paulthenurse

Recipes 

Ok guys, a friend and I have agreed that we're going to try to brew a Utopia Clone just after Christmas. We've both had it before so we at least have tasted what we're trying to replicate. From information gathered from a ton of sources we've cobbled together this recipie. We're going to aim for 20 gallons going into the pots, boiled down to ten gallons of final product. Tell me what you think of the recipie. It's not a perfect clone, I know Sam has a starting point of 48*Plato and we're only around 42. We've talked about adding some malt extract to boost ours up, we're still negotiating on that, I want to keep it all grain. We'll also be adding either sherry or champagne yeast (if we can't get sherry which according to our local guy is hard to get) and we'll be aging it on oak chips for probably a year. I'm thinking about how to replicate the taste profiles they get from the time SA keeps the beer in old whiskey and sherry barrels

I know Pummba and Landhoney were both talking about taking a shot at this some time ago, dows anyone know how that turned out?


Anyways, heres our recipie

Recipe Type All Grain
Batch Size 10 gal. Boiled down from 20 gallons at start of boil

Predicted Original Gravity 1.188 @ 60 °F

Predicted Terminal Gravity 1.034 @ 60 °F

Mash Efficiency 80 %

Total Grain/Extract 70.00 lbs.

Calories (12 fl. oz.) 782.1



40 lbs. American 2-row
15 lbs. American 6-row Pale
3 lbs. American Caramel 60°L
3 lbs. Toasted Pale Malt
1 lbs. Melanoidin Malt
4 lbs. Munich Malt
1.5 lbs. German Smoked

2.5 lbs. Maple Syrup added with 15 minutes left in boil

2 oz. Tettnanger (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 60 min.
2 oz. Spalt Spalter (Whole, 4.75 %AA) boiled 60 min.
2 oz. Hallertau (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 30 min.
2 oz. Hallertau Mittelfruh (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 10 min.

Yeast : White Labs WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale

Original 41.75 °Plato
Attenuation 79.6 % 63.1 %
Extract 8.53 °Plato
Alcohol 21.1 % ABV


PTN

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Displaced MassHole

Recipes 

Holy Crap....never had the real thing but I can see why its so damn expensive. Any clue how much this little test of yours is going to run you? I wish you the best though on this one.

McKBrew

Recipes 

Totally awesome attempt. Best of luck.

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the_bird

Recipes 

I'd be tempted to add the syrup after fermentation had begun. Get the lowest-grade stuff you can find; cheaper AND more flavor. Adding it after fermentation is active might let you squeeze out a few more points of attenuation. And, if you're only using 1.5#, forget the smoked malt, you'll NEVER notice it in a beer this big. That's what, 2% or so? You'd probably need at least 10% - which I would do myself, personally , to get a subtle smokiness. Remember, rauchbiers are usually 50%-ish. I know you're not going for a smoked beer, but at that small a quantity it's pointless.

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paulthenurse

Recipes 

Good point. But I don't remember a distinctive smoke presence in the original. Now granted, I've only had it twice and the last time was a year ago but I just don't remember it being there. Too bad the research is so damned expensive. The guy I'm brewing it with has several bottles but they're not opened and he's whining about opening one up.
PTN

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the_bird

Recipes 

I've heard that it's there (I've never had the pleasure of partaking in a sample), and I think it would be a wonderful complement to the other flavors in there... but **** or get off the pot, 1.5# isn't worth weighting out. Some of the smokey character could either be yeast derived (you'll inevitably stress them out, nature of the beast here) or might be somewhat a byproduct of the uber-long boil you'll be doing. Not exactly "smoke," but you might get some interesting smokey characteristics from kettle caramelization and from the yeast.

Oh, what about that high-gravity ale yeast as your finishing yeast instead of the champaign?

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RECENT BREWS: "Tell Me How My (American Smoked Stout) Taste?", Amarllo APA

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Parker36

Recipes 

Will this be the first 3 gallon starter?

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conpewter

Recipes 

If you haven't read this already it might help you out on your process

Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - 21% Alcohol All-Grain Beer -

Also when I did my 999 barleywine I put the sugar in after fermentation had slowed down and that really did help it to attenuate (down to 1.020 from a theoretical 1.119 with candy sugar included, used nottingham)

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Saccharomyces

Recipes 

The usual recommendation I have seen for WLP099 is to start with a moderate strength wort (30*P or so) and step up the gravity to your target over the course of 3-4 steps, re-oxygenating with each step so the yeast will grow bud and adapt to the fresh sugars. This yeast is really good at tolerating alcohol, but no yeast is good at growing in a 50*P wort which is essentially syrup.

You could move half the wort to the fermenter and pitch the yeast, and then boil down the remainder to double the gravity and split into three containers which you then freeze. Each container could be re-boiled to sanitize and then added to the fermenter after cooling. Or, you could do what I'm planning when I try this and simply use extract for the remaining fermentables. Half 30*P wort and half 60*P wort would yield the same result as a 45*P wort without shocking the yeast, giving you a much better shot at a reasonable attenuation.

Subscribed. I want to try this someday myself. Good luck!

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Boerderij_Kabouter

Recipes 

This sounds like a great experiment! I would stick with the small amount of rauchmalt, just because you can't directly taste it doesn't mean it isn't contributing to the flavor profile.

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