Specialty IPA: Black IPA Darth Vader - Black IPA

[BlackIce]

Make sure you guys drink this once its ready(very good). I have 2 bottles left from brewing this in March and they now taste like a stout/porter. I had about 10 people try this about 2 weeks ago and it was split. 5 said it was a porter 5 people said it was a stout with hops. I was thinking I had them taste the wrong beer.

 

[JLeuck64]

Update on the batch I brewed back on 11/28/15. O.G. was 1.065 it finished around 1.010... a SOLID 7%ABV home brew. I have been using brown sugar to bottle condition this recipe the last 2 batches and I really like it! Smooth, roasty, delicious! And I still haven't hit the IBU's called for in the original recipe. Can't thank @Scooby_Brew enough for developing this recipe, it has become a house favorite in my neck of the woods!

 

[gishua]

Hey guys,

I wanted to brew this one and was wondering if there were any changes to the first post? I will be doing 5.5 gallon biab.

thanks again for recipe!
Josh

 

[JLeuck64]

Just brewed up another batch of this yesterday, 2/15/16. I hit just under 7.0 gal @ 1.068 O.G. IBU's were targeted to 66.6 LOL!

I've just started monkeying around with water chemistry and this will be my first dark beer with water adjustments, really looking forward to the end results

 

[BlackIce]

Last bottle I have. This is over 8 months old now. Still a good good beer. It has changed a lot as I said in my last post. Its on the stout side now with a hop kick.

I did do an 8th month old review on this check it out.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy9lzmDhFYc[/ame]

I will be making this in the summer. All grain this time.

Thanks for the recipe

 

[CraigKing]

Brewing this recipe right now. Had to swap in 1lb of chocolate malt for the Carafa II special. And used 1lb of Special Roast since it was available in 1lb packs. Getting ready to start the boil/hop schedule. Looking forward to trying this in a couple weeks.

I'm planning to primary for 2 weeks, then secondary for 2 more weeks, and adding doing the dry-hopping during secondary.

 

[JLeuck64]

You can save some time, and the clean up necessary when transferring to a secondary. I've made this batch 4 times now and leave it in primary for 4-5 weeks before adding dry hops. Always turns out great ( ;

 

[bigbeer]

What are people's thoughts on putting charred oak in this?

 

[tre9er]

Resurrecting this thread because I'm doing a black IPA that is well, similar to this one. Using some of what I had on-hand and LHBS was out of a few things. Here's my proposed GB for 9.75g batch:

15lbs Pale
2lbs Pils
1lb C77
0.75lb Crisp Chocolate (600-700L)
0.75lb Weyermann Carafa Type 3 (490-560L)
2lb. Brown Sugar

OG around 1.061
Mashing dry, looking to finish 1.012 or slightly less

Using Nugget and Cascade, achieving around 73 IBU

My main question are the specialty malts. I don't make very dark beers often. I'm wondering if the malts I have will be overly roasty/ashy or if I'm in good shape. There aren't many styles I don't like, just don't want an ashtray taste.

Edit: I'm thinking of adding the (Non-Special, Non-Dehusked) Carafa T3 at the end of the mash as some have suggested to cut down on astringency. The Crisp chocolate is stated to be "much mellower than black malt", so I may mash that the entire time.

 

[stever1000]

What are easy substitutes for the following:

1.0 lbs (0.45 kg) Carafa II Special
0.5 lbs. (0.22 kg) special roast

I haven't seen these at my homebrew shop

 

[Shenanigans]

What are easy substitutes for the following:

1.0 lbs (0.45 kg) Carafa II Special
0.5 lbs. (0.22 kg) special roast

I haven't seen these at my homebrew shop

It all depends on what they have at your homebrew shop.
I'd substitute the special roast with brown malt or coffee (café) malt if you can get them. Different maltsters have different types so try to get one with a similar colour. Doesn't mean it will taste most like it but is just a general rule of thumb as the colour should be somehow correlated with the rostiness. If the colour is way off then adjust the amount a bit.

For the Carafa II Special I would use midnight wheat or if they don't have that Roasted/Chocolate wheat. Both are dark and like the Carafa Special don't have any hulls so are less bitter than normal roasted malt.

 

[stever1000]

It all depends on what they have at your homebrew shop.
I'd substitute the special roast with brown malt or coffee (café) malt if you can get them. Different maltsters have different types so try to get one with a similar colour. Doesn't mean it will taste most like it but is just a general rule of thumb as the colour should be somehow correlated with the rostiness. If the colour is way off then adjust the amount a bit.

For the Carafa II Special I would use midnight wheat or if they don't have that Roasted/Chocolate wheat. Both are dark and like the Carafa Special don't have any hulls so are less bitter than normal roasted malt.

If it's only a pound how much bitterness will the husks add if I use chocolate malt instead of roasted/chocolate wheat?

 

[Shenanigans]

If it's only a pound how much bitterness will the husks add if I use chocolate malt instead of roasted/chocolate wheat?

If it's all you can get you can use it but a pound is a lot and it will be significantly different. However you could add it to the mash for the last 10 mins instead of the full 60 then you would get mostly just the colour and less rostiness. Also have a look at cold steeping - steeping the crushed malt overnight at room temperature. Then adding the filtered liquid to the kettle. This way you get all the colour with a lot less rostiness.
I never tried this myself but it apparently works well.

 

[stever1000]

It all depends on what they have at your homebrew shop.
I'd substitute the special roast with brown malt or coffee (café) malt if you can get them. Different maltsters have different types so try to get one with a similar colour. Doesn't mean it will taste most like it but is just a general rule of thumb as the colour should be somehow correlated with the rostiness. If the colour is way off then adjust the amount a bit.

For the Carafa II Special I would use midnight wheat or if they don't have that Roasted/Chocolate wheat. Both are dark and like the Carafa Special don't have any hulls so are less bitter than normal roasted malt.

I got lucky and found the Carafa special II
but didn't get the special roast... they substituted it with the brown/amber malt...
Excited to brew this

 

[Shenanigans]

I got lucky and found the Carafa special II
but didn't get the special roast... they substituted it with the brown/amber malt...
Excited to brew this

Nice.
Happy brewing!

 

[stever1000]

Finally got around to brewing this today...

Pre boil 7.25gallons 12.4 Brix / 1.050 SG
Cooled wort pre fermenter over 5.5 gallons at 13.9 brix / 1.056...missed the target by 10 points

Cant wait to try it!! The wort tastes so good

 

[Matt_man]

Two packs of US-05 for 5.5 gal?

 

[brewskitom]

Just brewed this today with my son - he's in town visiting. Other than over-sparging (I misread the sparge water volume on my BeerSmith brew sheet) and having to boil it down to my desired "pre-boil" volume of 6.5 gallons before adding the bittering hops, everything went great. Hit my target mash temp and ph. OG came in at 1.072. The wort looks fantastic! I'm really looking forward to this when it's ready.

 

[punkrawkgeek]

PIcked up all the grains and hops. Cannot wait to make this one again. THanks!

 

[dirkjk]

Absolutely love this recipe. Has become my house beer. Have changed it a few times just to experiment, like adding rye malt (delicious btw). I have a friend who can only drink lagers (allergic reaction to ale yeasts, weird I know) and wanted to try my hand at lagers.

Anyway, has anyone tried to use a lager yeast with this recipe?

 

[dschiller]

I usually make a 1.2-1.5l starter with liquid yeast. Would it be better to use 2 packages of US-05 or substitute a liquid yeast (e.g., WLP001 or WLP090) and use a starter?

 

[dirkjk]

At only 1.066 this beer really only needs a single pack of US-05

 

[dschiller22]

OK, thanks. Beersmith indicated I need more than one pack, but good point that 1.066 OG shouldn’t need more than one.

 

[calgary222]

I am posting here mainly to push this recipe back to the front of the list so others will try it... I upped the grain bill a bit to hit 7.5 percent, but the flavors are wonderful - brewed 20 gallons and am half way through and the flavors keep improving. The name is fun, the beer is excellent.

 

[BruJay]

I'm heating my strike water for this beauty in about four hours. I had my first black IPA a few months ago and have been drooling over this recipe for about a month. I can't wait to try this.

 

[12many]

WOWZAA brewed this today and my numbers are way off 1078 looks amazing and super dark wife took 2 cup full for a "tea" looking forward to see what happens with my final numbers.

 

[JLeuck64]

WOWZAA brewed this today and my numbers are way off 1078 looks amazing and super dark wife took 2 cup full for a "tea" looking forward to see what happens with my final numbers.

Had the same experience the first time I brewed this one too. I suppose you could scale back on the grains a bit to adjust the O.G. down. I chose to get a bigger ferment bucket instead, and I typically will put 6gal to 6.5gal into my ferment bucket and hit about 1.065 for O.G. ( ; just brewed up a batch yesterday and am going to try fermenting with Wyeast Pacman this time, it's been a good performer for me with RIS recipes and am hoping it will work well with this one too!

 

[tomwhit19]

brewed this today and did as follows

11# 2 row
1# carafa 2
1# caramel10
.5# special roast

1oz centennial @ 60 min
1oz cascade @ 45 min
irish moss @ 15 min
1 oz willamette @ 15 min
1 oz cascade steep once temp got down to 170

pitched wyeast american ale 1056

og - 1.064 (BS estimated 1.070)

cant wait to be able to pour this and try it out

 

[Andre3000]

My keg just blew with this recipe in it and it was absolutely fantastic; everyone loves it. Brew day was a disaster and it still turned out amazingly well.

-blackprinz instead of carafa
-Brown malt instead of Special B

Only thing I'll add is it does take a couple weeks aging in the keg to fully come into its own. Could possibly increase the late/dry hop additions too.

 

[Griffin495]

Has anybody ever brewed this with Nottingham? I just got done harvesting a bunch of it and wonder if it would work instead of US-05