Event Horizon RIS - PICS

[jimp2003]

Hi Guys and Gals!

Bit of an early start on this one and it is FREEZING outside showing minus 5 degrees. Still it should be a nice clear still day for brewing outside.

I am having a stab at a RIS and here are the details:

Event Horizon (Imperial Stout)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.100 (°P): 23.8
Final Gravity (FG): 1.030 (°P): 7.6
Alcohol (ABV): 9.17 %
Colour (SRM): 79.8 (EBC): 157.0
Bitterness (IBU): 87.6 (Average)

73.39% Maris Otter Malt
9.17% Wheat Malt
4.59% Chocolate
3.67% Roasted Barley
3.67% Roasted Wheat
2.75% Black Malt
1.83% Special-B
0.92% Caraamber

2.8 g/L Northern Brewer (9% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
2.2 g/L Northern Brewer (9% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil)
2.5 g/L East Kent Golding (5.2% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
0.6 g/L Northern Brewer (9.6% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
2.3 g/L East Kent Golding (5.2% Alpha) @ 3 Minutes (Boil)

0.2 g/L Yeast Nutrient @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 20°C with WLP004 - Irish Ale (2l starter)


I changed my hop schedule and reduced the volume by a couple of litres from my original thoughts HERE

As I BIAB I have decided to try a double mash with just under half the MO and all the pale wheat going in first. The second mash will have the rest of the MO and the dark malts. Makes the day a bit longer but hopefully it will work out.

First mash started at 7.20am. Will keep updating and will upload some pics later if all goes well...

[leedsbrew]

good luck matey! at least the ground water temp will be low so your cooling will be rapid!

looking forward to the pics! I like the roasted wheat addition!

[leedsbrew]

+ great name!

[jimp2003]

Cheers LB! I rinsed out the bucket that had the first lot of grains in it and after 30 mins left in the cold the lid had frozen to the bucket!

Second mash on now at 66C

[leedsbrew]

bloody hell!

[jimp2003]

First of the pics:

The grain shared out for the two mashes the night before:




Lets get some heat on..as I huddle around the burner...



This is my unsulator for the stockpot. I had someone make me up two big buckets from HDPE. One was smaller than the other so I could put 50mm kingspan for the top and a mixture of kingspan, polystyrene beads and expanding foam in the wall. The cavity between the two was also lined with foil before the insulation was added. Usually I don't get much loss of temp during the mash at all but today I had a drop of just under 2 degrees...



Much needed sustinence....




Right better go to and check the mash...more later

[leedsbrew]

nice one! I like the insulated bucket idea! good luck!

[jimp2003]

Second mash only lost a degree which I guess was due to the insulated cover having warmed up.

Pe-boil SG was 1.099 which was a bit too high so I added a litre of water and then ended up just below the target pre-boil SG. I really must get round to calibrating a steel ruler that I have so that I can check the volume of wort in the pot otherwise I will always be guessing a little bit.

[Lugsy]

Nice one, love the name! Impressed with the early start on a day like today, mind you at least it's lovely and sunny.

Good luck with it

[jimp2003]

Cheers Lugsy! I often make good plans to get up early on a brew day and for once I actually did it.

Here's some more pics:

Did I mention it was cold?




Got the hops ready. The Northern Brewer were nice and sticky. In the background are the Seville Oranges I picked up during the week for making marmalade. If anyone has any intentions of adding orange peel to any brews during the year grab your sevilles now and freeze them.



End of the second mash with a bit of heat being applied to mashout..




Pulling the bag




For both mashes I put the bag in a bucket resting on an upturned collander and did a crude sparge with a couple of litres of water that had been kept back. This was very worthwhile on this brew but things did not totally work out as I will explain later...



The resulting wort - Black as bumholes!




Hot break - I always think this looks very tasty




End of the boil - chiller in



Run off. Another slight adjustment I need to make is to get a small length of pipe that I can add at this stage to get a good syphon effect and draw off all the wort possible from the kettle.



Poured off most of the starter liquid and resuspended the WLP004 before pitching...




Surprisingly I only missed the post boil SG by 1 point!!

Unfortunately though the volume was 2.5 litres down from where it should have been.

I think I have accounted for this however. As I was cleaning up I found a little over 500ml of extra wort with a SG of 1.109 that had drained out of the bag containing the second mash grains. I would normally check this during the boil but forgot today. I probably missed out on something similar from the first mash as I emptied the bag quicker than normal to get the second batch going. I also left more wort than I would have liked in the kettle as there was no real syphon effect from the tap.

Lessons learnt and my next attempt at something similar using BIAB should go a lot better. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out in a year or so if I can last that long...

[Horatio]

Great photos! Looks like a winner to me.

[Lugsy]

Good work! There seem to be a lot of RIS's around recently, not that that's a bad thing

Well done on getting your OG, what was your efficiency like?

I really must get round to calibrating a steel ruler that I have so that I can check the volume of wort in the pot otherwise I will always be guessing a little bit.

It's easy to calculate your volume with a parallel-sided boiler: Volume = depth x area, where area = 1/2 x diameter x pi squared. Or go to the BIABrewer website, register there and download "the calculator" brewing spreadsheet. This lets you enter the diameter of your boiler and it tells you how many cm of depth relates to one litre

I've got a 45cm (70l) boiler, one litre equates to 0.63cm of depth.

[jimp2003]

I was inspired to do this one by the new year day RIS brews but have meant to do one for a while. I have a surplus of grain at the moment so this has helped convert some stocks.

TBH I have never calculated my efficiency. I know that some people think you should so that you can tweak recipes to suit your set up or consistently replicate a brew but I usually end up pretty close to where I need to be and if not then I don't worry too much. I must say that the Brewmate software does not seem to work for me at the moment as I have been short on 2 brews now and I tweaked it this time as well.

I put the recipe into the BIABrewer spreadsheet earlier and the amount of water required was significantly more than the Brewmate calculations. I think I will go back to that system as it did not let me down in my early brews. Also, as you say it has the volume calculator guide.

[WishboneBrewery]

I know its slightly belated for the NYD brew up, but I'll add this thread link to my blog, nice work.

[jimp2003]

I know its slightly belated for the NYD brew up, but I'll add this thread link to my blog, nice work.

Cheers!