First High ABV Beer... Tips/Pointers/Suggestions?

So,a friend and I are targeting to make an approx 10.5% ABV Dark Chocolate Stout w/ Strawberries for another friends wedding.
Tasty.
First time making a massive brew like this - looking for advice and tips if possible.

How long should I anticipate primary to take, approx?
Grain bill look fitting enough?
Where is the faildozer?


Recipe:

Dark Chocolate Stout+Strawberry
Brew Type:
All Grain Date: 4/13/2012
Style: Sweet Stout
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Volume: 7.94 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 % Actual Efficiency: 74.74 %

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
15.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 66.67 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 8.89 %
2.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 8.89 %
1.00 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.44 %
4.00 oz Crystal [3.10 %] (90 min) Hops 27.7 IBU
1.00 oz Crystal [3.10 %] (30 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
1.20 oz Chocolate Extract (Secondary 0.0 min) Misc
2.40 lb Frozen Strawberries (Secondary 14.0 days) Misc
1.50 lb Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 11.11 %
2 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

This is all you really need to brew a big beer:
beerdujour.com/Howtobrewabigbeer.htm

I think website is down right now, but google has a cached copy.

Great link! Checking it out now ... thanks!

Definitely plan on aerating the lot... but for 5-6 gallons of wort, Mr. Malty is telling me 5-6 packs of Nottingham? Sound proper?

Also - if I'm aerating and dumping 4-5 packs of Nottingham, how vital is a starter? I don't have a flask setup yet so if I was to rock a starter, I'd have to do it low budget style somehow if necessary...

I've never heard of anybody making a starter with dry yeast. You can proof it, or put it into warm water for rehydration I guess. I don't know if that really does much though. But that recipe looks delicious.

LouBrew13 said:

I've never heard of anybody making a starter with dry yeast. You can proof it, or put it into warm water for rehydration I guess. I don't know if that really does much though. But that recipe looks delicious.

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Thanks man - pre-hydration of dry yeast is something I've never done... usually I stick with the liquid yeasts but... Nottingham should deliver the goods on this one (and its cheaper).

I'll let you know how it comes out... the original is from here (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/dark-chocolate-stout-136707/).

I plan on making a few mild additions as far as chocolate flavoring goes... but otherwise it looks tasty.

Improper rehydration will kill about half your yeast. You really should rehydrate according to the manufacturer's directions.

Nateo said:

Improper rehydration will kill about half your yeast. You really should rehydrate according to the manufacturer's directions.

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Fair assessment - and I will gladly do this! In the past when I've used the dry packs, I usually go just to dump it in without issues... since this is a larger ABV I'm targeting, I'm down for more specific attention to details for a better final result.

re-hydrating is easy. I think notty needs 92* degree water. let it sit for 15 mins, then swirl and pitch.

I heat the water by putting bottled water in some hot water until its up to temp. The water is sanitary cause it's been bottled. I find that my beers with re-hydrated yeast take off faster and finish lower than without. I always re-hydrate now. It's an easy step that really has no risk.

Do a yeast starter, oxygenate the beer using pure O2 and a 2 micron diffuser stone, fermcap to avoid krausen overflow, blow off tube, start temperature a little low 64-66 degrees to keep fermentation under control until a day or 2 then 68-70. When I do 10% beers it usually ends up in primary for 3-4 weeks. Then rack to secondary or bottle for 1-6 months depending on how long you have. My primary issue with doing big beers over 10% were the krausen overflow...lid popped and had some volume loss and contamination risk, and just the waiting period. Also I do notice that my bigger beers take longer to carb up if your bottle conditioning. Just some tips for what it's worth.

strongarm said:

Do a yeast starter, oxygenate the beer using pure O2 and a 2 micron diffuser stone, fermcap to avoid krausen overflow, blow off tube, start temperature a little low 64-66 degrees to keep fermentation under control until a day or 2 then 68-70. When I do 10% beers it usually ends up in primary for 3-4 weeks. Then rack to secondary or bottle for 1-6 months depending on how long you have. My primary issue with doing big beers over 10% were the krausen overflow...lid popped and had some volume loss and contamination risk, and just the waiting period. Also I do notice that my bigger beers take longer to carb up if your bottle conditioning. Just some tips for what it's worth.

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no, never ever make a starter with dry yeast. making a 10% beer with liquid yeast though? yeah, you need a starter. you'd be better off pitching onto a cake though. I'm doing that with my Golden Strong - 10% abv pitching onto a cake from my tripel (7.5%) made with WLP500.

You can also cheat the oxygenation a little if you don't have o2. Aerate like you normally would and pitch. come back and aerate like crazy after about 6-8 hours or so. You can still force some oxygen without messing up the beer.

+1 to what Cardinals fan said.

I definitely plan on picking up some aeration supplies - aquarium pump, stainless stone, and some hosing is within budget.

Plans were to oxygenate for 30m or so, then drop 5 Hydrated Packs of dry Nottingham in, seal her up and hope for the best. I never have made a starter before, or a yeast cake for that matter... but woudln't be opposed, however it seems thats frowned upon for dry yeasties.

Yeah, I don't see why you would need a yeast starter if you're using dry yeast, and I've never even experienced a difference from rehydration/forgetting to. Just shake it up in the bucket and you'll be fine. Also, I would just use two packets of yeast. Five would probably blow that sucker up.

Wow its only 10% guys. You only need 2 packs of notty since they are 11g packs, right? Mine always were. All I ever do with beers like this is pitch a proper amount of yeast and aerate with a big spoon for a few minutes. Never a problem. Past 12% roughly ill use o2.

But yes you should rehydrate those packs of notty before pitching.

My bad for lack of clarification..
5 packs of 5 gram Danstar...
2 Packs of 11.5gs.

Fixed my lactose #'s too... was supposed to be 1.5lb, not 2.5lb.

Its going to take a looooooooong time to be ready. 3 weeks to a month in primary, 2-3 months in secondary on the strawberries, chocolate (and vanilla beans?), then at least a few months in bottles. On bottling pitch a new yeast with 5ish oz of table sugar.

Oh and split the fermentation into 2 vessels. Big imperial stouts ferment ridiculously vigorously and form giant krausen. You don't want to be cleaning yeast and sh** off the ceiling

What does your set up look like for temp control? You'll more than likely at least need to set up a swamp cooler. Big big beers put off a ton of heat.

malevolent said:

Its going to take a looooooooong time to be ready. 3 weeks to a month in primary, 2-3 months in secondary on the strawberries, chocolate (and vanilla beans?), then at least a few months in bottles. On bottling pitch a new yeast with 5ish oz of table sugar.

Oh and split the fermentation into 2 vessels. Big imperial stouts ferment ridiculously vigorously and form giant krausen. You don't want to be cleaning yeast and sh** off the ceiling

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Disappointing numbers. I was hoping for 2-3 weeks Primary, 2-3 weeks secondary. I was targeting putting this in a keg for force carbing -- it's for a wedding.

cmybeer said:

What does your set up look like for temp control? You'll more than likely at least need to set up a swamp cooler. Big big beers put off a ton of heat.

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Chest freezer w/ temp control. Probably set it for around 65degF and put the thermocouple next to the bucket of joy.

BillyVegas said:

Disappointing numbers. I was hoping for 2-3 weeks Primary, 2-3 weeks secondary. I was targeting putting this in a keg for force carbing -- it's for a wedding.

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Labor of love man

I meant the beer, not the wedding but I guess the wedding is a labor of love as well.

It will take a while for the chocolate and strawberry flavors to really be imparted into the beer. You could probably put some cocoa powder in at flameout and then after the krausen falls add strawberries, or just add strawberry flavoring (as a last resort if it needs to be rushed)

I'll have to wait until primary is finished, first and foremost. If I have to hack out and extract the strawberry + chocolate, so be it. It's against my ethos, but I don't think I'll be encountering many purists at the wedding minding...

That being said, I got a surprising amount of flavor for a can of vinters reserve cherry on a porter I did a few weeks back in only 2 weeks. Then again, loswer ABV probably takes the flavor alot more willingly then a 10+%'er, I'd imagine.

Ahhh... the problems of a homebrewer.

So did they request a chocolate strawberry beer or is this your own concoction? Are they really into stuff like this?

cmybeer said:

So did they request a chocolate strawberry beer or is this your own concoction? Are they really into stuff like this?

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Interesting question.

They are into a few different brews - but the groom specifically enjoys stouts I've made it seems. Since it's a June wedding, and outdoors, we're doing 3 different brews. A APA/IPA Hop-Centric American Ale, a crispy, citrusy, mannequin-pis inspired Kolsch, and then this monster stout for "dessert", as it were.

Outdoor wedding, June in NJ, and stout... is something that required alot of thought. This seemed best -- always open to suggestions, however!

So we brewed it and shes bubbling away.

Mind boggling thing happened here that either I'm not seeing the obvious, or am stupid.

We mashed at 154degF for 90 minutes the malt bill (20lb of grain) using about 20qt of water. Pulled first runnings, batch sparged per usual yo get to boil volume (just shy of 7gal), and went for a test OG about halfway through boil. Readings had it showing around 1.050... which I suppose would be fine if we didn't use 20lb of grain and trying to brew a 10%+er... I was estimating around 1.100ish from my math.

Any idea what could have went wrong here? At the point we got the reading, we resorted to a DME addition to boost sugars and ended up a little higher than anticipated -- reading 1.120. So we're hitting our targeted ABV, but I'm concerned about hop character blurring in the sugar now, and perhaps this rocket fuel just tasting like everclear.

Anyone run into this? I can't see how we didn't pull more sugars...

Might have to do with the crush? Did you mill or buy it milled?

Did you measure your efficiency?

Used my Barley Crusher 15 for the first time on this one, actually. It was crushed right there, and looked right (default settings).

I did not measure efficiency... but clearly it sucked...

6 Days in the fermenter -- Gravity readings of 1.043 down from the OG of 1.124 !! This beast is clocking in at 10.7%abv right now. Monster! I was afraid the yeast **** out -- but it looks like they did their duty well.

Question -- Its got alot of the dark chocolate flavors I'm targeting, so I'm pleased. I have about a month+ to get strawberry flavor in here and reinforce the chocolate. I'm thinking a couple pounds of strawberry for a few weeks and check back in to see how it A) Tame the boozy flavor, which isn't all that bad. Alot of sweetness and dark chocolate goodness going on for primary... and B) Add Strawberry flavor.

Thoughts? Should I let this sit on primary for another week? Pull it off the yeast to get to secondary and add fruit ASAP? So far so good, however.