CDA recipe feedback

Beer Recipes
1

thinking of making another CDA this weekend.  my last one turned out great, it just took a couple months to mature.  I wanted to switch up a couple things, however.

10# maris otter
2# crystal 80
3/4# black midnight 525 (wheat sub for carafa iii?)
3/4# carapils
1/2# special B

I will steep the midnight the last 20 minutes of the mash only so the roast doesn’t overpower

2oz warrior 60 min
2oz falconers flight 60 min
1oz cascade 30 min
1oz cascade 15 min
1oz falconers flight 15 min
1oz cascade 0 min

making a WLP060 american ale blend starter with some expired yeast. if that doesn’t take off (I’ve yet to get a viable starter but just bought a stir plate for this one), I’ll just pitch a US-05.

it’s hard to tell from beersmith how this will work out, since I don’t have a CDA style type to judge against.  but it should work out to about 6.5%, 40-45 SRM and 100+ IBU.  any suggestions as to what to change?  I have all of my specialty grains mixed together, but the midnight and the maris are separate.

2

You could also add the black during the sparge.  In my experience, roast malts and citrus hop flavors clash.  That is just my opinion and I have never used black midnight 525.  The recipe looks fine and let us know how it turns out.

3

Have you ever brewed an APA/IPA with 23% C-malts before? WAY too much IMO unless you like really sweet beers.

4

I agree. You might want to lower the Crystal to 1 lb.

5

90% base malt, 5% medium crystal, 5% carafa/debittered black malt

6

One of the black IPAs I did, I took a pound of black debittered malt and cold steeped it for about 12hrs, sparged it with a bit of warm water into the kettle while I was sparging the rest. Got that black color and none of the flavor that comes with it.

7

Definitely lower the crystal malts.  Also notice you’re adding 4oz of hops at 60 minutes?  That’s going to be bitter!  Cut that in half, at least!  And add all the roasted malt before you sparge, stir it in real well.  That way you don’t have to mess with mash pH as much and you get the color with a smoother roasted flavor.  I love black IPAs, especially mine!

8

Leave the 2 oz. of Warrior (Since you are trying to get 100+ IBUs) and move the Falconer’s Flight from 60 min to 0 min.  It is a waste to use an aroma/flavor hop for a bittering addition, especially since some are hard to come by, lately.

Also, no dry hops?  I would use a blend of the cascade and Falconer’s to build off of what you already have, probably 2-4 oz.