Brew in a bag Cascadian Dark Ale

[juliancheal]

Hi beer fans,

I was hoping to brew this in the next week or so http://bit.ly/TFOCZF it's a Brew in a bag Cascadian Dark Ale from Northern Brewer. The recipe is for a 3 US gallon batch I was hoping to make 5 US gallons so have increased the quantities, I've also swapped out American 2-Row from the recipe for Maris Otter, which I hope will work.

Here is my grist bill
3.96893 kg Maris Otter
0.378 kg Carafa III
0.92 kg Crystal Malt

And the hop list

60 min - 24 gram Palisade hops
10 min - 47 gram Chinook hops
5 min - 24 gram Palisade hops
0 min - 47 gram Cascade hops (add to kettle at end of boil)

The only problem is I can't seem to find Palisade hops, can anyone suggest any alternative? Any other comments welcome.

[mrlard]

any reading i can find suggests Willamette

not sure about that recipes tho seem like a shed load of crystal and an awful lot of Carafa III

[jeddere]

If you have not seen it already you may be interested in this for comparison: Indian Ink - Black IPA

Some dry hops wouldn't go amiss

[I_used_to_brew]

Does sound like too much crystal, way too much.

My preference would be to cold steep the Carafa Special III overnight and add the liquid to the boil (possibly capping the mash with it too, but not relevant to BIAB).

Remember it's an IPA, but black :)

Up the hops too, lot's, especially the late hops.

[juliancheal]

Thanks for the advise chaps. If I reduce the crystal, should I replace it with something else, or just up the maris otter?

Just found another recipe online based on this one too, and they use shed loads of hops, and plenty of dry hopping too.

[mrlard]

there is a lot to be said for keeping it simple for the first couple of brews

personally i would go for

90% pale
5% crystal
<5% carafa 3 (as per rogers suggestion)

if you got them chuck in a bit of 5-10% Munich and a couple % wheat (should give you a nice brew)

I would bitter with chinook

and bomb all the cascade in for flavour and aroma at the end (say equal amounts at 30 15 and 0mins)



horses for courses tho.

[Capn Ahab]

You can't go wrong with columbus in any hoppy IPA type - good for bittering especially, but also as late hop. +1 to more hops at the end - don't hold back!

[alikocho]

Vinny Cilurzo is very clear on crystal malts and american hops not mixing well and keeping the crystal at 10% or less.

Bear in mind that the black (however you achieve it) will absorb hop aroma and flavour.

And Indian Ink is a proven recipe...(thanks for that Roger).

[juliancheal]

Hi all,

Almost a month after I started this thread, I have finally brewed this beer! I think a combination of the post office gods and bad equipment gods conspiring against me.

Had a few hiccups during the brew session, but as this was my first solo attempt, I think it went quite well. Thanks to Capn Ahab for letting me come over the other week to see how it should be done, it really helped.

I changed the recipe with help from all your suggestions, so hopefully, unless I do something really stupid, I should have a beer to bring to Novembers BBC meet up (whether it'll be any good though who knows).

[Capn Ahab]

Nice one! Looking forward to trying it.