Grain Bill for american black ale

Hey everyone, I've been wanting to try to make a black ipa/cascadian dark ale/ whatever. The only commercial example I remember trying (besides one I tried years ago that I don't really remember) was brewdog's libertine black ale. I really liked that it was more than just an IPA with a black color, it had some noticeable chocolate/coffee undertones, not much in the way of roast. My grain bill right now looks like this.

Pale malt (Belgian) 73%
Melanoidin Malt 15%
Caramel 60L 6%
Chocolate wheat 4%
Chocolate malt 2%

What do you guys think?

I'd expect the grain bill to be simpler, just pale malt and carafa malt (like black malt but without husks). You don't want crystal or melanoidin malt in there as it will start to taste more and more 'dark' and sweet.

I agree. A CDA/Black IPA, is usually just an ipa malt bill with debittered black malt (carafa special I/II/III, midnight wheat, etc). I honestly dont get the appeal. If you want more, it go easy, you arent making an RIS. A few % of pale chocolate, or chocolate will go a long way. Crystal malts will start to make the beer heavy, especially, at like the usual 7-8% they usually are.

JKaranka said:

I'd expect the grain bill to be simpler, just pale malt and carafa malt (like black malt but without husks). You don't want crystal or melanoidin malt in there as it will start to taste more and more 'dark' and sweet.

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Keep the crystal, get rid of the Melanoidin. increase base

Also, if you like a fair deal of roast in there, you might as well make some variety of India porter. 8-12% of Black Malt and the 88-92% of pale malt will do, but having a mix of pale, brown and black malts is more mellow.

Yeah, I tried to get some carafa but no dice, so I thought I'd use the chocolate wheat and regular chocolate malt, especially because I still want some coffee/chocolate tones besides the color. I think I'll kick the melanoidin then, although I'd still like some maltiness.
Thanks!

Yeah, I think that will work. 5+kg of pale malt and 400g of each chocolate malt and chocolate wheat. As far as you fill it up with late additions of pungent US and new world hops it will be a tasty beast. Just follow up your favourite IPA hops and add some more...

Look into midnight wheat, or a debittered black malt(black prince). I just brewed
NB ace of spades black ipa and really liked the smoothness of the malt(midnight wheat)!

JKaranka said:

Yeah, I think that will work. 5+kg of pale malt and 400g of each chocolate malt and chocolate wheat. As far as you fill it up with late additions of pungent US and new world hops it will be a tasty beast. Just follow up your favourite IPA hops and add some more...

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Unfortunately c-hops (and new world hops) are really hard to find here, with mostly cascade being available (and almost 10 usd per 100g), although I could source some amarillo for this one. I also have some styrian goldings around, thought I'd use it @ 15 min, what do you think?

This hop schedule is for a 9L (2.4 gal) batch:

Perle 8.5% 15g (1/2 oz) @60 min 27.7 IBU
Amarillo 8.8% 40g (1 1/2 oz)@15 min 37.9 IBU
Styrian Goldings 4.5% 15g (1/2 oz) @15 min 7.3 IBU
Amarillo 8.8% 30g (1 oz) @0 min
Amarillo 8.8% 30g (1 oz) dry hop, seven days

NunoAraujo said:

Unfortunately c-hops (and new world hops) are really hard to find here, with mostly cascade being available (and almost 10 usd per 100g), although I could source some amarillo for this one. I also have some styrian goldings around, thought I'd use it @ 15 min, what do you think?



This hop schedule is for a 9L (2.4 gal) batch:



Perle 8.5% 15g (1/2 oz) @60 min 27.7 IBU

Amarillo 8.8% 40g (1 1/2 oz)@15 min 37.9 IBU

Styrian Goldings 4.5% 15g (1/2 oz) @15 min 7.3 IBU

Amarillo 8.8% 30g (1 oz) @0 min

Amarillo 8.8% 30g (1 oz) dry hop, seven days

Click to expand...

What about some Simcoe?


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Below is the grain bill from a local microbrewery black IPA. It is fairly sweet as even with a 151 mass temp I get 1.018 to 1.020 FG. But that is what I like about a black IPA, has more sweet and malt. To get rid of the Crystal as stated above, you might as well just put food coloring in it and call it good as you just have an IPA that you can't see though.

This is scaled to a 4 gal batch.
5 lbs 0.3 oz Vienna Malt (Briess) (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 47.8 %
3 lbs 4.7 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 3 31.3 %
1 lbs 0.3 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4 9.7 %
1 lbs 0.3 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 5 9.7 %
1.3 oz Black prinz (500.0 SRM) Grain 6 0.7 %
1.3 oz Debittered black malt (550.0 SRM) Grain 7 0.7 %

Styrian Goldings are great. Completely different from American C hops but if you use a hundred grams of late additions with Cascade you'll get tasty beer!