grain bill for extra high grav IPA

So I am putting together and extra high IPA recipe... I have most of my plans worked out except for my grain bill... it'll be a 6G batch. here is my probably grain bill:

28.5 lbs 2-row
1 lb Caramel Munich appx 56 SRM
.5 lb carapils
2 lbs corn sugar (half after fermentation slows down with a second yeast)

planning to mash at 147F for 120mins to get highly fermentable wort due to the huge grain bill for the size batch

so the question:

Should I leave out the carapils or am I thinking correct that I'll need a little head retention help with the high ABV plus corn sugar?

If I do keep the carapils in it with the long low mash do I need to add to the mash late to keep the enzymes from breaking down the carapils too much?

I would leave the Carapils in, and leave out the corn sugar, unless you are using it for priming. Otherwise it really only thins your beer out.

Also, I don't know that you need to have your mash temperature so low for so long. I've made really big beers with a mash at 156 for 1 hour.

hercher said:

I would leave the Carapils in, and leave out the corn sugar, unless you are using it for priming. Otherwise it really only thins your beer out.

Also, I don't know that you need to have your mash temperature so low for so long. I've made really big beers with a mash at 156 for 1 hour.

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I disagree with most of this. A beer this big will finish waaaaaaay too high with a mash temp of 156.

OP: Leave the carapils. Otherwise looks good to me.

i'd do 152 with that bill, mashing for an hour, no sugar, then batch-sparging for 30 minutes (that's just how i'd do it, though)

Keep the grain bill, ditch the sugar , mash in at 150 degrees and mash that hog overnight.

With a 2hr mash at 147F and 2lbs of corn sugar, you are risking having a thin, watery IPA with insufficient malt backbone to stand up to big IPA hops. I would do 152F for 1hr, and cut the sugar in half. YMMV.

Whats the OG suppose to be on this thing? I would mash around 150. and keep the sugar.

hops aid in head retention so in a huge IPA I don't think you'll have a problem. theres almost zero worry of this being thin/watery at this size.

Holy shiat!!! I just did the math on this monster. 1.166 OG @ 75% efficency
If you get it down to 1.046(72% attenuation) it would be 15.6 ABV. How much hops are you going to use to murder that maltiness. and how much/ what type of yeast

More or less stick with your original recipe. Just raise the mash temp like 1-2*. 148-149*. I only say that because your mash temp will drop over the course 2 hours, and probably end up at 147.

Your Crystal and Carapils are only 4% of the grainbill, they won't contribute that many unfermentables, but i'm not sure you'll need them in a beer this big. Also keep the corn sugar, as it will help dry it out.

BUT, I've got your OG calced around 1.165. I'm not sure how you are going to get that to ferment down to anything under like 1.060. It looks like you're trying to make something in the 15-20% ABV range. I'd look to copy what Dogfish head does with their 120 minute. Their OG is around 1.17-1.20 also. I'd also seriously recommend listening to the Can you Brew It episode for DFH 120 min over on brewing network.

Dogfish brews their beer with about 18lbs of malt up to around 1.100, then adds about 10-12lbs of corn suger slowly over the course of fermentation to keep the yeast eating, while keeping the gravity low. They start the beer with a normal yeast like WLP001 or WLP007, let that ferment the malt base, then pitch a butt-load of WLP099 - Super high gravity, and start adding the sugar doses. Then keep feeding it about 6-8oz of sugar twice a day until fermentation slows. You're also going to want to oxygenate the hell out of your starters and wort.

I'm planning on brewing a clone of 120 minute soon. My grain bill look similar to yours:

17lbs 2-row
1lb Victory
.25 Crystal 20

I'm going to start that with a 4L starter of WLP007. Once that gets down under 1.020, pitch another 4L starter of WLP099, and start adding the sugar daily. You can certainly do this without the corn sugar, but you'd need to can some of your wort, and add it slowly over the course of fermentation. If you pitch yeast into 1.170+ wort, it'll crap out on you early, and your beer will taste like cough syrup.

I don't think he will get anywhere near that, I would think in the 60-65% range unless he can collect 12 gallons preboil and do a 2 hour boil.

How much spare water were you planning on using?

You should plan to do a parti gyle so you don't waste all the fermentables that are going to be left over. Cap the mash with some roasted malts and get a porter or stout out it.

g-star said:

With a 2hr mash at 147F and 2lbs of corn sugar, you are risking having a thin, watery IPA with insufficient malt backbone to stand up to big IPA hops. I would do 152F for 1hr, and cut the sugar in half. YMMV.

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And sorry, but I 100000% disagree with this. There is zero chance this beer will be thin or watery in any way, shape, or form. If he had 8lbs of malt, with 2lbs of corn sugar, i'd agree with you. But he has 28.5lbs of malt for a 6gallon batch. OG in the 1.16-1.17 range. It's going to be a challenge to get this beer dry enough to the point it's drinkable.

I am figuring that my efficiency is going to be a bit low since I don't want to start with 12G pre boil... and when I mash to my capacity (that's 30 lbs) I never get a great efficiency. (6-75 - 80%+ with much smaller grain bills) I will be shooting for 9-10G pre boil which I can easily boil off in under 3 hours. (maybe under 2 with my new banjo burner) ... I'm planning to shoot for a 1.14OG before adding the 2nd lb of corn sugar... O2 aeration for 5 mins before pitching a crapload (3 11.5G packs considering 4) of hydrated s-05 then re aeration 12 hours later... then after a few days/maybe a week when fermentation slows I'm going to to pitch a big WLP-99 starter along with the extra corn sugar. Oh.. and crap loads of hops in that big boil.. like a pound of pellets. calculated IBU of 120+ but reality who knows..

My notion of mashing at 147 was along the lines of what I do when I make somewhat lighter trappist style (last time I did that with 1.1OG and mash at 148F for 90 mins on it and got 1.1OG down to 1.014FG) Going to boil down to 1.14OG (pain since I don't have a refractomoter with cooling and testing but that's how I've done other big beers to hit OG perfect) If I can get hit 80% from 1.15 I'll be down to 1.03 which will be thick but ok with a lot of hop bitterness... I'm hoping to get more like 84% and be down in the 1.024 range. That would be right about where I want to be.

Yea.. I'm really going for crazy big beer along the lines of a DFH 120 but not specifically that... trying to avoid the sheer sugar content of DFH 120. I'm going to dry hop it as well and then keg up and drink. Some will be put into bottles from the keg to age to see how that works out as well.

Maybe I should actually drop some of my grain and replace with a little more sugar to up my sugar to 15% of the grain bill and add a little more of that at WLP99 time.. going to drop the carapils... seems silly to have that as I am thinking about it.

hmmm partigyle not a bad idea.. could take some additional water and probably pull another batch of something light out of the grain.. I'll think about that... might not have the resources to pull that off at the same time though.. I'm also doing an extract batch of a different beer at the same time and that wort just won't be right for it.

scottland said:

And sorry, but I 100000% disagree with this. There is zero chance this beer will be thin or watery in any way, shape, or form. If he had 8lbs of malt, with 2lbs of corn sugar, i'd agree with you. But he has 28.5lbs of malt for a 6gallon batch. OG in the 1.16-1.17 range. It's going to be a challenge to get this beer dry enough to the point it's drinkable.

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+1, and a challenge to afford the hops necessary to get this "thing" any where near a IIIIIIPA.

I would cut the grain bill down, but that's me.

_

theonetrueruss said:

Maybe I should actually drop some of my grain and replace with a little more sugar to up my sugar to 15% of the grain bill and add a little more of that at WLP99 time.. going to drop the carapils... seems silly to have that as I am thinking about it.

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That would be my recommendation. In a big this big, you'll never know the 15% corn sugar was there, and starting with a littler lower OG, and feeding the ferment corn sugar will definitely help dry it out. Good luck man! Let us know how it turns out.

so I think this is the recipe I am going with:

25 lbs 2-row
1 lb Caramel Munich
4 lbs corn sugar

The corn sugar will all be added 2lbs during boil, then the other 2 when I add my WLP99. (starting with S05)

I figure, depending on my efficiency I should wind up with roughly 15% fermentables from sugar. Very reasonable I think.

I am now calculating a 1.143 total OG with a final just under 1.03... I am hoping to get it a little drier than that. The low mash and sugar should help that as long as I can keep my yeast from crapping out.

Anyhow that's my plan.. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for all your input

I adjusted things a bit and she's a bubbling...

grain bill was:

23lbs 2 row
1 lb Caramel Munich
2 lbs corn sugar

6 G batch

I mashed for 90 mins at 148F. My temp dropped a bit by the end of the mash to 141F. (I think the ice chest lid wasn't shut all the way.) Wort tasted super sweet so I figured all good. Batch sparged in 2 batches and wound up with 10G of wort.

130 min boil and I was down to about 6G.

my OG was 1.11

Right now it is bubbling on 3 packs of S-05 at 65F. Slightly over pitched but I think it will be fine.

I have another 2 lbs of corn sugar to add in a week or so when I add a big starter of WLP99.

I figure that sugar will up my measured + calced OG to 1.127 or so. If I hit 80% attenuation I should wind up right at about 14% ABV. Hopefully with my solid temp control running I'll have something drinkable by OCT.

I used 14oz of hop pellets in this sucker. It looked a bit like a hop soup going into the fermentor. I figure it will all settle out. Of course I'm going to dry hop with another 4OZ of pellets so it will have a full pound of hops in this thing.

It isn't quite as high of an OG as I was originally starting out to produce but I think it will be a more drinkable beer for it. 14% will be crazy high enough I think.

theonetrueruss said:

I adjusted things a bit and she's a bubbling...

grain bill was:

23lbs 2 row
1 lb Caramel Munich
2 lbs corn sugar

6 G batch

I mashed for 90 mins at 148F. My temp dropped a bit by the end of the mash to 141F. (I think the ice chest lid wasn't shut all the way.) Wort tasted super sweet so I figured all good. Batch sparged in 2 batches and wound up with 10G of wort.


Sweet. I just noticed you are in woodstock. I am in Acworth and would love to try this once complete. PM me sometime.

130 min boil and I was down to about 6G.

my OG was 1.11

Right now it is bubbling on 3 packs of S-05 at 65F. Slightly over pitched but I think it will be fine.

I have another 2 lbs of corn sugar to add in a week or so when I add a big starter of WLP99.

I figure that sugar will up my measured + calced OG to 1.127 or so. If I hit 80% attenuation I should wind up right at about 14% ABV. Hopefully with my solid temp control running I'll have something drinkable by OCT.

I used 14oz of hop pellets in this sucker. It looked a bit like a hop soup going into the fermentor. I figure it will all settle out. Of course I'm going to dry hop with another 4OZ of pellets so it will have a full pound of hops in this thing.

It isn't quite as high of an OG as I was originally starting out to produce but I think it will be a more drinkable beer for it. 14% will be crazy high enough I think.

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Sweet sounds excellent. I just noticed your are in woodstock. I am in acworth and I would love to try this when it is done. I'll trade you for some other home brew or cascade rhizomes.

sounds plausible... If it turns out good we can work something out... I just don't trade stuff I think is crap. My hopes are high though Planning an Oct Fest at my place Oct 8 with this and a few others on tap. PM if interested.

ok.. so it's been in there for 2 weeks. After 11 days I added 2 lbs of corn sugar and a good starter of WLP99. It had a good krausen at that time but no bubbling. For the past 3 days since then it's been bubbling like a madman. temp is a cool 66F.. hope it turns out as expected. Haven't tested Gravity since it started so I am computing the OG at the 1.127. Not much else to go by. We'll see how much attenuation I get in the next week. After that I need my chamber to crash some dark belgian ale I'm bottling. I think at that point house temps will be fine. (I keep the place cool though this summer is oddly hot with it getting above 70 inside sometimes.)

Update: OG 1.127 after 3 years FG: 1.014 WOWWWWWW That 15.2%ABV per ProMash

Taste is smoothe and very hoppy.. Still going to let it sit a few weeks then crash and dry hop. I think this is going to turn out as good or better than I had hoped!!!! :rockin:

theonetrueruss said:

Update: OG 1.127 after 3 years FG: 1.014 WOWWWWWW That 15.2%ABV per ProMash

Taste is smoothe and very hoppy.. Still going to let it sit a few weeks then crash and dry hop. I think this is going to turn out as good or better than I had hoped!!!! :rockin:

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DOn't forget me now. I got a couple ounces of fresh picked cascade it you want to dry hop with that.

did I say 3 years???? I meant 3 weeks. lol

I just racked a barleywine that I brewed two weeks ago. 1.095 OG. Pitched a slurry of US-05 that I got from an Arrogant Bastard Clone I brewed 2 weeks prior and hit it with 90 sec of pure O2. After a week I added 2 pounds of sugar boiled in a quart of water. Took a SG reading yesterday - 1.014! This is an ABV around 12.5%. Definitely can taste the alcohol, but not in a bad way. Doesn't seem too thin either. US-05 rocks :rockin:!

Finally ready to serve this beer. Drinking it tomorrow. I tasted it and I am happy with it. It has a lot of piney hop bitterness. I like it. It is way smoother to drink (for someone who likes a bitter IPA) than the 15% ABV would lead you to believe. I haven't had more than a couple oz at a time yet though. Will do that tomorrow.