Black IPA Recipe - Blackalicious
This Black IPA recipe below is for an all-grain Brew in a Bag method, but it can be scaled to suit your needs depending on your setup.
I often find myself browsing Instagram for brewing inspiration. It's great to see such a mix of brewing and some droolworthy homebrewing kits. I came across a post by Z Style Brewing about a Black IPA and reached out to ask if he wouldn't mind sharing. This recipe below is a slight variation on his recipe, but I am very pleased with the results.
The Recipe (BIAB)
The recipe below is for the all-grain Brew in a Bag method, but it can be scaled to suit your needs depending on your setup.
Batch Size: 5 gal
ABV: 5.4%
Boil Time: 60 mins
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
Malt Bill
| Name | Amount |
|---|---|
| Golden Promise Malt | 3 Kg |
| Maris Otter | 2 Kg |
| Carafa 2 | 200 g |
| Midnight Wheat | 200 g |
| Carapils | 200 g |
Hops
| Name | Amount | Time | Use | Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warrior | 15 g | 60 mins | Boil | Pellet |
| Amarillo | 50 g | 20 mins | Hop Stand / Aroma | Pellet |
| Citra | 50 g | 20 mins | Hop Stand / Aroma | Pellet |
Dry Hop
| Name | Amount | Time | Use | Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amarillo | 50 g | 3 days before | Dry Hop | Pellet |
| Citra | 50 g | 3 days before | Dry Hop | Pellet |
Yeast
| Name | Lab | Temperature |
|---|---|---|
| S-04 | Safale | 18 Celsius |
Let's get brewing
The night before I was due to brew, I measured out my water and filtered it to remove any chlorine, chloramine and other impurities. As always, my chores before a brew day also involve cleaning and sanitising as much as I'm going to need.
For this brew, I also wanted to try a different apporach to working with darker grains. I cold steeped the grains in about 2 litres of water overnight. The next day, I strained the grains and kept the liquid to add to my brew.
The following afternoon I fired up the kettle and aimed for a strike temperature of 65 C and added the grains to my brew bag.
I dropped in the bittering charge of 15g of Warrior hops at the start of the boil. With about 10 minutes to left to go in the boil, I added the dark liquid from the cold steeped grains. This instantly turned the colour of the wort from a light brew to the dark, black colour I was looking for!
After the 60 minutes of boil time was complete, I added Amarillo and Citra and let stand at around 80-90 degrees before cooling the wort with my immersion chiller.
When the yeast was below 30 degrees, I pitched the yeast. To keep things nice and simple, I went with a dry yeast called Safale S-04.
Before racking to my fermenting bucket, I wanted to take a reading of the original gravity (OG). It came in at just over 1.054.
The waiting game
With the airlock bubbling away, I patiently waited for my brew to be ready. With about 3 days to go until kegging, I dry hopped with around 50 grams of Citra and 50 grams of Amarillo.
When fermentation was complete, I cold crashed the beer overnight before waiting another day before transferring to a keg. I pressurised the keg to 20 PSI and waited another 5 days before tasting.
Tasting notes
It's fair to say that I am very happy with this Black IPA! The bitterness is just right and really allows the darker grains to shine without being overpowering. This is also my first foray into cold steeping and I'll definitely be doing this again.
The Midnight Wheat and Carafa 2 grains lend a nutty, coffee flavour to the beer while the fruitier Amarillo and Citra hops shine at the same time. You get fruit at first followed by the coffeee following through - absolutely delicious.
If you use Brewfather as your brewing software of choice, I've also made the recipe publicly available for you to copy.