Home Brew Forum

This is part brewday, part "how to" for anyone interested in a bit of R&D micro batches.

I love tanks, the old ones mind not the new ones. There is nothing interesting or exciting about a computer designed, computer operated piece of machinery. The T-54 on the other hand is an absolute beast, for its year it was rapid with some of the prototypes dashing about at 50km an hour, it was tiny and packed a huge punch and inspired some of the american tanks like the Patton. It is also the tank the north vietnamese used to spearhead the americans and was the tank which smashed the south Vietnamese presidential palace and thus ending the Vietnam war That said, this is about beer, not about my strange and random interests and on that note here is the T-54:



Recipe: T-54 TYPE: All Grain
Style: Imperial Stout
---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------
SRM: 103.4 EBC
IBU: 68.6 IBUs
OG: 1.119 SG
FG: 1.025 SG
BU:GU: 0.578
Calories: 427.1 kcal/l
Est ABV: 12.6 %
EE%: 72.00 %
Batch: 5.00 l
Boil: 8.5 l
BT: 85 Mins

---WATER CHEMISTRY ADDITIONS----------------


Total Grain Weight: 2.60 kg Total Hops: 27.00 g oz.
---MASH/STEEP PROCESS------MASH PH:5.40 ------
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD WATER CHEMICALS BEFORE GRAINS!!<<<<<<<
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.60 kg Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 61.4 %
0.15 kg Pale Chocolate Malt (585.0 EBC) Grain 2 5.8 %
0.15 kg Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC) Grain 3 5.8 %
0.12 kg Dark Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 4 4.8 %
0.10 kg Amber Malt (43.3 EBC) Grain 5 3.8 %
0.10 kg Brown Malt (128.1 EBC) Grain 6 3.8 %
0.08 kg Wheat, Roasted (837.3 EBC) Grain 7 3.1 %

Mash In Add 6.01 l of water at 76.4 C for a mash of 68.9 C for 45 min

Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 3.55l) of 75.6 C water

---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.071 SG Est OG: 1.119 SG
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7.00 g Columbus[14.00 %] - Boil 60. Hop 8 40.9 IBUs
10.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 17.6 IBUs
5.00 g Cluster [7.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 10 7.2 IBUs
5.00 g Cluster [7.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 11 2.9 IBUs
15.00 g Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 12 -
300g Honey (oh giggidy)

My experiments with stouts & porters shown that roasted grains will quite quickly overpower anything else that you might be trying to do, as a result. it is imperative that they are kept to a very low quantity. I did a porter the other week which half way through fermentation tasted like the greatest porter known to man, fast forward a week and all thats left is a light roast flavour, no vanilla, no chocolate, it was all gone and left not a damn thing but roast. So, the roast used here is a token amount, as much for colour as anything else.

The amber, dark crystal and brown malt are to give this a bit of body. These malts have very low diastatic power but due to the amount of pale (MO) malt we have, this shouldn't be an issue and coupled with a high mash temp I'm not too worried about this falling into the same trap the porter did.

The chocolate malt is actually a pale chocolate malt and the "pale" is a big big big big big addition, it has a lot less roast character, almost non by comparison to chocolate malts ive tried in the past and actually taste of chocolate.

The honey does strange things to beers and if you haven't tried it, please don't regurgitate what you have "read", my experiments have shown it to add a very mouthy quality to beers which I have not encountered with any beer without honey. It is downright odd. I've used it to prime before now and dabbled with it in beers, this will be the largest addition. I'm not interested in aroma or taste, but the mouthfeel is rather thick and I definitely want that in this.

The hop schedule, now I admit I've literally thrown that together. I like all 3 of the above hops and I have lots of them so I've gone in at about "there" ("there" being my guesstimate for IBU's required)

The cinnamon is actually powder and is going in as I've never used it before in a beer and I do like the taste. I'm going for what I would say is maybe more than needed but I remember using some in a pear cider I made and it didn't come out too strong so I'm going to hedge my bets and just go with it.

Anyway, enough rambling, heres some photos.

If you missed all of what I just wrote and skipped to the picture then I'll summarise: Beer is good.

The grain bag with everything but the honey in


My UNIVA 9L boiler which SWMBO insulated for me


Hops measured out into little foil bags


Measuring out the sparge water and getting it up to temperature


Getting the first runnings out


Me wearing a marigold glove over an oven glove and squeezing the shit out of the bag. Give. Me. Sugars!


Approaching the boil


Once the break has gone, that is when I start my boil timer and add the first lot of hops


When it's all done. get the lid on quickly, it's at this point that wort is at its most vulnerable and it's a real easy way to ruin your brewday if bacteria gets in now.


Get it in the FV while hot. I sanitise my FV prior to hot filling, its good practice.


I pour some in a jug, so it can cool a bit and then go in my measuring cylinder



Once the cylinder is down to a measureable temp get the hydro in.


I cheated a bit here, the keen eyed among you will have seen that my boil time is 85mins, yet on my picture with the hop pockets, its the usual 60 30 15 5.
I did a pre boil OG test, I don't usually bother with the big rig but with the little kitchen effort its important. Because the quantities are so small, it is very very easy to get a low efficiency. Usually I get 72, which is what the thing is calibrated for, here, I got 66 or so. That is because the higher OG you go for the less efficient the process becomes especially with tall thin mash tuns (like mine here). The likes of brewdog and other high OG brewers look at making a brew with a lower OG and then boiling for longer to condense what is there, down. Their system most definitely runs a bit better than my 72% efficiency aswell

The rest, is pretty much history as all there is left to do is get the sealed FV in the sink

fill said sink with water and change every hour to cool it down.

estimated ABV is about 11.5% which I'll bump up to 12% when I prime. In the spirit of the T series, I'm pitching T-58

A big ol' roasty stout with Cluster hops and Chimay yeast? Oh god yes. I like the way you think.

the t34 for me, won the eastern front hands down, even against the mighty tiger

While I was making this I found myself thinking... "I'm sure Seymour would like a bottle of this "

It certainly did but I think the crews of the T-34 were a lot better than the tank itself. The sheer courage and determination required to swarm a superior armed/armoured enemy until victory is nothing short of praiseworthy. Though the Tiger was overrated as was the Tiger 2, though hindsight is brilliant.

I have never thought of making a quick gallon just to test out recipes. Must do that more often. Thanks for the inspiration.

very welcome barney. I'll warn you now though, it will be a bit different when you scale it up, more notably late hop additions. Malt isn't too bad if you use brewmate and scale by weight, if you scale by fermentables like beersmith does you can get some "interesting" results and skewed flavours/colours. Late hop additions can become very hoppy indeed which is fine for IPA's but not so good for more malty bitters and the like.

It's brilliant for breeding up yeast to use with a bigger batch, do a session ale and you'll have plenty of yeast to ferment out a "big beer" at 23/50L. ales like the one here aren't so good for yeast breeding as whilst only the most hardy yeast survive the high ABV you will kill lots of what would have been viable yeast. (You probably know that, but its worth mentioning to those considering this who don't)