Black IPA

Brew Day: 1/12/15

1 gallon extract kit from Northern Brewer.

3/4 gal in the kettle

0.1 lb Briess Crystal 80L0.05 lb Weyermann Carafa III
0.05 lb Chocolate malt

Steeped grains at 160. Down to 132 after 30 mins. Added 3/4 gal to bring total pre-boil volume to 1.5 gals. Turned heat back on, it took 18 mins to bring to a boil. 45 min boil. 

1.5 lb Gold LME - 45 mins (waited to get past hot break before adding hops)
7 gram Centennial hops 10.4% AA - 45 mins
3.5 gram Chinook hops 11.8% AA - 15 mins
1 tsp Irish Moss - 15 mins
3.5 gram Centennial hops 10.4% AA - 10 mins
3.5 gram Cascade hops 6.5% AA - 5 mins
7 gram Centennial hops 10.4% AA - 0 mins
7 gram Cascade hops 6.5% AA - 0 mins
5 oz Corn Sugar - 0 mins

Killed the heat. Whirlpooled and set kettle in sink for ice bath. Took 11 mins to cool down to 91. It's winter here in Minnesota so I took the opportunity to cool it the rest of the way out on the patio at 0 degrees, and that made me come up with a clever corny name for the beer. Black I(ce)PA.

I'm not lying. It was seriously 0 degrees.

Overshot the projected gravity of 1.071 and ended up at 1.077. I'm okay with it. Dumped the wort out of the kettle, through the double-mesh strainer, into a 1 gal jug to aerate. There were a lot of hops left over in the kettle too. 

Then cleaned the strainer and dumped out of the jug into a 2 gal bucket. Pitched yeast at 69. Safale US-05. Most of the Northern Brewer 1 gal kits call for only 1/2 of the dry yeast packet, but this is a pretty high OG so I used the whole thing. Once it's done it's job, it'll fall out anyway. Attached blowoff tube just in case the extra headroom on the bucket isn't enough. Fermenting at 67.

The recipe calls for 2 weeks in primary, then 2-4 weeks in secondary, then about 2 weeks to bottle condition.

OG: 1.077 (18.8 brix) 

est IBU: 66

est FG: 1.020
est SRM: 23.64

Racked to secondary: 1/26/15

Two weeks and now time to rack the beer off the yeast. It smells great. Plenty of hops in the bottom of the bucket, even with straining the wort twice before pitching the yeast. I tasted the sample I pulled off and it was what a black IPA should taste like. I just used the ambient temp in the apartment to ferment this one. It swayed a bit between 64-72 so it didn't get the consistency it probably should've gotten, but we were gone for a bit down to St. Louis to visit family/friends. Which I think is probably ok since it fermented down further than I'd estimated. It got down to 1.014, instead of the 1.020 I was expecting. Guess that extra 1/2 packet of yeast did the trick on the high original gravity. So I should end up about 8.27% abv. 

I'll give it a few days in secondary then bottle. Don't want to wait too long to bottle, cause I want all those amazing hop aromas and oils to be super fresh. I'm debating using gelatin on this to clear it up, but it's so black it may not make a difference. Have you used gelatin to clear your beer? Let me know your process and results in the comments.\

Bottled: 2/10/15

Due to the hops, my wort loss was pretty dramatic. I only got four 22 oz bottles filled. Now to sit and condition.