Black IPA

Hello everyone,

I was looking for some insight about a extract kit I purchased.

I have been reading online that if you do a full 60 minute boil you need to use less hops because the utilization is better for a full boil.

This kit I purchased is a black IPA, and it is a 30 minute boil.

Steeping grains:
450g Dark Crystal Malt
170g Malted Wheat
90g Black Malt

4.5kg of dark liquid malt extract

30 minute hop - 52g Simcoe
8 minute hop - 55g Cascade
flame out - 85g Simcoe


My question is if I did a full 60 minute boil, but added another 1.36kg of Dark liquid malt, with the provided hops, would it be a balanced beer? or should I stick with the steps included in the kit.


*Edit*

So i was playing around with a brewing calculator. According to it, using the 52g of Simcoe at the start of the boil will only give me a 37 IBU. I switched the flame out with the start hops, and it boosted it to 85.


Thanks in advance

 

Without punching numbers I'd say stay away from adding the extra LME unless you want the beer to be overly malty and roasty. If you want to accentuate the roasty and caramel flavours then you can boil the LME and steeped grain wort for 30 minutes then start your hop additions to get you to 60 minutes, just be mindful of the volume changes over that 30 minutes since it will change your gravity and thus hop utilization.

 

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1425472893.555280.jpg

I brewed this one about two months ago. Sorry too lazy to type it or convert it to grams for you. It's a great beer but wish it was more bitter and I doubled the dry hops.

If I brewed it again I would shoot for 60 IBU's

 

I honestly was thinking more about the ABV boost and the balance than the flavour when adding the extra LME.

I should have mentioned that in my first post.

Normally this kit mentions the boil of only about 7 litres, but I figure if I can do 10 or 11 that would be a cleaner beer if I did a longer boil.

 

Thank you. Don't worry about the conversion, I can always do that without any problems..

 

Well if you want to boost the ABV then adding the extra LME will do the trick, but watch if you increase the size of your boil about changing the hop utilization. Best bet is to stick the recipe into a calculator as is and then add the LME and see about changing the amount of hops or the boil volume to keep the IBU:OG ratio the same without changing the addition times.

 

I didn't think about that. That's a great idea. I will do that now and see what I start with, make the changes and see how close it is.

 

So I am not too sure how is going to work...

If I follow the directions and boil 6 L for 30 minutes with everything then full up to 23 L later I end up with

SG: 1.060
FG: 1.017
ABV: 5.69
IBU: 13.56
SRM: 30.17

If I change the recipe by adding the extra 1.3kg of LME with the same 6L boil then top up to 23L after I have

OG: 1.077
FG: 1.021
ABV: 7.25
IBU: 15.56
SRM: 30.66

If I boil 11L everything stays the same but boosts the IBU to 52. So, I am quite confused.. I thought IBU of IPA was at least 40 and up.

If I boil at 11L and boost the IBU to 52 from 15 what will that do? 15 seems awful low considering when I buy IPA from my local brewery it is 68 IBU.

Maybe I should just brew this beer according to the recipe and don't worry about messing with it

 

A lot of kit ipas are weak. To appeal to more starting out who don't have a taste for big ipa and to keep cost down.

 

I am going to do this with the 11L boil, with the 5.8kg of DLME and use 85g Simcoe on the start of the 60 minute boil, the 55g of cascade at 15 minutes remaining and 52g Simcoe at flame out. I will also steep the grains for more than the advised 20 mins. (I have been doing my steeps for normally 40 mins)

I am going to probably be doing this Friday or Saturday. At least if I am making any mistakes, someone here will probably let me know before the weekend

 

So as a follow up, its been 2 weeks, and I transferred to secondary today. The gravity reading I got was 1.024 (OG was 1.078) which seems pretty sweet to me. I am going to let it sit in secondary for 3 weeks, and dry hop for the final 2. Hopefully I can hide the sweetness with the hops.

 

As a follow up on this thread, I dry hopped for 10 days then bottled for 3 weeks. I had one the other day, and while it being really sweet, it really isn't that bad. My buddy enjoys it more than I do, so he may get a case of it.

Here is a shot of the final product.