Midnight Ryder: 5 Gallon Extract Batch
When the clock strikes Midnight Ryder, complex notes of chocolate, caramel, and roast collide with six varieties of American hops to create a resinous, piney, Black IPA. After Midnight, expect the unexpected.
O.G: 1.061
Ready: 5 Weeks
Fermentation Schedule:
1–2 week primary
1 weeks secondary
1-2 weeks bottle conditioning
Specialty Grain:
- 0.75 oz Black Patent Malt
- 0.75 oz Chocolate Malt
- 0.5 lb Briess Caramel 80L
- 0.25 oz Briess Caramel 120L
Extracts & Other Fermentables:
- 6 lbs Gold malt syrup
- 1 lb Golden Light DME (5 min late addition)
Boil Additions:
- 0.5 oz Willamette (First Wort - 90 min)
- 0.5 oz Glacier (30 min)
- 0.5 oz Willamette (30 min)
- 1.5 oz Cascade (20 min)
- 1.5 oz Glacier (20 min)
- 0.5 oz Willamette (20 min)
- 1 oz Apollo (10 min)
- 1 oz Columbus (10 min)
- 0.5 oz Summit (10 min)
- 0.75 oz Apollo (3 day dry hop)
- 0.75 oz Cascade (3 day dry hop)
- 0.75 oz Columbus (3 day dry hop)
- 0.75 oz Glacier (3 day dry hop)
- 0.75 oz Summit (3 day dry hop)
- 0.75 oz Willamette (3 day dry hop)
Yeast Options:
Dry yeast: Safale US-05. Optimum temperature: 67°F
Liquid yeast: Wyeast #1272 American Ale II. Optimum temperature: 67°F
Priming Sugar - 5 oz Priming Sugar (for Bottling Day)
Brewer's Note - This recipe calls for a 90 minute boil
On Brewing Day
- Collect and heat 2.5 gallons of water.
- Pour crushed grain into muslin bag and tie the open end in a knot. Steep for 20 minutes or until water reaches 170°F. Remove bag and discard.
- Once the muslin bag of grains is discarded, add 0.5 oz Willamette hops to kettle and bring wort to a boil.
- Once boiling, remove the kettle from the burner to stir in the 6lbs Gold malt syrup. Add hot wort to malt container to get as much syrup out as possible.
- Return wort to boil.
- Add 0.5 oz Glacier hops and 0.5 oz Willamette with 30 minutes remaining in the 90 minute boil.
- Add 1.5 oz Cascade, 1.5 oz Glacier, and 0.5 oz Willamette hops 20 minutes before the end of the boil.
- Add 1 oz Apollo, 1 oz Columbus, 0.5 oz Summit with 10 minutes remaining in the 90 minute boil.
- Add 1 lb Golden Light DME 5 minutes before the end of the boil.
- Remove from heat when 90min boil is complete.
- Cool the wort. When the 90-minute boil is finished, cool the wort to approximately 64° F as rapidly as possible. Use a wort chiller, or put the kettle in an ice bath in your sink.
- Sanitize fermenting equipment and yeast pack. While the wort cools, sanitize the fermenting equipment – fermenter, lid or stopper, fermentation lock, funnel, etc – along with the yeast pack and a pair of scissors.
- Fill primary fermenter with 2 gallons of cold water, then pour in the cooled wort. Leave any thick sludge in the bottom of the kettle.
- Add more cold water as needed to bring the volume to 5.25 gallons.
- Aerate the wort. Seal the fermenter and rock back and forth to splash for a few minutes, or use an aeration system and diffusion stone.
- Measure specific gravity of the wort with a hydrometer and record.
- Add yeast once the temperature of the wort is about 64°F. Use the sanitized scissors to cut off a corner of the yeast pack, and carefully pour the yeast into the primary fermenter.
- Seal the fermenter. Add approximately 1 tablespoon of sanitizer water to the fermentation lock. Insert the lock into rubber stopper or lid, and seal the fermenter.
- Move the fermenter to a dark, quiet spot until fermentation begins.
- Active fermentation begin within approximately 48 hours of Brewing Day, there will be a cap of foam on the surface of the beer, and you may see bubbles come through the fermentation lock.
Secondary Fermentation
- Approximately 1-2 weeks after brewing day, active fermentation will end: the cap of foam falls back into the new beer, bubbling in the fermentation lock slows down or stops.
- Take a hydrometer reading until the SG does not drop for 2 consecutive days.
- As soon as gravity remains stable for 2 consecutive days, transfer beer to secondary fermenter. Sanitize siphoning equipment and an airlock and carboy bung or stopper. Siphon the beer from the primary fermenter into the secondary.
- Secondary fermentation. Allow the beer to condition in the secondary fermenter for 1 week before proceeding with the next step. Timing now is somewhat flexible.
- Add the dry hops. Add 0.75 oz Apollo, 0.75 oz Cascade, 0.75 oz Columbus, 0.75 oz Glacier, 0.75 oz Summit and 0.75 oz Willamette to the secondary fermenter 3 days before bottling day.
Bottling Day
- Sanitize bottles, siphoning and bottling equipment.
- Mix a priming solution (a measured amount of sugar dissolved in water to carbonate the bottled beer) of 2/3 cup priming sugar in 16 oz water. Bring the solution to a boil and pour into the bottling bucket.
- Siphon beer into bottling bucket and mix with priming solution. Stir gently to mix, don’t splash.
- Fill and cap bottles.
1–2 Weeks After Bottling Day
- Condition bottles at room temperature for 1–2 weeks. After this point, the bottles can be stored cold.
- Serving. Pour into a clean glass, being careful to leave the layer of sediment at the bottom of the bottle.