Another try at a Dogfish Head 120 style beer

Back in October I made a beer that resembled Dogfish Head 120: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/13-hop-qipa-aka-plinyfish-heady-120-a-437125/. It came out great except I couldn't get it to carbonate. I recently bought a Tap-A-Draft system so I figured I'd give it another try and this time use bottling sugar and force carbonate it as well. I also decided to only go up to 1.120 for the OG so the ABV will be in the 14-16% range rather than the 18-21% range. I didn't get the initial OG as high as I wanted because I didn't have as much boil off as I thought and I didn't get the efficiency I thought I could (probably because I was mashing with about half the volume of water I normally do for my initial mash in an attempt to get a higher OG)

2.5 gallons:

3 lbs 2-row
3 lbs Golden Promise
Mash at 145* for 60 min
Mash at 155* for 20 min
Mash at 165* for 20 min
Sparge at 168*
1/2 oz CTZ, 1/2 oz Apollo, 1/2 oz Polaris @ 120
3/8 oz CTZ, 1/4 oz Apollo, 1/8 oz Polaris @ 45
3/4 oz mix of Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, Galaxy, Meridian, Simcoe, and CTZ
@ 20
@ 15
@ 10
3/4 oz mix of Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, Galaxy, Meridian, Simcoe, and CTZ, 1/4 oz Apollo @ 5
1.5 oz mix of Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, Galaxy, Meridian, Simcoe, CTZ, and Apollo @ 0
30 minute hop stand
2 oz mix of Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, Galaxy, Meridian, Simcoe, CTZ, and Apollo@ 180* Aroma Steep 60 min

OG is 1.070, and the IBUs calculate to ~500. I'm fermenting in the kettle to start. I pitched 150 billion cells of Conan to start things off. I'll probably transfer to a 3 gallon Better Bottle Carboy in 3-4 days, pitch another 150 billion cells of WLP099, and start feeding it DME and sugar to get it up to 1.120 OG before I let it finish attenuating. After that I'll dry hop it and see if I can get it to carbonate with the Tap-A-Draft system.

Gravity was down to 1.014 in less than 3 days so I added 150g of DME. It was down to 1.012 the next day so I added another 150g of DME. That would put OG at 1.082 so far. Still waiting for my WLP099 starter to finish cold-crashing before I pitch it.

Another two 150g additions of DME in the last two days. OG is now up to 1.094.

Gravity was at 1.016. Pitched 160 billion cells of WLP099 and added ~150g of dextrose to take gravity to 1.025. OG now calculates to 1.103.

Added ~150g of dextrose to take gravity from 1.015 to 1.022. OG now calculates to 1.110.

This is attenuating fast. Added ~150g of dextrose to take gravity from 1.016 to 1.024. OG now calculates to 1.118. I'll probably do a final addition of dextrose tomorrow and let this go, but as hard as it is attenuating, I'm thinking about going higher with the OG than I had originally planned.

Did a final addition of dextrose on Friday to take OG up to 1.128. Will probably start dry hopping on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'm curious to hear how this turns out! I've wanted to try the 120 minute, but can't find it anywhere around where I live. I have figured my best bet is to brew it myself!

Any suggestions for what to use if using extracts, instead of all-grain for your recipe?

Extracts will be fine and will make it much easier to hit a higher OG from the start. I only got a 1.070 OG from the grain and used DME to get it up to 1.094 before pitching WLP099 and adding sugar. I would recommend the lightest LME as it will probably have the highest attenuation. Make sure to hit at least 1.080 after the boil (and I would possibly go as high as 1.090 or even 1.100), but make sure to pitch at 1.25 rather then the standard 0.75. As soon as gravity goes under 1.030, pitch the same number of cells of WLP099. Make sure to keep the gravity under 1.030, and even if the gravity goes under 1.020 don't ever raise the gravity more than 10 points with any addition. That will make sure your gravity finishes under 1.030 and keep a strong ferment going. I would also advise keeping OG under 1.150 total, and 1.120-1.130 is more preferable unless you have a great system to force carbonate it. The first time I did that I got down to 1.012 FG from an OG of 1.150, so IMO you can get an FG under 1.020 with extract. You won't be able to get the malt profile of DFH 120 (I never even went for that profile because I prefer lighter malt profiles for my IPAs), but if you use enough hops you should be able to get a very hop forward QIPA using extract.

Thanks for the suggestions! I just need to learn a little more about homebrewing to make total sense out what I just read though.

This will help you calculate how much extract to use to hit 1.080-1.100 OG: http://www.brewersfriend.com/extract-ogfg/

This will help you figure out how much hops to use(although doubling the hops from a DIPA you like is a good method as well): http://www.brewersfriend.com/ibu-calculator/

This will help you figure out how much yeast to pitch(you will definitely want to make a starter unless you are doing a 1 gallon batch): http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

Here are some links to where I got most of my information:
http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2012/03/dogfish-head-120-minute-ipa-clone.html
http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2012/03/120-minute-your-newborn-baby.html

I think light LME is a perfect substitute for 2-row and really don't think you'll loose that many points off your final gravity as long as you pitch enough yeast and don't push the calculated OG up too high. If you want the DFH malt profile, you could partial mash 1 lbs Thomas Fawcett Amber Malt and 3 lbs 2-row. It's very easy to mash 4 pounds of grain in a little $10 cooler, just add 1.5 gallons of 160* water then add your grain in and stir it around, that will most likely knock your temperature down to 150*. Close the cooler, wrap it in a towel or blanket, and let it sit for an hour. That would be considered mashing at 150* for 60 min. You can always worry about step mashing and sparging at some point in the future. Even with only 50% efficiency, adding 9 lbs of light LME should give you a starting OG of 1.080 for a 5 gallon batch. You could even split the batch if you want and do half of it as a DFH 90 clone as you would have the ideal wort for a partial mash DFH 90 clone at that point.

Cool, thanks for the ideas.

One last thing, some people who are more experienced with partial mashes suggest using DME to avoid caramelization, and based on their advice I used DME for the few PMs I did, however I used LME for every extract brew I did and never had an issue so I don't understand how adding the wort from mashing grain would all the sudden cause caramelization with LME.

Added first dry hop:

1 oz Simcoe
1/2 oz each Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, Galaxy, and CTZ
1/4 oz Apollo

That's 3.75 oz for the first dry hop of a 2.5 gallon batch, which is ~36% more than the first dry hop for the Heady Topper clone. I plan to add another 1.75 oz for the final dry hop, so ultimately the total dry hops will be exactly the same as the total of the HT clone's 3 additions.

Added final dry hop:

1/2 oz Simcoe
3/8 oz Citra
1/4 oz each Centennial and CTZ
1/8 oz each El Dorado, Galaxy, and Apollo

I think the Conan yeast is no longer active, so I will let the temperature go up to 70* to finish things off.

I bottled the beer. Gravity was down to 1.004 so that would put ABV ~18%. I ended up filling my 6 liter Tap-A-Draft bottle and another 4 12-oz bottles with clear beer. I probably had about 24 oz of trub that I dumped.

My Tap-A-Draft bottle had no carbonation after a week so I hit it up with a CO2 cartridge and let it sit for another week. It now has great carbonation, but tasted a little sweet. Most of the sweet taste is from attenuated sugar, but it's possible some is from unattenuated bottling sugar. I'm going to give my bottles a few more weeks to see how they end up, but if they don't have good carbonation I will probably just stick to force carbonating for any 15+% ABV beers from now on. I would say the Tap-A-Draft system can get it done. Properly carbonated 18% ABV beer.