Dank Black IPA Recipe Critique

[rodwha]

2.5 gal batch 75% efficiency

3 lbs 15 oz 2-row
1 lb white wheat
1/2 lb caramel 60
1/4 lb Midnight Wheat
1/4 lb Midnight Wheat @ sparge
1/2 lb rice hulls

0.2 oz Chinook (11%) @ 60 min first wort hop 22 IBUs
0.75 oz Columbus (12.2%) @ 15 mins 22 IBUs and 5 mins 14 IBUs
1 oz Simcoe (12.2%), 0.8 oz Chinook, and 0.5 oz Columbus @ 30 min Whirlpool 44 IBUs
4 oz Strata for dry hop
1/2 packet US-05

1.064/1.012
6.8% + priming
99 IBUs
35 SRM +

 

[Kickass]

I’ve never used strata but everything else looks like a tasty beer. I love this “style”.

 

[eliastheodosis]

I think your hop schedule looks solid. Personally, I would pull the 60 min hops up to 30 mins to give it more mid boil character. Either accept the loss in IBU or up the amount to hit your goal. Either way is fine. I think you'll really like the strata hops.

Malt profile looks heavy on the unfermentables. At 35 SRM you're plenty dark enough. That roast malt will push up your FG. Adding C60 just adds to that. With this malt bill I'd expect an FG closer to 1.020 IME, and it will drink more like a hoppy American stout. No problem with that in my book. If you're going for a drier beer then I'd cut the caramel completely or in half at least. Might also consider adding a half pound or more of sugar in place of the same SG of 2 row. Depends on your preference. I really like splitting the roast malt half and half into the sparge. I might steal that idea Maybe add in some black malt for complexity but midnight wheat is fine as is. White wheat is not doing much at this point but won't hurt either. Nothing wrong with the recipe as you wrote it. Take every single thing I say with a grain of salt. Long live black IPA

 

[Miraculix]

White wheat will aid head retention!

I'd also cut down the crystal by at least a half.

Nice beer!

 

[rodwha]

I think your hop schedule looks solid. Personally, I would pull the 60 min hops up to 30 mins to give it more mid boil character. Either accept the loss in IBU or up the amount to hit your goal. Either way is fine. I think you'll really like the strata hops.

Malt profile looks heavy on the unfermentables. At 35 SRM you're plenty dark enough. That roast malt will push up your FG. Adding C60 just adds to that. With this malt bill I'd expect an FG closer to 1.020 IME, and it will drink more like a hoppy American stout. No problem with that in my book. If you're going for a drier beer then I'd cut the caramel completely or in half at least. Might also consider adding a half pound or more of sugar in place of the same SG of 2 row. Depends on your preference. I really like splitting the roast malt half and half into the sparge. I might steal that idea Maybe add in some black malt for complexity but midnight wheat is fine as is. White wheat is not doing much at this point but won't hurt either. Nothing wrong with the recipe as you wrote it. Take every single thing I say with a grain of salt. Long live black IPA

A long time back I had tried forgoing a traditional bittering for a 30, 20, 10, and 5 min boil additions projected to be about 93 IBUs. It came across as peculiar to me, I expected some sort of bitterness. It makes me think of some of these Juicy/Hazy/NEIPA beers. These are just so so to me usually, I prefer just a touch of bitterness so I short for 15-20 IBUs for the most part.

I’ve never tried this hop combo for a dank beer, I’ve always just used all Columbus. I’ve never even heard of Strata so I’m excited to see what this produces. I typically use a single hop so as to get the bulk price when making IPAs.

I’ve made this beer many times and have never had a FG that high. It’s usually between 1.012 and 1.014, but various strengths. I expect it to be close.

Using Midnight Wheat in the sparge mellows it out so it’s more like a hoppy Schwarzbier, not a stout. All of it in the mash instead and it’s kinda like burnt toast roasty.

I do want to test a full bodied vs a thin bodied black IPA. This is what I’ve always made and I do so enjoy it. Lots of tweaks along the way.

The white wheat I began using long ago as I had major head retention issues. It worked and it isn’t a crystal malt so I like that. Now I’m using high percentages because my wife quite making bread and gave me about 22 lbs of it, and I had 4.5 lbs on hand myself so I have tons of it.

 

[rodwha]

Thanks for the feedback fellas! I have revised it to reduce the initial mash’s wheat to a hair under 20% and reducing the caramel 60 by half. I was surprised to see the SRMs didn’t drop more.

4 lbs 5 oz 2-row
14 oz white wheat
4 oz caramel 60
4 oz Midnight Wheat
4 oz Midnight Wheat @ sparge

Estimating 50% utilization of color and sugars of sparge as I’ll increase the sparge water by a 90 min boil, and sparge times usually are 10 mins (tried 5 mins in a different style) so overall it’s usually 30 mins, enough time for some conversion. SRMs now projected to be about 33.

I’ve no clue how best to utilize the hop combo that was suggested after starting with Columbus.

 

[eliastheodosis]

I'll leave you to your hop process and preferences I really enjoy WC IPA and a good 30 min scratches that bitter itch for me for sure. Could even be partly different systems. If you have a schedule that works then great! For me, mid boil Columbus is very nice in a dank beer.

I’ve made this beer many times and have never had a FG that high. It’s usually between 1.012 and 1.014, but various strengths. I expect it to be close.

That's also great, then! With no caramel and similar proportions of carafa III in the mash I always struggle to get below 1.016 with US-05, BRY-97, and 34/70. I'm consistently in the 1.010 range with those yeasts in similar beers with similar process, though. That 1.016 is about where software predicts it to end up with the unfermentables, though. I'm curious now. So you hit that FG with this amount of caramel too? Maybe it's something to do with splitting your roast malts into the sparge.

Using Midnight Wheat in the sparge mellows it out so it’s more like a hoppy Schwarzbier, not a stout. All of it in the mash instead and it’s kinda like burnt toast roasty.

I do want to test a full bodied vs a thin bodied black IPA. This is what I’ve always made and I do so enjoy it. Lots of tweaks along the way.

I actually like that bit of extra roast so I keep it all in the mash. I might tweak it next time to see if it impacts the fermentation profile, though. Now that I'm thinking about it again. I've tried the full/thin body comparison and I enjoy the full bodied more. So it does drink more like a hoppy stout by the end of the day.

Thanks for the feedback fellas! I have revised it to reduce the initial mash’s wheat to a hair under 20% and reducing the caramel 60 by half. I was surprised to see the SRMs didn’t drop more.

So much of that SRM is coming from the roast! Changes look good. That hop schedule looks totally fine to me. You just have to play around to see what you like most. I'm curious to see how this turns out. Please post back and let us know!

 

[refect]

I make a pretty tastey black IPA around Christmas time. It's piney and resinous with a nice touch of roast. I call it black christmas.

For my hop combo I use CTZ, Simcoe, Chinook, and Centennial all equal ratio. I use about 12 oz total between the boil and dry hop in a 5 gallon batch. 6 oz goes in on hot side (1 oz each hop in whirpool and .25 oz of each hop added at 10 min and 5 min). I kept all additions late in order to maximze the amount of hop aroma without my IBU's going too high. I still wanted boil additions though, as I feel these hops can give you more pine when added during the boil. The other 6 oz is split up evenly at 1.5 oz of each in the dry hop. I've never used Strata, but your hop combo looks pretty solid if you are going for pine. Just keep them late and don't exempt boil additions to help with those pine aromas.

Your malt bill looks good too. I love midnight wheat. It adds a nice smooth roasty flavor that is perfect for this style. Just keep the amount low (Certainly below 10%) for a nice smooth mild roast profile. I used 5.4% of midnight wheat all in the mash for my recipe, along with a small hint of chocolate malt (1.4%), and it was the perfect amount of roast.

I think you will be pleased with your recipe. Let us know how it turns out!