Brew 15 - Propaganda (2)

6.3% Black IPA

Brewday 11/5/14

A bit of a belated post here. Just continuing the theme of writing up notes on my last few brews, to get up to date. It's fair to say that my most successful brew up until this point had been Propaganda, my black IPA, so I decided to have a crack at another one.

I tweeted that I was trying to plan a black IPA and didn't know whether to use any crystal malt. I received a few replies and among the people responding was James Kemp, or JK, formerly of Fullers, Thornbridge and Buxton breweries, who knows a thing or two about black IPAs to say the least.

The answer to my question by the way, was yes. About 5% crystal malt will help to darken the colour a bit, limiting the amount of Carafa III needed and would also help to support the massive dry-hopping needed. JK also very helpfully supplied me with some further advice regarding water manipulation and hop schedules. Thanks mate!

The grain bill I ended up with looked like this:

Maris Otter 5000g (69.4%), Munich 1000g 13.9%), Crystal 120EBC 350g (4.9%), Carafa Special III 325g (4.5%), Chocolate Malt 175g (2.4%), Wheat Malt 350g (4.9%)

The important thing was to use about 5% medium crystal and to limit the Carafa to the 4.5% region, to minimise the roasted flavours. I didn't add the Carafa at the end but instead mixed the whole lot in together. 

 

I decided to use a single hop, Citra, with a single bittering addition of 28g at 60 minutes and a flameout addition of 175g. JK said that the 0 minute additions do add bitterness and suggested using 4-5% utilisation when working it out. With such a large amount being used, the effect is substantial and with this brew, over half the bitterness is added after flameout.

Unfortunately, when took a gravity reading, it was only 1.060. I'd been hoping to make a beer nearer the 7% mark, so it was nowhere near. In hindsight, all I could think of was that I'd not broken up the grain properly when mashing in and had left some doughballs behind. I went and bought a big stainless mash paddle for next time.

I carried on and the ferment finished at 1.012, making the finished beer 6.3%. I dry hopped with 200g of Citra pellets, which makes a rate of about 9grams per litre.

I had been gradually cutting down on the carbonation over the last few brews but probably went too far with this one and should have gone for a bit more. It eventually got to the point where it was just about carbed enough but the beer still needed swirling round in the glass to get a decent head. I'd try to get it a bit fizzier next time.

Overall, I was pleased with the end result, which was definitely black and had a really good hop aroma. I'd use some other hops next time, probably Columbus, Citra and Nelson and of course try to iron out some of the little mistakes I made. As always, I learnt a lot though, which is the main thing!

Brewday number ten

To mark an occasion as special as my tenth homebrew, I decided to take a risk and make something a bit different. I enjoyed making the Black IPA and it's fair to say it's probably been my most successful brew so far so I decided to do another black beer.

With a rush of blood to the head, I came up with the idea of trying to make a fruit-infused black beer and settled on mango, based on my immense enjoyment of Magic Rock's The Great Alphonso. I have no idea whether it's possible to get the subtle mango taste to stand out against a dark malt background but I figured that if it worked, it would probably be quite nice.

I reduced the ABV from last time, to 5% from the grains plus whatever the sugar from the mangos adds. I currently have no idea what this figure might be nor how to measure it. A bit of googling is probably required.

I kept the grain bill percentages fairly similar to the Black IPA, with 6% Light Crystal, 5% Torrified Wheat, 5% Carafa Special III and 2% Chocolate Malt complimenting a base of Maris Otter. Propaganda had so much dark malt, it easily went black but with the volumes of malt being lower, I was a bit worried about this one ending up dark brown at one point. I needn't have worried though and the final result looks to have scraped in as black by the skin of its teeth, which is just what I wanted.

I wanted the finished product to be much less bitter than a Black IPA, to let the fruit character come through and I designed the hop additions to hit 35 IBU, using Centennial and Nelson Sauvin. Mrs Nelly very kindly got 12 juicy mangos for me (have you seen the price of mangos?) and I put the flesh of five of them in the boil. Adding fruit to the boil can cause haziness but with a black beer, this doesn't really matter, of course.

I'm going to put the rest into a secondary ferment, once the initial fermentation is largely complete after 5 days or so. To avoid oxidation, I rigged up a neat system (pictured below) which uses the CO2 from the primary ferment to purge the air out of the secondary fermentation vessel. I drilled an extra bung hole into the lid and dropped a tube from it down into the vessel. This can be used for the CO2 and also to feed in the beer when I do the transfer. I'll dry hop at the same time as adding the mangos.

It's always good to take a risk and try something a little out of the ordinary once in a while. This may not work but if it does come off, I'll be very happy.

Revisiting Thornbridge

My beer adventure only really began in earnest about six months ago, when after 20 years of drinking crap beer I stumbled across the world of craft beer and into the light. Thornbridge's range was first up and served to form my fledgling opinions about how beer should taste.

Although I still have a lot of learning to do, I feel like I have come a long way in those six months. I've sampled the offerings of the UK's most influential micros, I've been to beer festivals and brewed my own beer. All good stuff but I realised recently though, that I hadn't had any Thornbridge beer for ages so decided to grab a few. I thought this might be a good exercise - using Thornbridge beers as a reference point to see if my tastes have changed over the last few months.

First up was a Kipling, made exclusively with Nelson Sauvin hops. I didn't take a photo but it was really, really pale. I'd say it was just about the lightest colour I've ever seen in ale - right alongside Duvel.

It was sensational - fresh, well-carbonated and possibly the most grapefruity beer I've ever had. I seem to remember being so preoccupied with the hop aromas last time round that I must have completely missed the grapefruit taste.

Next was a Jaipur, the big daddy of UK craft brewing. It was darker than I remembered but whether I was just comparing it to the Kipling I'm not sure. I was hoping it would still be great and thankfully my expectations were exceeded. Absolutely bloody marvellous and the taste was a little bit more complex than I remembered.

Thornbridge are masters of their trade as brewing pale ales that are this clean and crisp is quite an accomplishment. Both beers had no noticeable off-tastes or those yeast-generated flavours that can often draw attention away from the hops and the malt. If I could get my homebrew to even approach this kind of standard, I'd be very happy indeed.

Thornbridge - Kipling

My esteemed beer colleague, Mr Nelson, commented earlier this week that Thornbridge are criticised for making too many similar ales. This was the first thing that sprang to mind as I took my first sip of Kipling, a so-called "South Pacific Pale Ale". I'm not entirely sure what that means - I don't associate beer with Tahiti, or "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" - but one thing I do know - this isn't a million miles away from an India Pale Ale.

There are many bands who've made a career out of making the same record many times (flippin' Rednex had two massive global hits in the mid-90s with pretty much the same song), but sometimes that's because it's a formula that works, like Thornbridge's .

Kipling is, by any standards, a lovely beer. It's crisp, well carbonated, with hints of tropical fruits (that'll be the south Pacific influence). It's a great beer for a summer evening, light bodied and thirst quenching. Of course, it fails the Jaipur test, but that's ok...although you might wonder why, therefore, Thornbridge should bother, and not just stick to selling us lovely, lovely Jaipur instead.