/2327-hurt-by-the-man-in-black

Although I do see I probably should have put the FG at 1.015, as hitting 75% could have possibly changed my final. That being said, those 3 points would still put me above that 81% based on your calculations.

While your math is right, that's assuming that 1.066 is 67%. Based on what I'm seeing, 1.066 is 75%, which makes 63 points fermentable, not 56.

If I'm not mistaken, isn't 1.066 down to 1.012, 81%?

sboyajian said:

Specialty grains are 18% (To be exact, 17.6%).

Click to expand...

Whoops, you're right, I was dividing the weight of the specialty grains (2.35 lbs) against the weight of the base grains (11 lbs) instead of the total grain bill (13.35 lbs).

sboyajian said:

While your math is right, that's assuming that 1.066 is 67%. Based on what I'm seeing, 1.066 is 75%, which makes 63 points fermentable, not 56.

Click to expand...

Here's what I did: You've got 11 lbs of 2-row, which have a PPG of 38, meaning they're good for 84 points of gravity. The rest of your grains contribute about 14 points of gravity, which is how I got to the maximum total potential sugars of 1.098. But your actual total sugars was 1.066. 66 is 67% of 98. So that means that (assuming efficiency was evenly balanced across all your malts) at 67% efficiency, your 2-row contributed 67% of their potential 84 points, which is 56 points. That means the remaining 10 points come from your specialty grains.

Those 10 points from specialty grains are all unfermentable. So they'll still be there in the FG. So if your FG is 1.012, then 1.010 of that is your specialty grains, meaning only 0.002 points of your 2-row sugars are left. 56 down to 2 is 96% attenuation.

sboyajian said:

If I'm not mistaken, isn't 1.066 down to 1.012, 81%?

Click to expand...

82%, yes, but I don't think yeast attenuation figures account for unfermentable sugars, because they can vary widely by recipe. Aren't yeast attenuation numbers calculated in a lab environment using a 100% fermentable wort? That's why I only accounted for the fermentation of the 2-row portion of your recipe.

I'll readily admit I could be wrong, but this is how I understand this stuff to work. I'm open to correction if anyone sees a flaw in either my or the OP's understanding.

Not actually sure. I never actually considered it would be based on 100% fermentable, since I've put yeasts that should be at 80% in something like cider and watched it blast out to near 100.

I can just tell you from what the apps told me when I built the recipe, and then what mine finished at.

Now, one thing to consider is the 150 mash temp will make it a little more fermentable than say 156... So maybe that's how.

I just know in real world, those are definitely the numbers I hit and it's probably one of the best beers I've ever made. Figured I'd share.

Regardless, it looks delicious!

I think I found the other issue. Looks like you calculated potential sugars based on 5 gallons ((38 x 11) / 5 = 83.6). My recipe is for 5.5 gallons. Potential points of the 2 row are 76, not 84. I think this is how we came to different efficiency %'s.

Ah, that would do it.