looking for southern tier iniquity clone...

Has anyone tried this beer? I LOVE it! It is a black IPA/CDA/American Black Ale. Im not sure what the official name for the style is but this is my favorite rendition of it so far. I would love to try and make a batch of it. It has a good amount of roasty malts along with the burst of hop flavor/aroma/bitterness. It almost has a Belgian quality to it... almost.

Southern Tier beers are easier than some to clone. Info from Southern Tiers website:

9% ABV
21 degrees plato
2 -row pale malt
debittered black malt
kettle hops : chinook, cascade
hopback :Willamette
dry hops: cascade, centennial


I know this doesn't completely answer your question, but this should be a really good start...and the malt bill is pretty simple. Just add 2-row to get the gravity and black malt to color.

It is funny. I just had one the other day and was thinking about trying to come up with a recipe.

I looked on the bottle and on the website and found the info that the poster above did. The bottle shows 52.7 L ( I am not 100% sure since I am going from memory) SO the grain bill should be pretty easy.

The only thing they do not give away is the IBU's It does not seem real hoppy so an educated guess should get you pretty close. I am going to work on the recipe in the next couple of days. Maybe we can compare and see where it gets us.

Just checked the bottle I was wrong it says 56.2L. 21 Plato= 1.084 OG. Now Just need to figure the IBU's.

Does debittered black malt add any roasty flavor.
What sort if yeast do you think?
Is hopback the same as flameout?

Here's some quick numbers from beersmith...75% efficiency

16# 12 oz 2-Row 89%
2# 2 oz De-bittered Black Malt 11%

OG: 1.084
FG: 1.015
ABV: 9.05
SRM: 56.6

I suppose with that high an amount of de-bittered black malt it would impart some roasty flavors into the beer.

Hop-backs are similar to a flameout in that they don't really impart any IBUs and are for flavor/aroma but I think of it as a more intense 0 minute addition. You get more flavor/aroma from a hop-back b/c you are using whole hops and pushing wort through them right before you chill which kinda captures the purest flavor/aroma of the hops. You could probably mimic it with just a larger 0 minute flameout hop addition, especially if you whirl-pool the hops for a little bit

I did some research and found that SRM is not equal to degree L.

2 lbs of debittered black is way too much. They recommend 1to 5% of the bill.I think that about 6-8 oz would be plenty.

The formula I found is

( lbs grain X L) / total vol =SRM

so if I am doing this right

( 16 X 1.9)/ 5 = 6L

(.45 X 550)/ 5 = 50L


for a total of 56L

When plugged into brew software it comes to about 27 SRM

I'm not sure about that formula...

For the most part I've read that SRM and °L are almost identical - further reading I've seen this formula several times

°L = (SRM + 0.6) / 1.35

And according to that there would be even more than 11% of de-bittered black malt...

Their recommendations are just that, recommendations. IMHO they expect someone using that malt to only want it for lending color - in the case with this beer it lends roasty qualities too, and that is perhaps because they use more than what is recommended and get more than just color out of the malt.

Looking at the BJCB style guidelines for a stout they range from 22-40 SRM. This beer falls on the lower end of that scale. When I tried the Iniquity Black Ale, I held it up to a light and it was not as black as many stouts. Almost a dark mahogany color through the light.

I plugged in 8oz of debittered black into my brew software and got 27 SRM which I think is about right. I think that 8 oz would give a slightly roasty flavor.

Yeah ima grab one of those tonight - it's been a while since I have had one, and I need to have a better idea of what I'm talking about since my memory's faded. BTW I don't think this beer is considered a stout.

A little note on the color: with huskless malts, the amount of color it imparts can vary quite a bit depending on how well ground up it was prior to the mashing. The finer the grind the darker it will make a beer and the flavor will become more roasty (b/c more of the malt will be suspended in the beer). Also if they filter their beers this may affect the color as well, but I'm not sure they do this.

It is not a stout, but I was just using the color guideline to illustrate the SRM

It does have roasty flavor, so I still think that 8oz. +or- should be about right, but I may be wrong since I have never used debittered black.

Any suggestions on yeast?

Thanks for this thread, should be a good start for making a clone. I like moving into the black IPAs instead of regular ones as it gets closer to fall/winter...feels more appropriate to the season

To address the yeast question, I'm thinking that since this is essentially an IPA it would be best trying a typical IPA yeast such as WLP001 or Wyeast 1056. They don't mention anything about it being belgian in the description on their web site.

Ok, here's a crack at the entire recipe based on everyone's comments using numbers for my system to make 5.25g assuming 78% eff.

I decided to shoot for 1.086 OG based on the 21 Plato conversion mentioned earlier. BrewTarget seems to think my FG will be 1.021 which would result in < 9% ABV. I suspect with making a starter in actuality my FG will be lower and it will be closer to target on ABV than this implies.

Curious for feedback on the hop schedule in particular...

Iniquity clone
Batch Size 5.250 gal
Boil Size 6.700 gal
Boil Time 1.000 hr
Efficiency 78%
OG 1.086
FG 1.021
ABV 8.4%
Bitterness 80.6 IBU (Tinseth)
Color 52 SRM (Mosher)
Calories/12 oz. 286

Fermentables

Total grain: 16.500 lb
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Pale Malt, 2 Row, US Grain 15.000 lb Yes No 78% 2 L
Debittered Black Malt Grain 1.500 lb Yes No 74% 550 L

Hops

Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Chinook 13% 2.000 oz Boil 1.000 hr Pellet 64.7
Cascade 6% 2.000 oz Boil 15.000 min Pellet 14.8
Willamette 5% 2.000 oz Boil 1.000 min Pellet 1.1
Cascade 6% 2.000 oz Dry Hop 10 days Pellet 0.0
Chinook 13% 2.000 oz Dry Hop 10 days Pellet 0.0

Yeast
Wyeast - American Ale Ale 1056

Mash

Name Type Amount Temp Target Temp Time
Mash Infusion 5.250 gal 177.831 F 156.000 F 0.000 s
Sparge Infusion 3.975 gal 195.749 F 168.200 F 15.000 min

Well, I ordered the ingredients and am going to give this a try tomorrow. Only change is that I've got a yeast cake of wlp051 Cali V that I'm going to use instead of 1056. Will let you know how it goes.

neomantra said:

Well, I ordered the ingredients and am going to give this a try tomorrow. Only change is that I've got a yeast cake of wlp051 Cali V that I'm going to use instead of 1056. Will let you know how it goes.

Click to expand...

How did brew day go? I'm tempted to try this recipe too.

Has anybody else tried it?

Thanks!

Edit: Okay I happened to drive past the LHBS and picked up the grain bill. I'll probably brew it this weekend (I want it to be ready by thanksgiving). Any/all advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Because it's a bigger beer I decided to do a 90min boil so I could use more sparge water in hopes of squeaking out some extra sugar. This seemed to work, but I think I had messed up some settings in BrewTarget for 90min boils (probably evaporation rate since my losses wouldn't change). I ended up with ~5.6g instead of 5.25g as intended. which resulted in a lower OG (1.074) than intended. However I think BrewTarget's estimation of FG is probably high...at least it usually is for me with AG batches. If this beer finishes around 1.010 which is a more typical FG for my AG batches then it'll be about 8.5%.

Having only gone through brew day and not tasting the result yet all I can say is that you should make sure to adjust the amount of 2row based on your brewhouse efficiency if you're worried about matching the 9% abv exactly. In terms of taste I doubt it will matter much if you end up anywhere between 8-10% though. The color looks right but that wasn't hard to predict given a huge helping of debittered black. It smelled delicious on brew day but the rest remains to be seen

I'll keep you posted as I draw a few hydro samples along the way and start to get an idea of how this is going to taste. I also picked up 2 bombers from the store last week so I can do an eventual side by side tasting.

Cool! Thanks for the update.

Did you use a starter?

Also, I will be doing the BIAB method.

No starter, but I'd recommend one if you're starting from nothing. I had a batch of Bell's 2 Hearted I was trying to clone and just washed a big flask's worth of the yeast from that cake.

Are you doing a 5 gallon batch of this for BIAB? I don't know how that will work out since this is an awful lot of grain. I could never manage more than 10-12lbs for BIAB in the times I tried it and we're talking about somewhere between 16-19lbs here depending on your efficiency.

I have a 15 gallon brew kettle. I think I can manage this grain bill - with the help of a pulley.

BrewPal says I need 252bn yeast cells. I will have to sharpen my pencil and see what kind if starter I'll need.

Also, how long do you plan on leaving this in the fermenter?

Thanks!

Nice Yeah wet grain bags are a PITA to lift out of the kettle. What kind of bags are you using to manage that kind of weight without them tearing? Do you break the bill up into multiple bags for high gravity beers or double bag it or something?

You're way more disciplined than me in terms of yeast cell calcs. I boiled a pot of water, cooled it down with an ice bath, and dumped it in the carboy to wash the cake. Then after it settled for ~20min I filled my 1000ml flask and let it sit the duration of brew day. When I was ready to pitch later that night I dumped some of the clear beer off the top and shook up the rest. Probably about 400ml left at that point. It had a nice krausen about 24 hours later but I have no idea if that was 252bn cells or not. Is it possible to calculate that somehow when you're not starting with a package of Wyeast or White labs or whatever?

It's been about a week and it looks like it's settling down now. I'll probably leave it another two weeks or so until it looks like bubbling has mostly stopped and then add the dry hops for another 1-2 weeks. How long I let it sit usually has more to do with my availability of free time to bottle than anything else. I just try to make sure I never let dry hops sit in longer than 2.5 weeks at most if I can help it since I've heard that can lead to grassy notes. No idea if that's true but I don't care to find out.

neomantra said:

Nice Yeah wet grain bags are a PITA to lift out of the kettle. What kind of bags are you using to manage that kind of weight without them tearing? Do you break the bill up into multiple bags for high gravity beers or double bag it or something?

Is it possible to calculate that somehow when you're not starting with a package of Wyeast or White labs or whatever?

Click to expand...

I'm using the Bayou Classic 62 quart stainless steel stockpot with the "boil" basket. The bag lines the basket and I will leave it open at the top so that I can stir the grains. Then I can pull the entire thing out (basket, bag and grains). The basket will the the heavy lifting.

I don't know of a surefire way to calc the yeast population other than what the little pouch says... I'm sure there's a thread on it somewhere in here.

Thanks again for the tips.

Neomantra: I did this today using the no-sparge BIAB process. I hit a few bump in the road using 16.5 lbs of grain in my bag/strainer. I definitely wish I didn't use the basket... it made the large grain bill a bit cramped.

Anyway, I ended up with a 1.086 OG, higher than predicted by iBrewmaster (1.080).

It's pitch black and tastes good. Very hoppy. I ended up using Nugget rather than Chinook. So my hop schedule is:

Nugget 2oz @ 60
Cascade 2oz @ 15
Williamette 2oz @ 1

I also plan to add 1 oz each of Cascade and Williamette for 10 days dry hop (once fermentation has slowed). I am second guessing this because it is already very hoppy.

I'm interested in thoughts/comments about this. I will post pics in a few... Thanks!

Here's the brew. 1.5 lbs of Carafe III Special makes it black! Looks like I got close to 80% efficiency.

Three varieties of hop pellets.

Oh man I am anxious to see how it turns out

I taste tested mine on Saturday when checking the gravity before adding the dry hops. Very delicious already!

I went ahead with the original dry hopping. It's not going to add more bitterness, just more aroma. I'm sure on brew day that seemed really heavy but after a few weeks of fermentation that will have faded substantially and you'll probably be more interested in pumping the aroma up again.

Neo, great! What was the gravity reading? How long do you plan on dry hopping for?

I ended up at 1.074 and 5.5g instead of the intended 5.25g at 1.087. When I checked the gravity on Saturday it was down to 1.020.

Looking at my calendar I think I should be able to bottle on the weekend of Nov 5th so that'll be 2 weeks on the dry hop.

neomantra said:

I ended up at 1.074 and 5.5g instead of the intended 5.25g at 1.087. When I checked the gravity on Saturday it was down to 1.020.

Looking at my calendar I think I should be able to bottle on the weekend of Nov 5th so that'll be 2 weeks on the dry hop.

Click to expand...

Cool, keep us posted! Mine is chugging away in the closet (swamp cooler). It's like the tell-tale heart... I can hear it every where I go in the house.

Quick update...took another gravity reading today in preparation for bottling this weekend. Down to 1.018 which puts me at 7.3%. Considering it only dropped 2 points in the past week and a half I suspect it's done but we'll find out for sure on Saturday.

The dry hops has left an amazing aroma as expected...even warm and flat this one's already delicious!

I took a couple pictures while I was at it:

neomantra said:

Quick update...took another gravity reading today in preparation for bottling this weekend. Down to 1.018 which puts me at 7.3%.

Click to expand...

Neo, That's funny because I did the exact same thing this afternoon. My fermentation has stopped - no change in the gravity reading since Saturday. But I'm stuck at 1030. Ironically that leaves me with a 7.3% ABV too. It tastes GREAT!

I haven't added the dry hops yet. I will when I keg it on Thursday or Friday.

I can't wait to get this on tap.

Just pulled my first pour. It's great - not exactly what I aimed for but still great.

Problem: sweeter than intended
Cause: poor BIAB mash temp control.

Problem: too much coffee flavor
Cause: 10% carafa III

Next time I'll manage the temps better and cut back the carafa to 5% ish.

Otherwise, brew it, this is great.

Cascadian Dark Ale

Style: Unassigned
Type: All Grain Calories: 281
Rating: 0.0 Efficiency: 75 %
IBU's: 88.06 Boil Size: 6.49 Gal
Color: 48.5 SRM Batch Size: 5.25 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Estimated Actual
Brew Date: - 10/23/2011
OG: 1.086 1.086
FG: 1.021 1.030
ABV: 8.51 % 7.34 %
Serve Date: 11/09/2011 / /

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp Estimated Actual
Primary 10 days @ 68.0°F 10/23/2011 10/23/2011
Bottle/Keg 7 days @ 38.0°F 11/02/2011 11/03/2011

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
1.50 lbs 9.09 % Carafa III 60 mins 1.032
15.00 lbs 90.91 % Briess 2-Row Pale Ale Malt 60 mins 1.037

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
2.00 ozs 71.70 Nugget 60 mins 13.00
2.00 ozs 15.06 Cascade 15 mins 5.50
2.00 ozs 1.31 Williamette 1 mins 5.50
1.00 ozs Cascade 10 days 5.50
1.00 ozs Nugget 10 days 13.00

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg Safale US-05 Fermentis US-05

Additions
(none)

Mash Profile
Sacch' Rest 60 min @ 152.0°F
Add 24.75 qt ( 1.50 qt/lb ) water @ 167.4°F

Carbonation
Amount Type Beer Temp CO2 Vols
11.2 psi Force Carbonation 38.0°F 2.50

Notes
1086 OG
Bubbling started 10/24/11 at 1pm.

1030 10/30/11

www.iBrewMaster.com Version: 2.755

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

So how would you compare it to southern tier iniquity?

I'm curious if the over abundance of coffee flavoring you're picking up is related to the really high FG. I didn't have that impression when tasting my hydro sample. Maybe you just need to pitch two packets of the safale next time since this is such a high gravity beer.

I meant to bottle mine Sunday but I had too many homebrews during the football games and got lazy. Will hopefully get it done Wednesday, and will report back with an update then.

Donjonson, I've got 2 bombers of Iniquity I picked up a couple weeks ago to do a side by side comparison once it's carbed up. I've only had it once and that was back in July so it'll be good to have a proper reminder of what it's really supposed to taste like.

neomantra said:

I'm curious if the over abundance of coffee flavoring you're picking up is related to the really high FG. I didn't have that impression when tasting my hydro sample. Maybe you just need to pitch two packets of the safale next time since this is such a high gravity beer.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain that the high final gravity is due to the poor temp control during the mash (too high). After it stalled I tried to rouse the yeast by raising the temp, a few CO2 bubbles and maybe a point or two drop but it was clearly done.

After having a few pints I have one more issue with this batch:
Weak hop aroma - I added 1 oz each of cascade and nugget to the keg (in a bag). Hopefully they will add more to the aroma in a few more days.

I'm probably being too critical. My neighbor who is a fantastic (and hardcore) brewer offered a positive review. My criticisms are based on my expectations (he had none).

Finally, I haven't had a chance to pick up a ST Inequity since I stated serving mine. I'll do that comparison ASAP.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to others' input and experiences with this.

Ah, yeah that makes sense regarding mashing temp and FG. I think upping the dry hop is a good idea too. I went with 4oz total (2oz centennial/2oz cascade) and it's got a nice aroma presence.

I finally found the free time to bottle mine on Friday so in about 3 weeks I'll do an initial comparison with the real deal. Since I made some changes from when I posted a few pages back here's the updated 'final' version I ended up using. So far the only suggestions I'd make to anyone is to make sure you adjust the amount of 2row you use to actually hit the 9% abv with whatever your efficiency is, and that you could probably use any of the other typical IPA yeast strains (wlp cali 001/wyeast 1056/etc). I only used the wlp051 because I had some on hand and didn't have the others. Will provide more feedback in a few weeks though...


Iniquity clone - Imperial IPA
======================
Batch Size: 5.275 gal
Boil Size: 7.300 gal
Boil Time: 90.000 min
Mash Temp: 156F
Efficiency: 70%
OG: 1.083 (actual 1.074)
FG: 1.022 (actual 1.017)
ABV: 7.9% (actual 7.6%)
Bitterness: 82.1 IBUs (Tinseth)
Color: 49 SRM (Morey)

Fermentables
=================
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Pale Malt, 2 Row, US Grain 16.000 lb Yes No 78%% 2 L
Debittered Black Malt Grain 1.500 lb Yes No 74%% 550 L
Total grain: 17.500 lb

Hops
========================
Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Chinook 11.8%% 2.000 oz Boil 90.000 min Pellet 66.6
Cascade 5.5%% 2.000 oz Boil 15.000 min Pellet 14.4
Willamette 4.5%% 2.000 oz Boil 1.000 min Pellet 1.0
Cascade 6.0%% 2.000 oz Dry Hop 10.000 day Pellet 0.0
Centennial 10.5%% 2.000 oz Dry Hop 10.000 day Pellet 0.0

Misc
=========================
Name Type Use Amount Time
Irish Moss Fining Boil 1.000 tsp 15.000 min

Yeast
=======================
Name Type Form Amount Stage
White Labs California Ale V (WLP051) Ale Liquid 0.571 cup Primary

Ok, here we go...side by side. The commercial bottle I've got here has a vague imprint of a date on it that says 7/21/11. I'm not 100% sure if that's the brew date or a suggested "drink by" date. Either way it's indicative of some of the things I'm about to say.

Smell: Iniquity smells are almost exclusively dominated by the malt. Smooth chocolate notes from the debittered black. On my clone there's heavy dry hop aroma. I really need to find a fresh bottle of Iniquity to get a real idea of how close the aroma is to the real thing.

Appearance: Color is identical. A little more lacing from the real deal than the clone. Both poured with a very thin head that sticks the entire way down the glass. The foam on mine is more tannish looking compared to the Iniquity foam being a little more white.

Taste: The Iniquity is 9% ABV and that comes through in the taste, especially with the older bottle that's lost some of the hops flavor. Because I screwed up a bit on the efficiency and ended at 7.6% there is less hot alcohol flavor.. In my clone there is obviously a lot more flavor from the hops since it's only a week out from being carbonated. I think mine is slightly more bitter but rather than reducing the bittering hop addition I think next time I'll just aim to fix the efficiency issue. It would probably be about right if my beer had turned out at 9% as intended. One last note...I used Cali V yeast for this. I honestly can't tell if that is contributing much flavor difference or not. I should probably brew a split batch at some point and do half with cali V and half with wlp001 or wyeast 1056 to see what the difference is.

Conclusion: Brew this recipe if you like black IPAs...it's delicious. If you're super concerned with nailing the clone exactly be sure to modify the amount of 2row to get you to 9% ABV for your setup, and probably use wyeast 1056 or wlp001 instead of the cali V.