Black IPA ideas

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pbaughman

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I am brewing a black ipa this week and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for what I should do to really make this brew amazing. For example using citra hops rather than Amarillo. I would really like to know if adding coffee would be a good idea.
 
I am also making a black IPA this weekend. I am going to use about 6% crystal 60. 2% chocolate malt and 10% midnight wheat. What are you using for color? I heard great things from midnight wheat.

I also plan to do some hop bursting about 70% IBU from late additions: using summit, centenial, columbus hops
 
I'm using almost a pound of carafa 2 to darken it. I also have caramel 60 and carapils. Have you used the chocolate before?
 
American 2-Row, Maris Otter, Rye Malt, Chocolate Malt, Carafa II, Crystal 60, Corn Sugar

Columbus, Citra, and Amarillo

WLP007
 
ooohhh, midnight wheat sounds interesting. I'm going to have to look into that.

I have a Black IPA in the fermenter now. I used way too much black malt. I'll probably end up cutting (thanks to input from the good folks of the forums) it with another batch, same recipe except just the base malts and hops....blend to taste. I was going for a thin/light finish, very low maltiness or caramels, but dark in color.
 
I normally use about 2% chocolate malt and 4-5% midnight wheat. 10% might be more than you need?
 
What kind of black IPA are you going for? Should it be just a dark colored IPA, or are you looking to add a malt complexity to it?
 
I can't decide honestly. I want it to be dark but I don't want to just do a regular black ipa. I want to add something different to it. The chocolate malt was gaining my attention. I'll need to read more about it.
 
I was going to say something about your chocolate % too, but bit my tongue. The literature suggests using a max around 5% for these very dark malts (I wish I would have listened to that when I did my black IPA). I guess it comes down to what you want out of it. I expect mine, which is quite black, to end up having a heavy burnt bitterness (which I didn't want. I just wanted the color and ignored the literature). You can smell the bitter smokeyness through the airlock on mine.
 
So if I did decide to use the chocolate malt, do I reduce the size of carafa 2 I'm using? I'm still new to brewing so excuse my lack of knowledge.
 
If you are able too, take some and age it on cocoa nibs. I have a 10 gallon recipe I do, and half gets aged on toasted nibs for about 12 days. The subtle mingle of chocolate and piney hops just goes with the beer. Most people like it better than the "straight" version.
 
I made a black IPA recently and one thing I'd do differently to mine would be use some sugar to help dry it out (1 lb/5 gallons) and use ONLY unbittered black malt for the color. I used 4 oz chocolate malt + 10oz black malt in mine and it was too roasty/porter like even at 85 IBU's! If you want your black IPA to taste like a bitter porter then by all means use adjucts but if I had it to do over I would not use chocolate malt and coffee would definitely kill the point of making it a highly hopped beer because with an IPA you want the hops to stand out, not some other flavor.
 
I made an awesome Black IPA from extract up over the holidays. I want to do the Firestone Black Rye IPA clone, but I haven't gone to AG yet. So I made up my own Extract based one and used flaked Rye which still added a bit of spice to it though not as much as I'd have liked.

Here was my Extract based recipe:

Malt:
6lbs Pale LME
3lbs Pilsner DME

Specialty Grains - 2 gallons water steeped at 152* for 30min
2lbs Carapils
1lb Crystal 40L
8oz Flaked Rye
8oz German Carafa III (500-600L)

Hops----------------Amount-----------Time
Magnum/Nugget--0.5oz/0.5oz-------90min
-------- "----------------"--------------60min
-------- "----------------"--------------50min
-------- "----------------"--------------40min
Cascade/Fuggles--0.5/0.5oz----------30min
-------- "----------------"--------------20min
-------- "----------------"--------------10min
-------- "----------------"---------------0min

Other:
Irish Moss 1tsp at 10min

Yeast:
London ESB 1968 done with a 2L starter

I left it in the primary fermentor for a full month and dry hopped it for the last 7 days with 2 ounces of Cascade hops.

OG was 1.070 and the FG was 1.014 yielding 7.35% ABV. It was a nice dark black color with a rich aroma and flavor. The hops were very complex and balanced nicely with the malt. It was actually such a drinkable beer you wanted a second or a third. I wish it lasted longer, but it was so good we drank the whole keg in a matter of a few weeks.

The next black IPA I do will be an AG though. The amount of hops and extract made it really pricey, though it was out of this world.
 
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