Dogfish head fort clone

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Paininmyale

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Trying to make the Dogfish Head Fort. I know the basic ingredients they use, and after running this through the BeerSmith 2 software, ive come up with this: (This recipe is based on per 2 gallon batch, going to try this first, change the recipe based on results and try again)

What do you think?

6 lbs 13.8 oz - Pale Malt (2 row)
10.9 oz - Malted wheat
.85 oz - Warrior hops

Yeast
Belgian Ale yeast - Wyeast labs 1214
Champagne - Wyeast labs WLP715

Fruit
3.10 lbs of fresh raspberry's

EST ABV without fruit it around - 14%
IBU - 49
 
I was thinking of doing something similar to this, although not as high in ABV. I'm shooting for around 9%. I was also going to throw some vanilla beans and oak cubes into the secondary. I assume the 2 different kinds of yeast is for flavor, and to help attain that high 14% plus you're shooting for?

Good luck!
 
Well, brewed the batch and had an original gravity reading of 1.171. Added 10oz of raspberries into the primary and pitched the ale yeast. Once fermentation starts, i will continuously add the fruit into the primary and after 5 days pitch the super high gravity yeast. It will stay in the primary for 2-3 weeks and then be moved into secondary for an additional 2 weeks.
 
Thanks for the update! I have been planing to brew this, and actually took your base recipe and tried to figure out exactly how to tailor it.

Are you planning on just adding frozen raspberries or are you going to be making a puree? Any plans to add the raspberries to the secondary?
Also, what temp. did you Mash at?

Well, brewed the batch and had an original gravity reading of 1.171. Added 10oz of raspberries into the primary and pitched the ale yeast. Once fermentation starts, i will continuously add the fruit into the primary and after 5 days pitch the super high gravity yeast. It will stay in the primary for 2-3 weeks and then be moved into secondary for an additional 2 weeks.
 
Update, beer still has another 2 weeks in the secondary before i bottle condition but with the starting gravity being 1.171 and the finishing gravity around 1.062, im right around the target ABV that i needed. Bubbling in the airlock has pretty much stopped, with only 1 or 2 bubbles a day if that. Once i bottle the beer i will take a reading of the final gravity and determine the exact ABV. The color is dead on and it smells wonderful, will update soon.
 
Thanks for the update! I have been planing to brew this, and actually took your base recipe and tried to figure out exactly how to tailor it.

Are you planning on just adding frozen raspberries or are you going to be making a puree? Any plans to add the raspberries to the secondary?
Also, what temp. did you Mash at?


For the Raspberry additions, you want to add them into the primary. They start adding them into the primary in small portions to allow the yeast to slowly digest the sugars while not over powering the beer. I ended up buying frozen organic raspberries and made a puree out of them and put them into individual containers to add over a 3 week period...(Take a look at the hop addition for 120 ipa, they follow a similar schedule for the raspberries as they do the hops).

As far as mashing temperature, i stayed between 155-160 degrees
 
I'm looking to brew this next weekend, but on a 5 gallon batch scale. Just a few questions.

1.) Like the 120 clone, are you using the 099 super gravity yeast for fermentation after the initial 5 days? and the Belgian yeast for initial?
2.) How long was your boil for? With the ingredients you listed, my calculations came no where close to a 1.171 OG (or are you accounting for all raspberries plus sugar in the puree?)
3.) Is your hop addition just at the start of the boil?

Sorry for all the questions, you are just about the only one who has the most information about this clone attempt.
 
1) I ended up putting a belgian ale yeast in to start with and after 5 days pitched the vial of wlp099 super high gravity. Because i was using it on such a small scale i did not create a starter for it, so that might be on thing you want to account for.

2) I ended up using Beer smith to calculate the OG and that is where i was able to come up with percentage of malt and hops. My OG from the start without any raspberry additions ended up at 1.171 (.001 accounting for temperature).

3) I could not find when they added the hops in so i followed the hop addition i used for the Raison D'etre clone and added them into the boil 15 minutes till boil end. I can tell you after straining the beer and tasting it the hops are very subtle.
 
Beer was bottled almost a week and a half ago and had a final abv of 17%. After bottling was finished i saved a little bit to try. Tastes of strong alcohol and raspberries but was not carbonated so we shall see how it turns out. Going to wait a couple of days to crack open a bottle and going to age a majority of it.
 
How did this turn out? I've always been interested in the Fort because (I've found) the fruit flavour sticks around even through the taste of alcohol (which is surely there).
 
Turned out pretty good, not exactly like DFH fort though. Its right around the same alcohol % but after talking to my LHBS for suggestions on priming sugar to carb it, it was not enough. I am going to transfer what i do have into a 5l keg and force carbonate it rather then the system im using currently. I ended up making a system to force carbonate it...it works, but its a pain. But as far as the beer, its good, little on the strong side, but not 100% like it.

Photo0537.jpg
 
Turned out pretty good, not exactly like DFH fort though. Its right around the same alcohol % but after talking to my LHBS for suggestions on priming sugar to carb it, it was not enough. I am going to transfer what i do have into a 5l keg and force carbonate it rather then the system im using currently. I ended up making a system to force carbonate it...it works, but its a pain. But as far as the beer, its good, little on the strong side, but not 100% like it.

Out of curiosity, how/when did you add the raspberries? The Extreme Brewing book tends to suggest adding fruits at 60 minutes after you've dropped the temp below 170 degrees and letting it sit for 10 minutes. I'm relatively new to brewing, so I'd be concerned about bacteria (right? I thought that high-heat bacteria was the reason for immersion chillers?), but at the same time I bet you get a lot more flavour out of the fruit by whirlpooling and then letting it sit.
 
From my trip to the brewery in Delaware and after reading up on it, they follow a similar schedule to the production of 120. I ended up using frozen raspberries (to prevent bacteria from forming) and ended up making a puree with them. I added a 1/3 of the raspberries at 60 minutes into the boil and then continuously added them morning and night for about a week.

Another food for thought, i've heard of people using raspberry jelly to make fort and from what they informed me, they were able to hit the correct ABV and flavor characteristics by having the jelly rather then fresh fruit.
 
Hello,
Sorry to drag this up from the dead but this doesn't seem like a very popular clone. Sounds amazing though so I have the supplies coming. However, you mentioned that the amount of priming sugar you used wasn't sufficient. How much would you recommend? I would have thought there would be enough residual sugar from all the fruit that a minimum amount would have worked. Thanks!
Adam
 
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