Saturday, 14 April 2012

AG #55 - Kolkata Black

It's something I've been threatening to do for a while, a Black IPA/Cascadian Dark - call it what you want, I don't really care. I've called it Kolkata Black. 


I didn't want roasty flavours but I did want the dark colour so my grain of choice was Carafa I, a de husked malt which removes some of the harshness associated with roasted grains. This seems to have imparted a really smooth mouthfeel and almost (but not quite) a vanilla flavour. 


In true homebrew fashion I've added some dry hops and I've no idea what they are. I've acquired T90 pellets from various trips to a number of breweries and I definitely have had Nelson Sauvin, Amarillo and Citra. I'm pretty sure that I've used all the Nelson Sauvin but the other two had come out of their bags at the bottom of the plastic container that I keep my hops in. I decided the best thing to do was to sterilise a dry hop sock and lob the lot in. Which I did and, three days later, the results are fine and dandy thank you very much. 


In terms of water treatment the calculator I use on The Homebrew Forum there are only drop down options for general, pale ale, bitter, stout, mild and lager. I didn't really know what yo use so I went for a stout profile as that's the nearest match colour wise.


Hop wise I used Perle for bittering (FWH), Pacific Gem mid boil and Stella at the end. Sadly I under pitched the Windsor Yeast which meant I ended up with a FG of 1020 instead of 1012 meaning I got an ABV% of 4.29 instead of 5.37. For all that, the beer tastes lovely and definitely one I'll be doing again. 


Recipe
Brewlength - 19L
OG - 1053
FG - 1020
ABV - 4.29%
Colour  - 53 EBC
Bitterness 54 IBU




Grains
5kg Maris Otter
400g Carafa I
200g Aromatic Malt


Hops
25g Perle 8.00%AA FWH
17g Pacific Gem 17.00%AA @ 30 mins
10g Stella 16.00%AA @ 10 mins
10g Stella @ Flame Out
50g of T90 pellets - dry hop


Misc
Protofloc @ 5 mins
Yeast 1 x Windsor


Water Treatment
28ml CRS
4.5g table salt (in boil)
7.3g gypsum (in boil)

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