AG#10 Imperial Russian Stout

[Lugsy]

I've decided to do a good strong stout to put away for a while. This one's pretty much the same as the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout that leedsbrew did a while back (thanks for the recipe ) apart from a couple of minor variations (I don't have black malt so I've just upped the roasted barley, the yeast is S04 and I BIAB so the mash is different)

Fermentables
Ingredient Amount %
Maris Otter 4.930kg 83.4%
Wheat Malt 0.349kg 5.9%
Chocolate Malt 0.330kg 5.6%
Roasted Barley 0.221kg 3.7%
Unmalted Wheat 0.079 kg 1.3%

This is for a 14 litre batch, Beer Engine says the OG will be 1.099 but that's based on an efficiency of 79% which I don't think I'll get so I'll add sugar as needed when the boil's done to get to this gravity.

I'm mashing this lot in a 20 litre pan starting with 12 litres of water at 65C. This is a 3 hour mash so I'm adding 1/2 a litre of boiling water at a couple of points in the mash to keep the temperature up. This will be followed by a two or three 5 litre sparges to get as much as I can out of the grains.

I'm doing a long boil to reduce the volume and keep the gravity up, maybe three hours but I'll have to see how it goes.

My hop schedule isn't fixed yet but I don't have to worry about it for at least the next three hours! It'll be EKG for bittering to about 40 IBU then EKG, Cascade and Willamette for flavour and aroma.

I'm pitching it on to the yeast cake of S04 that I've just brewed a Landlord recipe with so I'm hoping that should be able to cope with it

The mash has been on for just over two hours now, I'll post again when I finalise the hops.

Cheers!

L

[TheMumbler]

I really doubt you'll see 79% efficiency with a beer that strong. If it turns out anything like Brooklyn Black it will be cracking.

Good luck!

[Lugsy]

Things aren't going exactly to plan!

The first runnings from the mash yielded 6.7 litres at 1.098 and a very heavy bag of wet grains. First sparge gave me 6.2 litres at 1.066, second gave 6 litres at 1.044 and the third gave 6 litres at 1.026. I started the boil at about 4:30 but it's been on and off as I've been adding the sparges and has probably only really boiled for a couple of hours. I've got two pans on the boil now, my 20 litre stock pot and another 5 litre pan, I've stopped sparging as this is becoming a very long brewday and I'd like to get down to my required volume at some point today. As soon as I can fit it all in one pan I'll take a gravity reading and see how I've done, then work out when I can add the first lot of hops. I'm not sure if this will be going in the fermenter tonight or if I'll just no-chill and finish in the morning as I've got at least two hours of boiling left.

Efficiency wise I'll be happy if I hit 70%, I have no idea how to work it out at the moment from the various runnings.

I think it'll be a while before I try anything like this again with the equipment I've got, but we live and learn

L

[Eric]

Multiply the volumes by the gravity points of each of the runnings then total them.
(6.7 X 98) + (6.2 X 66) + (6 X 44) + (6 X 26) = 656.6 + 409.2 + 264 + 156 = 1485.5 gravity point litres.

Dividing this with the target gravity points will give you the volume you should get at that gravity.
1485.5/99 = 15 litres.

This suggests the target efficiency was exceeded by quite a margin.

[Lugsy]

Thanks for the calculation Eric.

I suspect I may have made a mistake with either my volume measurements or my hydrometer readings though as efficiency seems a little high for this. I'll know when I get the bloody thing finished! My kitchen is up to 28C and looks like a Turkish baths and I've still got about an hour to go.

Anyway, I decided on the hops - very similar to leedsbrews original but again adjusted to suit my stocks:

Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
EKG 5.2% 30g 18 Loose Whole Hops 90 Min From End
NZ Cascade 10.2% 15g 17 Loose Whole Hops 90 Min From End
EKG 5.2% 10g 3 Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
NZ Cascade 10.2% 10g 5 Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
US Willamette 3% 20g 1 Loose Whole Hops 5 Min From End
NZ Cascade 10.2% 10g 2 Loose Whole Hops 5 Min From End

1/2 Protofloc tablet 15 Min From End

[Eric]

My kitchen is up to 28C and looks like a Turkish baths and I've still got about an hour to go.

I admire your dedication. Just wondering how many of those 10 litres of water evaporated into your kitchen airspace will escape and how much will condense. Good luck.

[Lugsy]

Most of the vapour seems to have escaped although the windows are a little damp! The boil's finally done and so am I so I'm going to cover the pan with its lid and a sanitised cloth and leave it to cool overnight - if I try to cool and pitch tonight I'll probably make a stupid mistake and ruin the lot. I'll tackle it in the morning with a fresh head.

Cheers,

L

[WishboneBrewery]

Fun aren't they!!! My first is here http://pdtnc.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/a ... cal-limit/ a fair nightmare of a day!!
My second attempt with a much more considered recipe http://pdtnc.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/a ... ial-stout/ took a third sparge and a load of boiling down!
Both beers are now excellent

[Lugsy]

I'm not sure fun is the word! I wish I'd started a bit earlier in the day, finishing the boil at 11pm took it out of me. I even ended up doing a fourth sparge (the third one seemed a bit too high to leave all that goodness in the grains) which gave me another 5.5 litres at 1.020, that got boiled down in another pan and added just at the end of the boil.

I'm cooling it in a water bath now and I'll be pitching within the hour so I'll do a gravity check then and let you know.

At least it's got a name now: RSI - Repetitive Sparge Idiocy

[WishboneBrewery]

Yeah, good name ha ha

[Lugsy]

Well it's finally done! The last bit is currently straining through voile into the fermenter, there's about 13 1/2 litres in the fermenter and a couple of litres of wet hops and break on top of the voile, it might yield another 1/2 litre by the time it finishes if I'm lucky. Done a hydrometer sample and it's come out at 1.099 so absolutely bang on

Now I'm just hoping the S04 yeast cake is up to the job and I haven't introduced anything nasty through the extended cooling period.

I'm very happy to have reached my intended gravity and volume but I don't think I'll be doing this again. The effort involved is way too much to justify those last few points but as an experience it was worth doing. BUT ONLY ONCE!

[Lugsy]

I underestimated the amount of wet stuff on top of the voile - I now have just shy of 15 litres in the FV but I'm guessing there was probably 1/2l of yeast cake already in there. There was no need to worry about the yeast, it's taken off like a rocket! The krausen is 2" thick already after less than two hours so I'm hoping that 10 litres of head space is enough room for it although I'm not convinced. I'll be fighting it off with a broom handle soon if it doesn't calm down

I've created a monster!

[TheMumbler]

Sounds like it turned out well in the end

That is really good efficiency for such a strong beer, is BIAB good for that? If it wasn't so strong I'd think about adding a bit of sugar to make it a bit thinner. Hope it turns out well.

[Lugsy]

Hi Mumbler

Yes the efficiency has turned out really well, I've read about excellent efficiencies using BIAB but I've never experienced anything this good before. I can only put it down to the four sparges I did which were effectively additional mashes (add 5 or 6 litres of 70C water and leave for 30 minutes+).

Anyway, the ferment went pretty weird yesterday. The krausen had filled more than 10 litres of head space within 4 hours, after 8 hours I realised it had got warm. REALLY warm! It felt warm when I tested the outside of the fermenter with the inside of my wrist and I couldn't take a temperature reading through the 6" or so of krausen so I checked the wall of the FV with a forehead thermometer, it didn't register so all I know is that is was less than 35C, but not much less! I put it in the cellar (16C) to cool down and the yeast was still pretty active this morning so I thought my worries about it having committed heat-suicide were unfounded. I've just had a look and the krausen has been reabsorbed (worryingly) so I checked the gravity - it's 1.030 (9.2% ABV)! Beer engine predicts an FG of 1.028 so I think it's pretty much done in less than 36 hours

And it tastes pretty good! Still sweet but no unpleasant flavours, I'll leave it a few days and check it again to see where it ends up but I don't think it'll go much further.

Weirdest beer I ever made.

L

[WishboneBrewery]

The amount of dry nottingham yeast I used fermented just as quick.