I Like My IPA Black as Night

Malt, yeast, hops, hops, hops!  This is an IPA, after all.

It's been two months since I brewed this batch, another five weeks since I've bottled it, and have already tasted two bottles.  Why the wait for this post?  Well, as regular readers know, I am unable to spend a lot of time on this blog, and I recently finished the long-in-waiting post on Christmas/Winter themed beers, and since that's been waiting for months I wanted to get that out before this one.  But I've just brewed another batch, whose brewing post probably won't be written until after I bottle it in two weeks, so it's time I get this one out.  

This is my first Black IPA, or IBA (Indian black ale).  It's a recipe from my friend and college roommate Sean Lewis that is reminiscent of Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.  It's also the first time I've dry hopped and the first time I ever heard of first wort hopping, and had to do some research to figure out what that is and how to carry it out; this will be covered later.  The recipe Sean gave me was for 5-gallon brewing, as that's his wont, but I'm a 1-gallon brewer, so I took out my trusty slide rule, filled notebooks with advanced calculations, and got a smaller-yeild recipe for my 1-gallon brewing.  I also use dry yeast so what I used is different from his recipe, and made hops substitutions to use what I already had in my freezer.  But that's the glory of homebrewing! You don't have to follow a recipe to the letter and you'll still get beer.  Relax, have a homebrew.

Mashing grains in a bag (in the oven).

The oven mash went well with only two cold water additions early on.  After an hour steeping near 150°F to get a drier, less sweet final product, and then heating the mash to 170°F to stop the starch conversion, straining out the first runnings and heating the sparge water to 170F to extract all the sugars, I added Northern Brewer hops for first wort hopping (FHW) to the sparge and steeped the grains in the sparge water.  As I said, this is the first I've heard of and implemented FWH.  The point of it is to add a fraction of the late-boil aroma hops to the sparge water to extract and dissolve the aroma esters into the water while it's still below boiling so that the boil won't pulverize and release these volatile compounds.  There are several ways you could do this: add the FWH to the first runnings after straining them from the mash; add the FWH to the sparge during the sparge; add the FWH to the mix of the two runnings when heating it to boil.  I think any of the three methods will work, and I chose the second technique to some chagrin, and it's because I steep sparge instead of sprinkle sparge.  The hop pellets broke up and diffused throughout the sparge, sticking to the outside of the grain bag.  I had to scrape that off and into the second runnings once the sparge was over so I wouldn't lose those hops.  Arguably I had already extracted the bittering oils and aroma esters, but didn't want to throw anything away I needn't.  In the future I'll add it to the first runnings during the sparge and when mixing the two and brining it to boil I won't have deal with hops all over the outside of the grain bag.

Hops for first wort hopping (FHW): hops that go in after the sparge before the boil.

Sparge steeping, the green blech is the FWH hops.

Bottom: Dark and sticky first runnings.  Top: Hop-infused second runnings.

Moving into the boil, the wort was infused with hops from the FWH and brought to a rolling boil over high heat.  The four boil hops additions have nothing notable about them, so I'll discuss my first use of Irish Moss.  Irish Moss is an algae used to clarify wort during chilling and fermenting.  One-half of a teaspoon was added to the boil 15 minutes before its end.  It will gelatinize and have a charge, attracting oppositely charged particulates in the fermenting wort and the combined weight of the now neutral mass will more easily settled out to the bottom of the fermenter which is avoided during syphoning and racking.  Not only does this give you clearer beer, but it also helps clean the beer of flavor and aroma esters that might not be desirable in the final product.  This is the first batch in which I've used Irish Moss, and being an IBA clarity really isn't an issue, but I wouldn't mind cleaner beer.  I've since tried a conditioned bottle of my IBA and it's great, but who knows how much the Irish Moss contributed to that.  But the Irish Moss is only $1.50 for a small bottle that will likely last me at least 6 batches, and with the first lighter colored batch I brew I can report how much use of it adds to overall clarity.

Heat break!

Kent Golding hops weighed out for the boil.

In go the hops!

I still rehydrate the dry yeast I use and the Safale US-05 used in this batch rehydrated easily enough.  I've got this technique figured out and the timing down, so there's nothing of note to report in this batch.  It was ready to pitch when the wort was chilled to 67°F and was done so with the wort into the fermenter.

Rehydrated Safale US-05 yeast. 

Pouring the chilled wort through a strainer in funnel.

Pitching the yeast.

The full gallon of wort and rehydrated yeast in the fermenter went into the brew bin for primary fermentation.  I took a sample for the hydrometer reading and measured an OG of 1.053.  After primary fermentation ended I dry hopped the wort with Centennial hops when I replaced the blow off tube with a sanitized air lock.  Dry hopping is adding hops to the fermenting wort.  Because there is no heat the bittering oils are not extracted, but the aroma and flavor esters are extracted and are not boiled away so this adds flavor and aroma to the final product without increasing its hoppy bitterness.  I racked the beer a week after this and the beer and used fermenter smelled heavenly.

Wort in fermenter, blow off tube and bottle affixed, hydrometer reading taken. 

Active primary fermentation in the brew bin.

Centennial hops weighed out for dry hopping after primary fermentation.

After dry hopping the wort the temperature in my apartment increased outside the acceptable ale-fermenting range so I put the fermenting jug in my cube cooler with water, a splash of bleach to keep out anything organic, and some ice to keep the fermenter closer to the 68-72°F range.  I added new ice to the cooler every morning and evening, and kept the fermenter in the cooler for most of its fermentation.  This is the rub for homebrewing in a fourth floor apartment in the Midwest: I don't have a cool basement in which to ferment, and even the first floor storage lockers get warm, especially when people run the dryers for their laundry, so I have to deal with warm temperatures and this what I got.  I could use a mini fridge with a temperature controller, but I don't have money for that at this juncture so ice and water in a cooler will have to do for now.  A problem arising from this wort cooling is that the fermometers I stick to the outside of the fermenters are damaged by sitting in water for a few weeks.  They're only $2.25 apiece, but I'd rather not have to buy another two fermometers for every batch I brew during warm weather.  I have some ideas to mitigate this, and attempted one for my next batch.

It got warm after primary fermentation so the fermenter went into the wort cooler.

Dry hopped pre-racking wort.

Topped off post-racking beer ready to sit for another 10 days.

10 bottles of beer to condition, then they'll be 10 bottle to drink!

After three weeks fermenting I bottled 10 bottles of my first IBA.  After 2-3 weeks of conditioning I tried the first bottle and it was great!  Another success that will only get better the longer I leave it in bottle at room temperature, right?  Hopefully my apartment won't get too hot during the rest of the summer.  And now the recipe, name courtesy of my wife who thought I was saying "black-eyed pea" when I was saying "black IPA."

Black-Eyed Pea A

Grain Bill:

2.0 lb American Pale 2-Row Malt

0.25 lb Crystal 20L Malt

0.1 lb Chocolate Malt

0.1 lb Munich Malt

0.05 lb Black Malt

Strike 3.125 qt H2O to 160°F.  Mash in oven for 60 minutes at 150°F.  Sparge with 5.5 qt H2O at 170°F.  

60-min boil:

0.2 oz US Northern Brewer hops 10.6 AA% FWH

0.2 oz UK Kent Golding hops 5.8 AA% @ 60 min.

1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min.

0.2 oz UK Kent Golding hops 5.8 AA% @ 10 min.

0.2 oz UK Kent Golding hops 5.8 AA% @ 5 min.

0.4 oz UK Kent Golding hops 5.8 AA% @ flameout

Cool to 67°F in an ice bath.  Hydrate and pitch 1/2 packet Safale US-05 yeast.  Dry hop for 7 days with 0.6 oz Centennial hops 8.7 AA% after primary fermentation.  Bottle with 22 gm priming sugar.

And that's that.  My first IBA and a success at that.  I've traded with homebrewing friend Pete and he complemented me on it.  Thanks for the recipe, Sean!

A full gallery of photos can be found here.

Until next time friends, happy brewing!