Muddy Mon Black IPA

Hi everyone,

I am just beginning this recipe. I haven't brewed it yet, but am steeping 1.5 lbs of Carafa and have made my starter. I wanted some feedback on the recipe. Too much going on? Anything I should think about cutting out? Thanks for your thoughts! I rely on your input!


I live in Pittsburgh and this beer is named after the Monongahela River that joins with the Allegheny River to form the Ohio River. The Monongahela is always muddy and it takes a while for the two rivers to mix, so there is always a "muddy mon" stripe at the beginning of the Ohio River. This beer is bold, has a lot of stuff in it and is what I consider to be a Black IPA. I thought Muddy Mon was an appropriate name for a heavy-dark bold in-your-face brew.

-Ben


OG and FG were determined by beertools.

Ingredients:
1.5 lb (11.3%) Weyermann Carafa Special® TYPE III
1.5 lb (11.3%) Crystal 60
.5 lb (3.8%) Weyermann Carafa Special® TYPE III
0.5 lb (3.8%) Roasted Barley
0.250 lb (1.9%) American Black Roast
9 lb (67.9%) Premier Light Dry
1.0 oz (25.0%) Warrior (16.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
.5 oz (12.5%) Simcoe® (10%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 oz (25.0%) Citra™ (12.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
0.0 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added dry to primary fermenter
9.60 fl oz White Labs WLP001 California Ale
.5 oz (12.5%) Simcoe® (13.00%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz (25.0%) Citra™ (12.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
4oz tsp dark toasted Oak Wood Chips - added dry to secondary

Cold steep the crushed 1.5 lb Carafa grain overnight in 1.0 gallon of spring water purchased from grocery store. I placed the grains in a the same muslin bags that I use to steep during the boil.
Make a starter using 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup DME.

In a your brew kettle, steep the crystal malt and remaining .5 lb of carafa in 3 gallons of water at 150 °F for 30 minutes. Remove crystal malt from the wort and sparge with with 1.0 pint of 150 degree spring water.

remove the cold steeped Carafa from the one gallon that has been sitting.
add cold-steeped carafa water to the brew kettle.

kettle is now at roughly 4 gallons of water

Add 3lbs DME, to the kettle.
Boil 15 minutes then add bittering hops.
Boil 45 minutes, reduce heat and add remaining DME.
Bring wort back to a boil and add flavor/aroma hops after boil back 5 minutes.
at this time also throw in a pinch of Irish moss.


Boil 10 minutes, flame out,
chill wort
aerate wort
syphon wort into primary fermenter.
Bring final volume of water up to 5 gallons
pitch yeast starter and yeast nutrient.
Ferment as close to 70 °F as possible for 14 days.

Rack to secondary
at time of racking to secondary add .5 oz of simcoe and 1 oz of citra into beer to dry hop.
add 4ozs of dark roasted oak chips into the secondary
secondary at 70 °F for 14 more days.
CHEERS!

Oh this sounds excellent, however I am a noob so I'll refrain from giving any critiques.

Hi:

Just wondering if you followed this receipe or if you changed anything? Wondering if the 1 pt. of sparge water and sparging was really necessary? Really like the rest of the receipe though !!
Cheers

I did follow this recipe and it is currently spending its second week in the primary. It is by far the darkest beer that I have ever brewed. You are right, I probably could have skipped sparging, the only reason I chose to do it was because I was steeping so much grain I wanted to be sure I got as much absorbed wort as possible out from the grain. I would doubt that the sparging step would seriously affect the outcome of the beer one way or another.

it had an OG of 1.095 and I took a reading after a week at 1.06 so I still have some significant fermentation left (I am hoping to get it down to 1.02). I might leave it in the primary for three weeks before racking to the secondary and dryhopping and adding the oakchips.

I am also from Pittsburgh and I love the name of the brew! I am planning a Black IPA this will be my second and the first was REALLY good but not black enough for me. I was wondering if you would be able to provide any updates and/or impressions of the beer so far. I am currently planning on using a pound of carafa III and wanted to get your take on using that much. I only used about 3/8 of a pound on the last batch. I am under the impression that carafa III will darken it up without the roastiness of other dark malts therefore I felt it would be the best candidate to increase the darkness of this beer.

Mine is darker than I had planned. It turned out really good, but if I could do it again I would scale back on the amount of grains I used a little bit. The carafa added great color and flavor, so it should give you exactly what you are looking for (just don't use 4+lbs of dark grains). I would also have liked more flavor from the hops that I dry-hopped. The hop flavors were/are overshadowed more than I expected by the roasty-chocolate/coffee flavors from the grains-the woodchips might have something to do with that as well.

Overall it is a great beer, it just turned out to be more of a heavy stout than a black IPA.

A side note- it fermented really slow. It got off to a great start but then stalled around 1.04 This probably has to do with the fact that my basement in the winter stays at about 55 degrees. I had to add a little yeast nutrient to get the FG down.

I'm going to be doing an all grain brew and have about 11.5 lbs of base malt a mix of American 2-row and Maris Otter and then .5 lb of crystal 80, a pound of honey and then a pound of carafa III. I am planning a total of 7 oz of hops primarily all late additions including dry hopping with a 2 oz blend of centennial and Amarillo. I am using a second generation of wyeast 1272 which I have and has been an amazing performer for me in the past. I have hit my expected fg on all batches brewed with it and all have been in the low to mid 60s which is ambient for my basement this time of year.

Hophead76 - I have done a couple black ipas and have used briess's midnight wheat, a pound of it, with excellent results. It gives the beer a rich dark color and a touch of mouthfeel.