Thought I’d try a single hop black IPA. I have recently changed my kit to do 50L brews and had some issues with my hop filter becoming clogged with the extra hops and break. I have now changed the filter for just over a metre of stainless steel pipe covering. It seems to work a treat.
For some reason my target volume has been a bit under so I have been slightly more liberal with my mash volume and as such collected a lot more than anticipated. I went for 50L and got 57L into the fermenter. The new hop filter has allowed me to get more out. Next brew hoping to get the numbers better.
I cold steeped the Carafa for a couple of hours and added to the second batch sparge.
I was expecting 50L at 1.055 and got 57L at 1.052/1.054, depends on how you read the blurry photo, the refractometer said 12.2 brix.
The yeast I used was Wyeast 1318 London Ale yeast. Absolutely awesome. I have now saved some for another brew.
| Fermentable | Colour | lb: oz | Grams | Ratio |
| Torrefied Wheat | 4 EBC | 0 lbs. 8.5 oz | 240 grams | 2% |
| Pale Malt | 5 EBC | 24 lbs. 4.4 oz | 11010 grams | 89.2% |
| Carafa Special 3 | 1300 EBC | 1 lbs. 1.6 oz | 500 grams | 4% |
| Caramalt | 30 EBC | 1 lbs. 1.8 oz | 500 grams | 4.1% |
| Chocolate Malt | 1050 EBC | 0 lbs. 1.6 oz | 46 grams | 0.4% |
| Caramunch | 100 EBC | 0 lbs. 1.5 oz | 44 grams | 0.4% |
The Citra hops are amazing. I recently had Blueball’s Tropical IPA and it inspired me to go for a Citra beer myself. The overall taste was not hoppy enough so I have added 100g to the secondary ferment for a week. Let’s hope it perks up a bit. If not I will just rename this Citra Noir!
| Hop Variety | Type | Alpha | Time | lb: oz | grams | Ratio |
| Citra | Whole | 14.5 % | 90 mins | 0 lbs. 1.4 oz | 40 grams | 20% |
| Citra | Whole | 14.5 % | 60 mins | 0 lbs. 0.7 oz | 20 grams | 10% |
| Citra | Whole | 14.5 % | 45 mins | 0 lbs. 0.7 oz | 20 grams | 10% |
| Citra | Whole | 14.5 % | 15 mins | 0 lbs. 0.7 oz | 20 grams | 10% |
| Citra | Whole | 14.5 % | 0 mins | 0 lbs. 3.5 oz | 100 grams | 50% |
| Citra | Whole | 14.5 % | 1 week | 0 lbs. 3.5 oz | 100 grams |
Fairly photo heavy now.
Blurry cam grain
Some hops
Steeping Carafa
Mash runnings
The boil
Cooling
Gunk
Wort for measuring
Not so dark when in a thin vessle
1.052 or 1.054?
Ferment under way
Looking good
Going full tilt
OMG it's alive!
Can't have too many hops
Beer before the secondary - tasted lovely
Bottled up at 1.009 so this should be 5.7%.
Proper tasty balance of herbal hops with subtle dark malts, great beer cheers for the bottle