Black IPA recipe, look solid?

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hanuswalrus

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Brewing up my first Black IPA this weekend. I will be entering it into a competition at the end of July. Just looking for a little reassurance or advice on the grain bill before I pick up the grains this afternoon. Going for something really simple, just to get the darkness. Gonna blast this w/ hops at the end of the boil as well as a hopstand (Thinking Columbus, Simcoe and Amarillo). This is for a 3 gallon batch

7 lbs 2-Row (~78%)
1 lb Munich 10L (~11%)
.5 lb Crystal 60 (~5%)
.5 lb Carafa Special III (~5%)

I plugged this into BeerSmith yesterday and it was showing an estimated SRM of about 29. However, I just plugged it into Brewers Friends and they're only showing an SRM of 22.5. Thinking of upping the Carafa a little to make sure this beer ends up w/in the style guidelines of at least 28 SRM. Is there a certain point I shouldn't cross in terms of percentage on Carafa?
 
Columbus and Simcoe are two of my go-to hops for black IPAs their piney dankness melds well with roasted grains

I think you may want to replace the 0.5 crystal with another 0.5 carafa for two reasons. One, I never use crystal in my IPAs, some do, but you want to stay very low. The sweetness will clash with the hops. Youll notice most popular commercial IPAs dont use crystal. Two, you'll need about a pound of any roasted malt to get an actual "black" IPA. I've tried going with 3/4 but it still turns out brown. I personally use midnight wheat for blackening any IPA or saison because its the darkest malt available and contributes the least amount of roast.

Be sure to do a mashout with any Black IPA. Your wort may be brown at the end of the mash but rasing the temp to like 170 for 10min really helps extract the rest of the color.
 
Good stuff man. Every good black IPA I've ever had always has that piney hop character, which I love.

I was going back and forth between Midnight Wheat or Carafa special for the darkening. I'm hesitant on using a full lb of either of these, though. This is only a 3 gallon batch and a full lb of any specialty malt like these just doesn't sound right. I'll give it some thought, though.. I also have about a 1/4 lb of amber candi sugar I've been looking to use and this seems like the perfect opportunity.. Dry it out a bit AND add a little more darkness.

I was looking again at the Brewers Friend recipe builder and the reason it was showing such a low SRM is because I hadn't set the batch size and boil size parameters. SRM is now showing 30+ so I think I'll be good on color. I'll do the mashout just to be safe.
 
Oh, for a 3gal batch, you probably can get away with a half pound. I'd have a few oz extra on hand to toss in later in the mash if needed

The candi sugar seems like a good idea. I always add some sugar to my IPAs to dry them out. Its especially important with black IPAs so differentiate them from a hoppy stout
 
I think I'm gonna go w/ the Midnight wheat. Thinking that might contribute a little more to head retention than Carafa might. Does that sound accurate?
 
yeah that's what I figure too since you can tell from the grains themselves it started as a wheat. I'm never adding multiple pounds of it like I would regular wheat but its gotta have some head retention
 
I use a couple of oz each of debittered black malt and black prinz to get the SRM up to about 35.

I will disagree about getting sweet and having it clash. My black is a clone of a commercial version, well not really a clone as the brewer sent me the recipe, and it has 31% honey malt and 10% Crystal. I think it goes very well with the chinook, centennial and bramling cross hops
 
I've settled on the following.. already emailed in the order, the more I screw w/ the recipe, the more complicated I usually make it. Trying not to overcomplicate things..

6.5 lbs Great Western 2-Row
1.5 lbs Munich Light
.5 lbs Midnight Wheat
 
I'd be curious to know how the Midnight Wheat works out. You'll get subtle roast but also some rounder chocolate notes.

Of Blackprinz and Midnight Wheat, I went with 1# blackprinz for a double black IPA. Both are great.
 
I've settled on the following.. already emailed in the order, the more I screw w/ the recipe, the more complicated I usually make it. Trying not to overcomplicate things..

6.5 lbs Great Western 2-Row
1.5 lbs Munich Light
.5 lbs Midnight Wheat

No carafa? Your hop schedule is almost exactly what I just did for my Black Rye IPA and it works awesome. Hope this turns out for you! :mug:
 
Nahh, I decided against the carafa.. calculators are showing an estimated SRM of close to 35 w/ the .5 lbs midnight wheat and amber candi sugar I'm going to add toward the end of the boil. Trying to simplify things as well, 3 different malts sounds like enough to me. I'll let you all know how it turns out
 
I used both in mine. I really liked the midnight wheat. Good flavor from it plus great head retention.
 
Good to hear, definitely excited to brew this up.

I'm really just looking for the color, slight roastiness and head retention from 1 specialty malt. Midnight wheat sounds like the perfect option to me. I'm sure the carafa wouldn't hurt. But like I said, the simpler the better IME. I'll probably go w/ Carafa (or maybe a mix of midnight wheat/carafa) on the next black ipa I brew and see how that turns out.
 
Something I've heard is that the black malts are essentially sterile and you could put them in secondary like coffee beans if you were missing out on some dark malt character.
 
That's interesting. Haven't heard that before. I've heard of adding them late in the mash, but not in secondary.

I brewed this up last Friday and I got plenty of darkness from .5 lb of midnight wheat in a 3 gallon batch. We'll see how much of the roastiness comes through in a few weeks after I get it bottled.
 
Thats good to hear, midnight wheat is a great tool. How much hops did you end up doing? I just ran the tap dry on my black IPA with Simcoe, Mosaic and Citra and dry hopped with all Galaxy
 
I bittered with Warrior, then went with 1 oz each of Columbus, Simcoe and Amarillo at flameout, and another oz of each for a 30 minute hop stand after chilling to ~ 168F. It's still slowly bubbling 1 week later, which is kinda rare for my beers. Went w/ WY1450 for the yeast just to try it out. Never used it before..
 
I've got a pretty similar Black IPA that I started last Sunday that is winding down active fermentation right now. I based my grain bill off Northern Brewer's Ace of Spades Black IPA although I ended up with low efficiency (~65%) this batch. Here's the recipe I used for a 2.5 gallon batch:

6.0 lbs Pale 2-row
0.5 lbs Caramunich III
0.4 lbs Midnight Wheat
---

60 minute mash @ 153F, 10 minute batch sparge @ 168F
---

60 minute boil

0.25 oz Columbus [FWH]

0.50 oz Columbus [20 minutes]
0.25 oz Centennial [20 minutes]

0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient [10 minutes]
0.25 tsp Irish Moss [10 minutes]

0.50 oz Centennial [5 minutes]

0.25 oz Citra [20 minute hopstand started @ 190F]
0.25 oz Centennial [20 minute hopstand started @ 190F]

0.25 oz Citra [5 day dryhop]
0.25 oz Centennial [5 day dryhop]
0.25 oz Columbus [5 day dryhop] *not sure if I'll dryhop with Columbus*
---

O.G. 1.061
70 IBU

Ferment @ ~65F with Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II). Dry hop on Day 16. Bottle on day 21. Prime with Pilsner DME to 2.2 volumes of CO2. I usually get around 80% attenuation so should end up around 1.011 with 6.5% ABV.

Bottles should be around 2 weeks old in early July so I'll report back.

:mug:
 
I just tapped my 4th iteration of my Black IPA. I've found that I enjoy piney flavors with the roasted malts and try to stay away from anything too floral. Simcoe and Chinook are my go-tos and Ive been playing around with something else to compliment. This time I used Rakau. I dry hopped with some comet because I heard it can be super potent and dank as a dry hop, almost to the point where some people dont enjoy it.

This turned out amazing. Its still carbing up and I have to stop myself from drinking too much of it before its really ready. It just smells so damn good. The other thing I did to improve it over my last one was how I used the roasted malts. Usually, Ive found that 1lb of any very dark malt can get you a black color. I always use midnight wheat since it has the least roast and darkest color. I still end up getting some degree of roast so this time I divided the midnight wheat in half. I added half to the regular mash and added the other half just for the 10min mashout. This worked very well to get a deceptively jet black color but doesnt taste anywhere near that

5gal recipe for anyone developing a black IPA recipe soon:

9 lb 2 row
2 lb flaked barley
6 oz aromatic malt
1 lb midnight wheat (only mashed half)
1 lb cane sugar

@60: 1 oz columbus
@15: 1 oz simcoe / 1 oz rakau
@0: 1 oz simcoe / 2 oz rakau / 1 oz chinook
@+15: 1 oz simcoe / 1 oz rakau / 2 oz chinook
@dry: 1 oz simcoe / 1 oz chinook
@dry2: 1 oz simcoe / 2 oz comet
@keg: 1 oz simcoe / 1 oz chinook

Conan yeast
 
I like your recipe m00ps. I think a touch of Aromatic would be a nice addition. Maybe 2-3% of the bill. Chinook also sounds like a good idea for a black IPA..

I was pleased with the way mine turned out. I ended up dry hopping with Amarillo. Next time I brew a black IPA, I would probably dry hop with a mix of Simcoe/Columbus to get more pine into the aroma as opposed to the citrusy Amarillo. Other than that, the beer turned out very nice. Has a nice creamy, tan head with good retention and a nice mouthfeel from the 1450. It's been in the bottle about 3 weeks now and a slight roastiness is starting to come through from the Midnight wheat. Hops are still coming through nicely due to the large flameout/whirlpool additions.
 
Just wanted to chime in that my Black IPA turned out fantastic as well. My wife thought it was my best beer to date and I would probably agree. The one change I made was doing a 0.5oz centennial and 0.25oz citra dry hop. This was for a 2.5 gallon batch so everything would be doubled for a standard (5 gal) batch.

Hop combination of columbus, centennial, and citra is absolutely delicious. A lot of juicy, citrus, and tropical flavors with a nice backbone of dank, pine, and earth from the Columbus. I think I might try a 100% MO grain bill with the same hop combo for my next beer.
 
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