Black IPA

5 gallon batch?

Seems heavy on the bittering charge (I'm purely guessing that on "average" Chinook you're pushing 90 IBUs), and real weak on the flavour hops. Also, any dry hop?

As for the grainbill, it'll work, but what gravity are you aiming for and how roasty do you want it?

 

I'll chime in and say it seems heavy on the bittering addition. I'd hopburst with more than 2 oz. I love the hop varietals though. 3 of my favorites.

 

I would skip the chocolate malt and just use either dehusked carafa or midnight wheat to get the color you want. As is, your malt bill looks more like how I would conceive a higher gravity porter, which isn't how I would aproach a black IPA if I had the desire to make one.

 

Agreed. If you are looking for an IPA that is black, drop the chocolate malt. The recipe as listed wouldn't taste like a porter really, more like a brown ale, I guess. But that chocolate malt is definitely going to impart some coffee flavors. Not that it wouldn't be tasty, I just don't think that is what you are going for from what you have said above.

 

I would drop the aromatic and the chocolate malt, keep the crystal for depth. Use carafa ii or iii special or other huskless roasted malt like chocolate wheat or chocolate rye (or any combo) -these malts should be around 6-7% of your total grist.

On the hops side, I would bitter to about 70 -75 ibus for a 1.076 OG beer as the dark malts add to the perception of bitterness - and if its Chinook, I would even cut back to 60 ibus - but I would use something else personally. On the late additions you are severely lacking - you need to overcome the dark malt character with hop flavor/aroma otherwise you are just going to end up with a porter (like most commercial versions). For 5 gals. I would probably go with at least 4 ozs. near flameout and another 3-4 ozs of dryhops.

 

The 1 lb. of Carafa III sounds ‘heavy’ to me. My niece’s husband made a tasty Black IPA which used 12 ounces of dark crystal and 4 ounces of Carafa III and no other specialty grains. Maybe cut the amount of Carafa III back.

I would also recommend that you up the late hops to something like 3-4 ounces of hops from 15 minutes left in the boil and including dry hopping. Perhaps a 50/50 mix of the Simcoe and Amarillo with additions of:

· 15 minutes of boil: 1 ounce of 50/50 mix hops
· At flameout: 1 ounce of 50/50 mix hops
· Dry hop: 2 ounces of 50/50 mix hops

Cheers!