NickersonC
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2016
- Messages
- 40
- Reaction score
- 3
- Recipe Type
- All Grain
- Yeast
- S-05
- Yeast Starter
- no
- Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
- OYL-605 in a 1L starter
- Batch Size (Gallons)
- 6
- Original Gravity
- 1.054
- Final Gravity
- 1.016
- Boiling Time (Minutes)
- 60
- IBU
- 58.7 (hypothetically)
- Color
- 31.8 SRM
- Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
- 2 weeks
- Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
- 1-2 weeks
- Tasting Notes
- Very bright, dank/juicy hoppiness not overpowering, biting lacto sourness
First recipe post. Mega post!
So, a little backstory to this beer: I fell for one of those stupid Northern Brewer deals a while back (before they got bought out!) where you buy a few kits and get a free refractometer. It was actually a pretty good deal. One of the kits I went with was the Ace of Spades black IPA (http://www.northernbrewer.com/ace-of-spades-black-ipa-all-grain-recipe-kit). In true homebrewing spirit, however, I couldn't just do the recipe as they had it laid out for me. I had recently made my first kettle soured beer (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=579458), and I thought heck, why not try something not many people have tried, and make it sour AND hoppy.
So, I made my 1L lacto starter with the OYL-605 2 days before mashing, and conducted my mash as they had suggested (original recipe guidelines here: http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/allgrain/AG-AceofSpades.pdf). Then, I split the approx. 7ish gallons of wort I had into a 5 gallon fermenter and a 3 gallon fermenter. I wanted to fill a 5 gallon fermenter up all the way rather than splitting it into two fermenters evenly, because worse comes worst I would be more likely to have a solid 5 gallons to work with rather than 2 fermenters of oxidized or infected wort due to headspace (OYL-605 doesnt krausen).
Three days later, I took a look into my fermenters and I had some crazy looking pellicle going on (I'll try to post a pic if possible), so I let it go for another day. On day four, the pellicle had subsided a considerable amount, so I siphoned everything into my boil kettle and did my boil just as any other beer.
On to the recipe. I did alter the hop schedule fairly dramatically to reduce theoretical IBUs.
Grains:
12 lbs - Pale Malt (2 row) - 86.5%
1 lb - Caramunich III - 7.2%
14 oz - Midnight Wheat - 6.3%
Hops:
.5oz magnum - boil 60 min
.5oz centennial - boil 10 min
1 oz chinook - boil 5 min
1.5 oz centennial - steep/whirlpool 30 min at 160-170F
1 oz centennial - dry hop 10 days
1 oz citra - dry hop 10 days
1 oz amarillo - dry hop 10 days
Mash:
154F for 60 min, no mash out
Fly sparge with 170F water
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.016
Estimated BH efficiency: approx 65%
Estimated ABV: 5.1%
I do feel a little silly posting a NB recipe here on the forums, but I feel like I altered it enough with the kettle souring and significantly different hop schedule to call it somewhat my own. I also raised it to 6 gallons, sort of in fear that all of these different flavors would clash. FWIW I had dry hopped with only citra and centennial, as provided by the recipe, but it didn't have the hop character that I wanted, so I dumped in some amarillo that I had lying around and let it go another week. I suppose if you add in all 3 at the same time, you may not need to go another full week, so I have them listed at 10 days. I assume it takes longer to dry hop in a soured beer, so be patient.
The result: I did a thing! I think its pretty freakin' tasty. Quite a wild arrangement of flavors, but the tongue-prickling lacto sourness actually pairs pretty nicely with the dank/juicy hops, and the darker malts give it a little depth in the backbone.
As far as the IBUs and such go, I really don't know if the numbers are accurate. I'm of the understanding that the lactic acid present in the boil and fermentation reduces hop utilization, so I assume the IBUs are actually lower. I changed the hop schedule to be under 60 on BeerSmith because I researched a bit online and most people say that anything hoppy and sour should be under 60. Hypothetically, anyway.
I invite anyone to try a recipe similar to this. You definitely don't need to buy the kit from NB; the ingredients and guidelines are all here. The one major thing I would note is that if you want to make it black like this, the midnight wheat is virtually unsubstitute-able. It's a bitterless black malt that has a VERY dark SRM and adds only some roasted flavor beside the wheat characteristics it provides, smaller they may be. If you're going to use different hops, I'd stick to the dank/juicy/citrusy type in a beer like this.
So, a little backstory to this beer: I fell for one of those stupid Northern Brewer deals a while back (before they got bought out!) where you buy a few kits and get a free refractometer. It was actually a pretty good deal. One of the kits I went with was the Ace of Spades black IPA (http://www.northernbrewer.com/ace-of-spades-black-ipa-all-grain-recipe-kit). In true homebrewing spirit, however, I couldn't just do the recipe as they had it laid out for me. I had recently made my first kettle soured beer (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=579458), and I thought heck, why not try something not many people have tried, and make it sour AND hoppy.
So, I made my 1L lacto starter with the OYL-605 2 days before mashing, and conducted my mash as they had suggested (original recipe guidelines here: http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/allgrain/AG-AceofSpades.pdf). Then, I split the approx. 7ish gallons of wort I had into a 5 gallon fermenter and a 3 gallon fermenter. I wanted to fill a 5 gallon fermenter up all the way rather than splitting it into two fermenters evenly, because worse comes worst I would be more likely to have a solid 5 gallons to work with rather than 2 fermenters of oxidized or infected wort due to headspace (OYL-605 doesnt krausen).
Three days later, I took a look into my fermenters and I had some crazy looking pellicle going on (I'll try to post a pic if possible), so I let it go for another day. On day four, the pellicle had subsided a considerable amount, so I siphoned everything into my boil kettle and did my boil just as any other beer.
On to the recipe. I did alter the hop schedule fairly dramatically to reduce theoretical IBUs.
Grains:
12 lbs - Pale Malt (2 row) - 86.5%
1 lb - Caramunich III - 7.2%
14 oz - Midnight Wheat - 6.3%
Hops:
.5oz magnum - boil 60 min
.5oz centennial - boil 10 min
1 oz chinook - boil 5 min
1.5 oz centennial - steep/whirlpool 30 min at 160-170F
1 oz centennial - dry hop 10 days
1 oz citra - dry hop 10 days
1 oz amarillo - dry hop 10 days
Mash:
154F for 60 min, no mash out
Fly sparge with 170F water
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.016
Estimated BH efficiency: approx 65%
Estimated ABV: 5.1%
I do feel a little silly posting a NB recipe here on the forums, but I feel like I altered it enough with the kettle souring and significantly different hop schedule to call it somewhat my own. I also raised it to 6 gallons, sort of in fear that all of these different flavors would clash. FWIW I had dry hopped with only citra and centennial, as provided by the recipe, but it didn't have the hop character that I wanted, so I dumped in some amarillo that I had lying around and let it go another week. I suppose if you add in all 3 at the same time, you may not need to go another full week, so I have them listed at 10 days. I assume it takes longer to dry hop in a soured beer, so be patient.
The result: I did a thing! I think its pretty freakin' tasty. Quite a wild arrangement of flavors, but the tongue-prickling lacto sourness actually pairs pretty nicely with the dank/juicy hops, and the darker malts give it a little depth in the backbone.
As far as the IBUs and such go, I really don't know if the numbers are accurate. I'm of the understanding that the lactic acid present in the boil and fermentation reduces hop utilization, so I assume the IBUs are actually lower. I changed the hop schedule to be under 60 on BeerSmith because I researched a bit online and most people say that anything hoppy and sour should be under 60. Hypothetically, anyway.
I invite anyone to try a recipe similar to this. You definitely don't need to buy the kit from NB; the ingredients and guidelines are all here. The one major thing I would note is that if you want to make it black like this, the midnight wheat is virtually unsubstitute-able. It's a bitterless black malt that has a VERY dark SRM and adds only some roasted flavor beside the wheat characteristics it provides, smaller they may be. If you're going to use different hops, I'd stick to the dank/juicy/citrusy type in a beer like this.
