Black IPA Made Down Under

[kiwifirst]

Hi All,
First post in the forum.
I am a APA fan and love the style. I have been reading with interest the black IPA's APA's styles and whilst I still haven't tried on yet, I am keen to make one with my own recipe. From my understanding, it isn't about making a IPA and just making it dark with some black patent malt. It is about a darker malty beer with the great happiness we have all (maybe not all) come to love in APA's.

So using grains and hops that I have on hand, I have devised this recipe. The Melbourne water profile is very good to use as a base as we have virtually nothing in it, so we can build to what we need.

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: La Brea Black IPA
Author: Lee Hancox

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Imperial IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 22 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 33 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.054
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.081
Final Gravity: 1.017
ABV (standard): 8.41%
IBU (tinseth): 75.95
SRM (morey): 33.37

FERMENTABLES:
1.85 kg - New Zealand - Pale Ale (23.6%)
4 kg - American - Pale 2-Row (51%)
0.4 kg - New Zealand - Toffee (5.1%)
0.25 kg - American - Dark Chocolate (3.2%)
0.35 kg - German - Carafa I (4.5%)
0.5 kg - German - Dark Wheat (6.4%)
0.5 kg - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (6.4%)

HOPS:
40 g - Chinook, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 57.71 * see notes below
20 g - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Aroma for 5 min, IBU: 4.42
20 g - Willamette, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Aroma for 5 min, IBU: 1.99
20 g - Simcoe, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Whirlpool for 0 min at 80 °C, IBU: 11.82
40 g - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 5.6, Use: Dry Hop for 3 days
20 g - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Dry Hop for 3 days
20 g - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Dry Hop for 3 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 68 C, Time: 60 min, Amount: 22 L
2) Sparge, Temp: 76 C, Time: 15 min, Amount: 20 L
Starting Mash Thickness: 3 L/kg

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
0.5 each - irish moss, Time: 15 min, Type: Fining, Use: Boil
1 tsp - finings, Type: Fining, Use: Secondary

YEAST:
White Labs - San Diego Super Yeast WLP090
Starter: Yes (2L)
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 79.5%
Flocculation: Med-High
Optimum Temp: 18.33 - 20 C
Fermentation Temp: 19 C
Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / deg P)

PRIMING:
Method: kegged
Amount: 12 psi
CO2 Level: 2.7 Volumes

TARGET WATER PROFILE:
Profile Name: Dark and hoppy
Ca2: 90
Mg2: 7
Na: 45
Cl: 100
SO4: 74
HCO3: 110
Water Notes:
1 tsp gypsum
1.4 tsp calcium chloride
0.5 tsp chalk
3.2ml lactic acid
sparge:
.5 tsp gypsum
1 tsp baking soda


NOTES:
try adding first chinnock hops into wort whilst waiting for sparge. then bring to boil for 60 mins.

Add corn sugar at end of boil (10 mins)

This recipe has been published online at:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... -black-ipa

I am keen to get some feedback and thoughts on the recipe.

Cheers

 

[Nosybear]

One thing jumps out at me in the grain bill: You have two ingredients doing offsetting things. Wheat will increase the beer's viscosity - body, in brewing terms - while the dextrose will reduce it. I'm not familiar with New Zealand pale and how it differs from American pale ale but one thing about pale ale malt, it's generally interchangeable. You should be able to go with the local stuff, in fact, were I brewing, I'd use local just for freshness. I'm also not familiar with toffee malt. My design for this beer would use Pale Ale malt, Munich malt and Carafa, perhaps a touch of melanoidin to get that German decoction flavor. I see you've already thought of using first-wort hopping for your bittering charge. Add about 5 IBUs to the boil to keep foaming down and your hop bill should be very nice. Looking at your choice of yeast, I'd throw out the dextrose - the San Diego Super Yeast will chew through just about everything fermentable and, with dextrose, could leave you a thin mouthfeel.

All that said, the recipe takes a back seat to good fermentation management. Keep it as close to 19°C as possible - I put the fermentor in a water bath to control temperature swings and provide a heat sink for the heat the yeast produce. Finally, all my rantings aside, it's your beer. Brew it your way and let us know how it comes out!

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... -black-ale

here's a good one to look off of. one thing, you might be overdoing the richness a bit, thick rich malty beer kind of clashes go with strong hops, most of the black ipa's are dark just for the color not the flavor

 

[kiwifirst]

Thanks Nosybear. I must admit to getting a bit loose with this grain bill. I have already crushed the grain, but after reading your comments, if I had a choice, I would have probably cut out the wheat. I am not wanting a beer with too much body for this brew. So then, would the wheat and dextrose cancel each other out? Will the dextrose reduce some of the body the wheat adds? I am brewing tomorrow, so one thing that I can do is reduce or remove the dextrose.
The toffee is a bit of an experiment, I haven't used it before either. We have access to a new malt here in Australia called Gladfield and they have some speciality malts I am keen to play with. I don't know If it will have any effect on this recipe and I should try running a 'without' and 'with' recipe first I know, but .......
My yeast starter with the San Diego hasn't kicked in, its had 3 days now on a stir plate at 21c and it hasn't kicked off. So I am going to swap out the yeast to 2 packs of the S05.
I have temp control for this and will be aiming to hold at 19c.

 

[kiwifirst]

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/31419/eightball-imperial-black-ale

here's a good one to look off of. one thing, you might be overdoing the richness a bit, thick rich malty beer kind of clashes go with strong hops, most of the black ipa's are dark just for the color not the flavor

Hi Ozarks. I was under the impression that making an APA dark by adding colour and calling it a Black IPA wasn't regarded as the thing to do. Adding the maltyness was part of the appeal. I don't know, I haven't actually tried one yet

Brewing blind so to speak.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I experiment frequently ... try it, might be good, let us know

 

[Nosybear]

The dextrose, or any simple sugar, will reduce the body. FYI, there's no advantage to using dextrose for this purpose over the cheapest granulated sucrose you can find. It's hard to say they would offset exactly - beer mouthfeel isn't an exact science. Wheat or for that matter, any malt increases wort and beer viscosity - mouthfeel. You can control viscosity in the mash by mashing cooler but if you're not mashing, no chance of that. If you want a lower bodied beer, leave the sugar in!

 

[kiwifirst]

Thought I would report back in Siam update.
I dropped the dextrose and ran with the recipe outlined. After two weeks in the the keg I had my first glass and it nearly knocked me over. Tasted more like a 12% beer and the viscosity was very thick, but not heavy, if that makes sense. More like oil. I kind of liked it, but one glass was enough and I was thinking, "I have 18 litres to get through!".

6-8 weeks after kegging it is fast becoming one of my favourite beers. It has mellowed dramatically, the malts are really coming through, it is smooth, oh it's so smooth, that oily texture (which sounds horrible) just makes it like a glug of cough medicine. A slight smokey flavour in the front of your mouth and a big roast malt at the back. The hops are very subtle, I think I'll need to dramatically increase he hops to make this a hophead.

It is a beautiful beer to finish the night off.

 

[sbaclimber]

that oily texture (which sounds horrible) just makes it like a glug of cough medicine

At least everything else you described sounds great.
I like a nice thick velvety mouthfeel, especially in "winter" beers (darker, stronger), but you are right that "oily" sounds a bit rough to drink.
Do you have any ideas what might have made it so thick? In my own experience, I have found Calcium Chloride can make for an almost oily feel, but you didn't put all that much in...

Edit: did you hit your OG and FG as calculated?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

sounds like a beer I've made before, you could smell the alcohol and it tasted sweet, didn't make sense to me, thinking the sweetness and thickness came from unfermented sugar or wort but if it kept going it would be way too much alcohol, turned it into a Christmas beer and added Cinnamon and all spice, was a big hit, one is all you needed too

 

[Nosybear]

"Oily"? Never had that problem! The mash temp of 68C may be a culprit, not to mention the fact that you have a lot of malt in there with a start of 1.080+. One thing about a beer this big is it will take some time to mellow out. You should have enough hops in there to balance out the malt. You left the wheat in, right? That's been known to give an mouthfeel described as "oily" (some describe it as "silky"). For the next batch, if you want to decrease the beer's viscosity (do only one of these per batch - good experimental design....):
- Eliminate the wheat
- Decrease mash temperature to about 150F (65.5C)
- Add some simple sugar - use table sugar, it's cheap and the yeast don't care
Calcium chloride affects flavor - "mellows" the hops - but not viscosity.