My first competition score sheet is in.

I just got my score sheet from my first competition: 30.7
Here's the link for the score sheet and here's the recipe. I'd appreciate suggestions.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B37i8dKqT0Zwem9TaUwtWktfVW8/edit?usp=sharing

Specialty Beer 23- Black IPA following the American IPA style 14B

3 Gal Batch- BIAB

8lb Marris Otter
1lb Acid Malt
.5lb Crystal 60L
.5lb Carafa II special

4.3 g to 159F StrikeMash at 150 for 60min
Mash out 10 168F 10 Min
1.8 g Sparge Water- Dunk 168F

Boil

60 min .75 oz Simcoe 14.1% AA
15 min .5 Cascade 6.2% , Citra 15.6%, Chinook 11.1%
15 Min Yeast Nutrient and Irish Moss
10 min .25 oz Simcoe 14.1% .5 Chinook 11.1%

Cool to 120F- Hop Stand .5oz Citra 15.6% .5 oz Cascade 6.2% 20 min
Cool to 70F

Pitched US-05

Dry Hop 7 Days:
1oz Cascade

1oz Chinook
1oz Citra

Measured OG was 1.065
Measured FG 1.010

From the comments, I think I need to have a more complex malt profile and a little more body and sweetness. Suggestions?

I don't see your score sheet, however a score of 30.7 (kind of odd rounding) is good!

Difficult to make any suggestions when we dont know the style attempted and category number entered.

I'm working on getting the attachment up. It was too large for the forum.

Score sheet is up. Thanks for your patience.

I like that your beer was judged by three BJCP judges ranging from master to certified to recognized. To be completely frank with you, I would value the master level's comments and feedback much higher than the certified or the recognized.

Also, I would say that your recognized judge should review how to fill out a BJCP score sheet. It's not awful, but it's certainly not the expected standard. His flavor comment, "Too much roast and toast not enough hops" is not acceptable for a flavor description. You may want to forward that score sheet to the event coordinator.

Looking at your recipe and the master level's comments, I would recommend adding a little something to round out the malt. I like to add Vienna or Munich malt to give certain styles more back bone and complexity. It would help provide a balance to the sweetness from the caramel malts and bitterness from the hops. You could also email the master level judge directly (include his score sheet) and ask him if he could help you more directly.

Is that really a pound of acid malt?!

Honestly, the fact that you entered a Black IPA as an American IPA and got a score over 30, you should be doing backflips! Congrats, well done!

The thing about competitions, and the reason I'm hesitant to do another, is that for the most part you really need to stick to the style guidelines in order to score well, unless you have a really exceptional beer.

In your case, each judge deducted a few points because they felt your bottle fill was a bit low. Obviously, that's a judgement call on how much he or she is going to penalize you, but that to me speaks of someone looking for a reason to deduct a couple extra points - unless you submitted a 12oz bottle with only 10oz in it, or something along those lines... But the comment seemed consistent, so maybe this is something to watch.

Then look at the appearance category - 12/20 in all three. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't ding you more, considering what an American IPA is supposed to look like, and what we all know a Black IPA looks like. It seems he was fairly generous here, because a Black IPA completely misses the style guidelines for an American IPA. From BJCP: "Color ranges from medium gold to medium reddish copper; some versions can have an orange-ish tint. Should be clear, although unfiltered dry-hopped versions may be a bit hazy." That doesn't describe any Black IPA I've ever had - though a couple judges described yours as deep or dark brown, so maybe yours wasn't quite as pitch black as some I've seen. Saving grace, sort of?

I'd say, if anything, the things to take back from this for sure are to watch your bottle fill level (since all three judges agreed that was low) and try to stick closer to the style guidelines you're entering under. You're obviously entering really good beers if you're scoring over 30 even when you're entering something slightly out of style, so if you can fix the easy stuff like fill level and enter something more in style, you can likely pick up a bunch more points.

Based solely on the score sheets, maybe cut back on the carafa, add a small amount of some chocolate or maybe Special or Extra Special Roast for a bit of malt complexity.

For hops, you could back off on the bittering a little (hops + roasted malts can give a higher perceived bitterness) and up the flavor and aroma hops.

I'm no expert of the style, but that's where I'd start.

stratslinger said:

Honestly, the fact that you entered a Black IPA as an American IPA and got a score over 30, you should be doing backflips! Congrats, well done!

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Category 23 is Specialty Beers. Category 14B is American IPA.

In your case, each judge deducted a few points because they felt your bottle fill was a bit low. Obviously, that's a judgement call on how much he or she is going to penalize you, but that to me speaks of someone looking for a reason to deduct a couple extra points - unless you submitted a 12oz bottle with only 10oz in it, or something along those lines... But the comment seemed consistent, so maybe this is something to watch.

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You are not scored for Low Fill. It's more of a general inspection of the bottle before it is opened. It's something that the brewer can definitely control however.

Then look at the appearance category - 12/20 in all three. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't ding you more, considering what an American IPA is supposed to look like, and what we all know a Black IPA looks like. It seems he was fairly generous here, because a Black IPA completely misses the style guidelines for an American IPA. From BJCP: "Color ranges from medium gold to medium reddish copper; some versions can have an orange-ish tint. Should be clear, although unfiltered dry-hopped versions may be a bit hazy." That doesn't describe any Black IPA I've ever had - though a couple judges described yours as deep or dark brown, so maybe yours wasn't quite as pitch black as some I've seen. Saving grace, sort of?

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Again, he entered it into Category 23 as a Black IPA, not category 14B.

I'd say, if anything, the things to take back from this for sure are to watch your bottle fill level (since all three judges agreed that was low) and try to stick closer to the style guidelines you're entering under. You're obviously entering really good beers if you're scoring over 30 even when you're entering something slightly out of style, so if you can fix the easy stuff like fill level and enter something more in style, you can likely pick up a bunch more points.

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Agreed except for the style guidelines recommendation. Category 23 is really a catch all for beers that don't quite fit the guidelines for the other categories.

Any place you can mail a bottle or 2 and have it judged ? Or is that a stupid question ?

Darwin18 said:

You are not scored for Low Fill. It's more of a general inspection of the bottle before it is opened. It's something that the brewer can definitely control however.



Again, he entered it into Category 23 as a Black IPA, not category 14B.

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On the low fill bit, I only mentioned it because he was marked down by all three judges in that category, and two of them specifically mentioned the low fill. Seemed an easy fix.

And the category, yeah, I missed that. I think the OP earlier stated flat out that he had entered as 14B, and I just took that as gospel and didn't read the score sheets. Whoops!

It's all good!

stratslinger said:

On the low fill bit, I only mentioned it because he was marked down by all three judges in that category, and two of them specifically mentioned the low fill. Seemed an easy fix.

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Well, you mentioned that they docked points, and here you say he was marked down, which implies points, and this should not be the case. Bottle inspection should in no way impact your score, and I don't see any indication here that it did.

I point this out, not to be nit-picky (although it may seem that way), only so that people who are reading can be clear that bottle fill is not meant to have any impact whatsoever on your score, as clearly stated on the scoresheet cover sheet.

GinSlinger said:

Is that really a pound of acid malt?!

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Thats what I was thinking. Isn't that way too much? Wouldn't the mash pH be really low using that much and having roasted malts in the grist? That's 10% of the grain bill. Does it have a tart taste to it?

dstranger99 said:

Any place you can mail a bottle or 2 and have it judged ? Or is that a stupid question ?

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any of these:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/competitions/aha-bjcp-sanctioned-competition/calendar

BrewKnurd said:

Well, you mentioned that they docked points, and here you say he was marked down, which implies points, and this should not be the case. Bottle inspection should in no way impact your score, and I don't see any indication here that it did.

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Son of a gun, that's what I get for responding to threads before my second cup of coffee... I was transposing lines, reading the score for aroma as the "bottle inspection score" like a dummy... Which also throws my appearance idea right the heck out the window.

In that light...

It seems that the Master and Certified judges (we'll stick with them), both agreed that the aroma could use a little work (maybe work on your dry hopping or flameout hop additions, not sure if they were expecting a malt component to the aroma here?) and it was the flavor, not the appearance, that everyone docked the 8 points... Quite a few good suggestions already made on this point - and I'd be with the camp that, at first blush, a pound of acid malt sounds like a lot, especially with the darker malts that are already going to lead to a more acidic malt anyway. But then, I know nothing about the water you're brewing with either.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

The ph level of my water is always to high, even with the dark malt that I used, so I like to use Acid Malt instead of adding a liquid acid to the mash.

I'll work on some complexity to my malt profile.

I'm really excited about this score because it was the first recipe that I formulated on my own.

You should be proud of it! The Master Level Judge gave you a 33 - that's a very solid score.

Uziyahu said:

The ph level of my water is always to high, even with the dark malt that I used, so I like to use Acid Malt instead of adding a liquid acid to the mash.

I'll work on some complexity to my malt profile.

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If you have to adjust your water that much, you might want to consider diluting it significantly, or starting from RO water, and seeing how that turns out.

The further I have to consider modifying my water to get my target mash pH, the more I start considering using a different starting point.

BrewKnurd said:

If you have to adjust your water that much, you might want to consider diluting it significantly, or starting from RO water, and seeing how that turns out.

The further I have to consider modifying my water to get my target mash pH, the more I start considering using a different starting point.

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Agreed! If you've got a Whole Foods or similar near you, see if they sell Reverse Osmosis water. The one here in Richmond sells it at $0.39/gallon. I use my no-chill cubes to transport the water, but whatever works for you.

With RO water I typically use an ounce or two of acid malt (when I remember) and maybe a touch of calcium chloride for pH adjustment.

I keep a PDF of my scoresheets on my Kindle and I open them up and read them any time I think entering another competition. The shortage of decent judges make the comments and scores incredibly inconsistent and therefore frustrating.

high5apparatus said:

I keep a PDF of my scoresheets on my Kindle and I open them up and read them any time I think entering another competition. The shortage of decent judges make the comments and scores incredibly inconsistent and therefore frustrating.

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At the end of the day, all judges are volunteers trying to help a hobby they love. Receiving inconsistent or sub-par score sheets is not acceptable - the new BJCP exam process puts the emphasis on the score sheets. As I told the OP earlier in the thread, I would forward a copy of the recognized judge's score sheet to the competition organizer and head judge - they need to see that to make corrections.

At the end of the day though, you could make a difference becoming a judge yourself.

http://www.bjcp.org/index.php

Thanks everyone for the help in reading and understanding my score sheet. I'll rework my recipe with these suggestions.

Uziyahu said:

8lb Marris Otter
1lb Acid Malt
.5lb Crystal 60L
.5lb Carafa II special

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I agree with the Munich, Vienna comment.

60% Maris Otter
15% Munich
15% Vienna


If that doesn't get you there, you can bust your Crystal up into two different L's. Maybe half 20 and half 60 or something, just to add another little flavor in there.

Holy Acid Malt Batman

I would take other people's suggestions and build a water profile. I don't think Acid malt is meant to be used like that. Congrats on your first competition though!

Jwood said:

Holy Acid Malt Batman

I would take other people's suggestions and build a water profile. I don't think Acid malt is meant to be used like that. Congrats on your first competition though!

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Technically you could use it as 100% of the grain bill, though your pH may get a bit low. My understanding is that it's 2-row that been sprayed with lactic acid. It's a cheater's way of acidifying a "sour" beer, but in small amounts can be used for pH adjustment. I typically use 2-3 oz.