A long awaited brewday (night!) and one that I decided to coincide with local fellow brewers @brotherlogic and @pdtnc #blackipaoff. This was my fifth full mash brew (AG#5).
The grist
The Brief
Brew a Black IPA, swap some bottles, taste, discuss.
Beer styles are always a topic for discussion and I know that the oxymoronic Black India Pale Ale is a debate in full flow. I’m not here to discuss it, just to brew a beer, but I was interested to see what others had said on the subject Stout Fellow, Called to the Bar, Into the Brew, Craft Beer and Hop Press. All things considered I’m sticking with Black IPA. If it’s good enough for Kernel, Brodies, Windsor Eton Brew, Thornbridge, Buxton then it’s good enough for me!
Malts:
Maris Otter Pale Malt (5.45kg) – 77.9%
Munich Malt (1kg) – 14.3%
Crystal Malt (350g) – 5%
Carafa III (200g) – 2.9% (I added a further 300g Carafa before I sparged. Aiming for maximum colour, minimum roastiness).
Hops:
Rolling boil & 1st hop addition
Magnum 45g – 12.7% @90mins
Chinook 20g – 12.4% @20mins
Cascade 20g – 7.6% @20mins
Chinook 20g – 12.4% @5mins
Cascade 20g – 7.6% @5mins
Chinook 20g – 12.4% @0mins (steep 20 mins)
Cascade 20g – 7.6% @0mins (steep 20 mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.069
Final Gravity: 1.017
Alcohol Content: 6.8% ABV
Bitterness: 79.2 IBU
Colour: 100 SRM
Yeast: Safale US-05
Mash: 90mins @ 67c
Boil: 90mins
Water treatment: 4g gypsum, 2g epsom salts, campden tablet.
OG 1.069
I’ve now brewed with this setup a few times and I’m really happy with the results this time around. On day 3 of the fermentation the hydrometer reading is down to somewhere between 1.030 and 1.020 (difificult to tell through the krausen and I’m not messing around dipping trial jars. One of these days I’ll treat myself to an FV with a tap!).
You can see the rest of the pics here.
broadfordbrewer 
That looks super. No dry hops? I like the idea of adding extra carafa before the sparge. I think when I do my next one I might try a cold steep for the carafa to minimise the roastiness even further.
Thanks! No couldn’t decide whether to dry hop or not so went without.
Someone suggested the sparge addition to me and also recommended the cold steep as an alternative which I may use next time if this effort turns out too roasty. I was mightily relieved that it turned out black 🙂
Sounds awesome – What I like about black IPAs is that there are no rules about how the colour is achieved. I cold steeped and used the water in my mash liquor, I don’t know if that would affect the roasty flavour. I dry hopped but e.g. Raven in bottles is not dry hopped so I think that’s an open question too…
Cheers. From a quick taste and smell of the FV I reckon I may have a fair amount of roast flavour… but I did mash 200g for 90 minutes so that is to be expected. It seems this is also a debatable point on style i.e. roasted or just black in colour. I think Ade is of the opnion that it should have roasted flavours and others that commented thought the opposite. Hopefully I’ll have something in the middle 🙂
On the dry hopping…from reading around I decided against, but only because I was loosley trying to achieve a Pacific Northwest style IPA …that happens to be black 😉 and they don’t tend to dry hop them. It looks like we should have three quite different takes on the ‘style’…. RESULT!
Yeah, adding that Extra Carfa before the sparge is a really interesting idea – can’t see it not working? Good work.
Thanks Leigh. It did make all the difference. The mash was more a dark brown after 90 mins. James (Sandstone Brewery) recommended I double up on the Carafa and add at sparge. Glad he did because it’s certainly black now!
Magnum might be a good call to start with and the rest sounds yummy 🙂
Cheers Ade… I hope it is! I see you have used some Magnum in your Amber ale this weekend. Magnum is #trending, maybe it’s a movember thing? 😉
Pingback: I Will Follow You into the Dark « broadfordbrewer
Pingback: AG#22 Tricks of the Shade – Black IPA « broadfordbrewer
Pingback: AG#27 Nebulous Cascadian Dark Ale | broadfordbrewer
Pingback: AG#27 Nebulous Cascadian Dark Ale | broadfordbrewer