Cascadian Dark Ale

[Dave Y]

I'm planning on a CDA, using up the remaining Cascade hops I harvested. I'll be running this with the 1728 strain yeast I have on hand which worked really well in my porter. I'm shooting for 6-6.5%ABV, about 55-60 IBUs. I will add most of the dark malt at the end of the mash, but want some in the main mash to get the color darker.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/edit/1614373

I usually start my hops in reverse, adding dry, whirlpool, flavor and bittering hop in that order, but as you can see I ran out of room. The hops I have on hand that would fit nicely here are:
Cascade - mandatory, so I can use these hops up.
Strata, Mosaic, Chinook (2 oz) all with double digit IBUs, also have Columbus (1 oz) and Warrior (1 oz) handy. I'll take a fresh look tomorrow at the hop schedule, try and get 60 minute addition in there.

What say the Muppetry?
(besides 'Dave, what the heck are you thinking?')

 

[J A]

I say keep it old-school and stick with hops that have been around a while - Columbus, Chinook and Warrior have all been in use for 25 to 40 years. You'll be getting a lot of earthy pine and dank pot, depending on where you use them but they'll support the Cascade. The Strata and Mosaic might be interesting for some fruity notes but I can see this as a very traditional, "pre-craft-beer", PNW brew.

 

[Sandy Feet]

You are getting fresh hops? That is what is in the recipe.
That sounds like a fun beer.

 

[Dave Y]

You are getting fresh hops? That is what is in the recipe.
That sounds like a fun beer.

This is correct, I have ~4 ounces of dried/frozen cascade left from '25. The rest are pellets.

I say keep it old-school and stick with hops that have been around a while - Columbus, Chinook and Warrior have all been in use for 25 to 40 years. You'll be getting a lot of earthy pine and dank pot, depending on where you use them but they'll support the Cascade. The Strata and Mosaic might be interesting for some fruity notes but I can see this as a very traditional, "pre-craft-beer", PNW brew.

Good point.
Mosaic I have are '23 harvest carrying a description of mango, citrus, pine
strata : grapefruit, resious, dank.

Gonna look again, especially at Chinook which I've used in a previous CDA and liked.
Hoping to get some time later today if work lets up.

 

[Bigbre04]

what the hell Dave

Interesting recipe.

All the forms of rye are interesting for sure.

I tend to keep Victory/biscuit malts below 5%. I would sub in some Dark munich(2) for some of the biscuit and all of the MO. MO is wasted in this grain bill IMO. You will get more out of M2 for depth of graininess.

Colored malts wise, you may end up more astringent then you are looking for. You have roughly 7.5% of the chocolate malts but only 5% crystal. adding some C120, Spec X, or more dark crystal(whatever you have, may round out the caramel/crystal profile significantly). you can then reduce the total chocolate and make up the color difference with black prinz or Midnight wheat(if you have it). If you want the slight bitterness, you could reduce the chocolate and sub in black malt for the black prinz.

Hops wise, i like the chinook, cascade, columbus combo. I have not really ever used warrior, but if that fits the style go for it.

All that said, looking at other old school cascadian dark recipes, it seems like alot of them are running debittered black(or just straight black malt) at roughly 2%, chocolate malt(4-5%)and some form of dark crystal at roughly 5%....all of this matches up with your recipe.

the style just wish it sold better on the east coast beach town market. I thought that i brewed a Black IPA at somepoint, but i cant seem to find the recipe anywhere.

 

[J A]

Good point.
Mosaic I have are '23 harvest carrying a description of mango, citrus, pine
strata : grapefruit, resious, dank.

It's hard to knock Mosaic in almost any situation but I prefer it for fruit-forward Pales and IPAs. I just yesterday did a Pale with Cascade, Simcoe and Mosaic in a whirlpool/hopstand. I particularly like what Simcoe and Mosaic do together.
I've read descriptions of Strata that look great - grapefruit, tropicals and wafting pot. That sounds amazing. But I've also see descriptions that describe berry and menthol...not appealing to me.

 

[J A]

Hops wise, i like the chinook, cascade, columbus combo. I have not really ever used warrior, but if that fits the style go for it.

Warrior is kind of awesome. It fits right in with Magnum as a "clean" bittering hop but leans toward the pine/floral end of the spectrum. I like it as "foundation" hop for flavor but I've used it as a late/aroma addition and it's really nice - a little like Columbus/CTZ, I think, but less intense resin/pot.

 

[Bigbre04]

Warrior is kind of awesome. It fits right in with Magnum as a "clean" bittering hop but leans toward the pine/floral end of the spectrum. I like it as "foundation" hop for flavor but I've used it as a late/aroma addition and it's really nice - a little like Columbus/CTZ, I think, but less intense resin/pot.

I really dont like Columbus/CTZ, I would sub it out in a heartbeat if they had a cryo magnum. maybe i can find a cryo warrior for the future?

 

[Brew Cat]

really happy your calling it Cascadian Dark instead of the dreaded Black IPA

 

[Craigerrr]

apologies to @Brew Cat but here is my CDA/BIPA recipe, a real crowd pleaser amongst my friends
https://web.brewfather.app/tabs/recipes/recipe/rb6Q5JjLRxzC8WtXevTjRtsXDXnPN6
capping the mash, and using a pound of Lyles keeps it from being thick and rich.
I would also recommend using US-05, or some other yeast that will bring the FG down further than 1013
It is however your beer

 

[Brew Cat]

apologies to @Brew Cat but here is my CDA/BIPA recipe, a real crowd pleaser amongst my friends
https://web.brewfather.app/tabs/recipes/recipe/rb6Q5JjLRxzC8WtXevTjRtsXDXnPN6
capping the mash, and using a pound of Lyles keeps it from being thick and rich.
I would also recommend using US-05, or some other yeast that will bring the FG down further than 1013
It is however your beer

apology accepted
you know I'm a stickler about naming rights

 

[J A]

I really dont like Columbus/CTZ, I would sub it out in a heartbeat if they had a cryo magnum. maybe i can find a cryo warrior for the future?

I need to get a pound of Warrior and play around with it. I've been brewing fewer IPAs and American Ambers and that's where it really shines. Nugget is another one that's under-utilized, I think. I end up leaning on Centennial and Amarillo, along with CTZ for traditional PNW flavors because they're good in fruit-forward hop combinations as well.

 

[Dave Y]

what the hell Dave

Interesting recipe.

All the forms of rye are interesting for sure.

I tend to keep Victory/biscuit malts below 5%. I would sub in some Dark munich(2) for some of the biscuit and all of the MO. MO is wasted in this grain bill IMO. You will get more out of M2 for depth of graininess.

Colored malts wise, you may end up more astringent then you are looking for. You have roughly 7.5% of the chocolate malts but only 5% crystal. adding some C120, Spec X, or more dark crystal(whatever you have, may round out the caramel/crystal profile significantly). you can then reduce the total chocolate and make up the color difference with black prinz or Midnight wheat(if you have it). If you want the slight bitterness, you could reduce the chocolate and sub in black malt for the black prinz.

Hops wise, i like the chinook, cascade, columbus combo. I have not really ever used warrior, but if that fits the style go for it.

All that said, looking at other old school cascadian dark recipes, it seems like alot of them are running debittered black(or just straight black malt) at roughly 2%, chocolate malt(4-5%)and some form of dark crystal at roughly 5%....all of this matches up with your recipe.

the style just wish it sold better on the east coast beach town market. I thought that i brewed a Black IPA at somepoint, but i cant seem to find the recipe anywhere.

10/4 on the biscuit, did briefly think about M2, now I'll reconsider.

On the dark malts, these will be late addition, probably 30 minutes all in. I do have midnight wheat, and carafa sp2. Will revisit later today!

It's hard to knock Mosaic in almost any situation but I prefer it for fruit-forward Pales and IPAs. I just yesterday did a Pale with Cascade, Simcoe and Mosaic in a whirlpool/hopstand. I particularly like what Simcoe and Mosaic do together.
I've read descriptions of Strata that look great - grapefruit, tropicals and wafting pot. That sounds amazing. But I've also see descriptions that describe berry and menthol...not appealing to me.

yup, gonna check my prev. brew, I'm pretty sure that's more old school hop. Nobody will need to twist my arm to use Chinook here.

really happy your calling it Cascadian Dark instead of the dreaded Black IPA

I'm sayin'. How can it be pale and black at the same time. Primer black?

apologies to @Brew Cat but here is my CDA/BIPA recipe, a real crowd pleaser amongst my friends
https://web.brewfather.app/tabs/recipes/recipe/rb6Q5JjLRxzC8WtXevTjRtsXDXnPN6
capping the mash, and using a pound of Lyles keeps it from being thick and rich.
I would also recommend using US-05, or some other yeast that will bring the FG down further than 1013
It is however your beer

I tried repeatedly after signing up and could not get that recipe. That said, my yeast-fu is STRONG. The 1728 strain I have is young and on it's 4th or 5th pitch. It just bought my very dark porter down to 1.011 with a healthy dose of brown malt. I left the values on the conservative side to be safe. I do have US-05 but would prefer to keep the 1728 running, it's clean and burned through my porter in like 4 days.

Gents, the feedback is much appreciated, I'll get to work on it.

 

[Craigerrr]

I need to brew mine again soon, it is a good winter style beer
need to brew something lighter first, I have a stout and a Dunkel pouring right now, I'm ready for a proper WC IPA

 

[Dave Y]

ok, after decompressing from work, giving the recipe some thought, I'm going to try the Munich 2 in place of the biscuit and MO. I also added 4 ounces of caramunich 2, halved the chocolate additions so it's around 4%, and cara/crystal is around 7%. Added in some midnight wheat too.

For hops, I checked and have not used _this batch_ of strata or mosaic with a darker beer, so I'm swapping them out.
now doing
60m cascade pellets.
10m Chinook and 10m cascade leaf hops
whirlpool 10: ~2 ounces cascade leaf and 1 ounce Columbus and 1 ounce of Chinook

The Chinook hops are different batches, one at 10 AA, another at 13.5

This has me at 57 IBU on a 1.060-ish beer.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/edit/1614373