Imperial Stout Ten Fidy Clone

How would Wyeast 1728 do in this beer? I have a batch of strong scotch ale going right now. Would the yeast in the current batch be too beat up to ferment this one well?

This recipe sounds delicious!

Tomcat0304 said:

How would Wyeast 1728 do in this beer? I have a batch of strong scotch ale going right now. Would the yeast in the current batch be too beat up to ferment this one well?

This recipe sounds delicious!

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If its in active fermentation, maybe, but of its done fermenting the yeast could be stressed too much. A better beer would be a 5-6 beer at active fermentation. A Scotch yeast would be interesting!

I can't get enough!

I broke down and tried mine. 5 weeks in primary, 5 weeks in secondary and 4 weeks in the bottle. Tasted very good. Can't wait to see how it changes.

I ordered the ingredients for this today. Can't wait to brew it!

Holy grain, batman!

MrNic, did you brew it yet. If so how did it come out?

rynoryan said:

MrNic, did you brew it yet. If so how did it come out?

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Nope, not yet. Probably not until February. I'll post pictures and everything when I brew it.

Sounds good

I brewed it mid August. The one I tried 3.5 months later was very good. I've pretty much decided I'll wait till 6 months before trying another which is coming up.

Several have tried oak or bourbon oak aging, how did that turn out?

I'm planning on pulling 1 or 2 gallons off and aging on Jack Daniels barrel chips.

I brewed this yesterday. Everything went pretty good. I ended up getting 73% efficiency, which I wasn't expecting. I also did a parti-gyle and got a second beer out of the grains. My OG ended up being 1.101

Here is the grain...all 24 pounds of it.


Transferring the mash water into the tun.


The mash tun was basically at it's max capacity.


We pushed the lid in a little too far...


Motor oil


We used mother nature to cool it down. We got it down to 65F in 8 minutes...


I'll keep you guys updated.

Nice set up. I like the mash in a cooler. Do you still have some sort of false bottom?

I just tried my attempt at this which was ~6 months old. It was very good.

mtnagel said:

Nice set up. I like the mash in a cooler. Do you still have some sort of false bottom?

I just tried my attempt at this which was ~6 months old. It was very good.

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I actually brewed it on a friend's setup. The cooler has a pvc manifold, but the bag helps with stuck sparges and keeps lots of particles out.

So do you sparge through it? Do you lift the bag for mash out?

mtnagel said:

So do you sparge through it? Do you lift the bag for mash out?

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We did a double batch sparge, and it actually got stuck twice. It was nice being able to just lift the bag up when it got stuck. I'm not sure if it got stuck because of the flaked oats...or if the crush was too fine. I'm not sure.

Picture the bag as a giant false bottom, that makes clean up and fixing stuck sparges really easy.

So it's transferred to secondary, but it's only at 1.032. Any ideas on how to get that down more? I was shooting for 1.025 or so.

I guess the first FG reading was wrong. Just checked again yesterday, and somehow it's at 1.041. It's super tasty, but definitely way too sweet. Pitched two packs of Lavlin 1118 to see if I can get it down some more.

When I brew this recipe again, I'm definitely going to brew a smaller beer and use the yeast cake to ferment the ten fidy. I think I'll also mash a couple points lower to help avoid underattenuation.

On the plus side, I bottled the leftover beer and it tastes fantastic! It tastes like slightly sweetened iced coffee, and at 2.4% it's extremely sessionable. It won't last long once it's carbed.

So I want to brew this but I cannot find British Crystal 53L anywhere. Is there a good substitute?

I used crystal 60L. Not sure if that's the most correct thing, but it's what I did. Can't imagine you'd taste that difference in a beer like this.

ggriffi said:

So I want to brew this but I cannot find British Crystal 53L anywhere. Is there a good substitute?

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I used Simpsons Medium Crystal

MrNic said:

I brewed this yesterday. Everything went pretty good. I ended up getting 73% efficiency, which I wasn't expecting. I also did a parti-gyle and got a second beer out of the grains. My OG ended up being 1.101



I'll keep you guys updated.

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How did your parti-gyle beer turn out? What was the gravity and volume of what you collected? I'm thinking of doing the same when I brew this.

Tomcat0304 said:

How did your parti-gyle beer turn out? What was the gravity and volume of what you collected? I'm thinking of doing the same when I brew this.

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Well, it's not completely carbed yet, but it turned out pretty good. It tastes like sweetened iced coffee.

I believe we collected about 4.5 gallon preboil. Ended up with about 3 gallons after bottling. I added 1 lb of lactose, .25 oz magnum at 60 min, .5 oz of crystal at 15 min, and .5 oz of crystal at 5 min. Post boil gravity was 1.041. Keep in mind, this will be a very small beer. It ended up being about 2.4% abv.

Thanks, I haven't done one before so I thought I'd try when there is as much grain as this. Thinking I might even split it into one gallon batches and experiment with additional flavors, yeasts, etc.

I bottled my batch yesterday. It FG ended up being 1.038, so quite a bit higher than it was supposed to be. It still tastes pretty good though. I'm hoping the carbonation will cut some of the sweetness.

If anyone plans on brewing this recipe, I would definitely recommend mashing a couple of degrees lower and either pitching an entire yeast cake, or making an enormous starter.

I brewed this up tonight. Like last year, I'll just let it sit in the primary for 5-6 months. Turned out really good. A little different than ten fidy. I feel if I did all grain it would come out a little thicker. Still a great beer, many compliments!

just had this for the first time last month, my brother is in love with this beer so we're thinking of hitting this up next. def going to need to get some sort of O2 setup for such a big beer tho. prob going to brew up a galaxy pale ale and pitching on the yeast cake after. what do you guys think, use the whole yeast cake or dump halfish out first?

Pitching on a whole yeast cake is almost always over pitching. For this beer and using the defaults in Mr Malty, it says you need 184 ml (or 6.2 oz). So I'd take a 2 cup measure, scoop up some of the yeast cake and pitch most of that.

mtnagel said:

Pitching on a whole yeast cake is almost always over pitching. For this beer and using the defaults in Mr Malty, it says you need 184 ml (or 6.2 oz). So I'd take a 2 cup measure, scoop up some of the yeast cake and pitch most of that.

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I don't know. I pitched about 50% more than mr malty recommends, and mine ended up way under attenuated. I think pitching on an entire yeast cake would be good idea for this beer.

Aren't there other reasons for under-attenuation though? Mine finished lower than I wanted despite pitching the "appropriate" amount of cells. But I probably rely on online calculators too much, but I like to see the numbers. They make me feel good

mtnagel said:

Aren't there other reasons for under-attenuation though? Mine finished lower than I wanted despite pitching the "appropriate" amount of cells. But I probably rely on online calculators too much, but I like to see the numbers. They make me feel good

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I supposed it could have been not enough oxygen. We aerated with a wine degasser, so that could be it. I had a friend helping me brew it, and he recently did an abyss clone and hit his fg exactly. He aerated the same way, so I have a hard time believing that's the problem.

And I only aerated by shaking, which we know isn't going to get enough dissolved oxygen.

And I used 1056 and got 79% attenuation, which is supposed to only get 73-77%.

I don't have good enough notes, but knowing me I'm sure I repitched a slurry and I used Mr. Malty to tell me how much.

mtnagel said:

And I only aerated by shaking, which we know isn't going to get enough dissolved oxygen.

And I used 1056 and got 79% attenuation, which is supposed to only get 73-77%.

I don't have good enough notes, but knowing me I'm sure I repitched a slurry and I used Mr. Malty to tell me how much.

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Hmm, interesting. I repitched slurry as well. Did you mash at 153?

155F like the original recipe says.

mtnagel said:

155F like the original recipe says.

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Yeah, same here. Weird.

9 months after brewing/6.5 months after bottling. This beer is really getting good. Lots of great roasty flavors. Great mouthfeel too.

It's been 3.5 months since I brewed this. It's getting better, but it definitely needs time to develop.

Way overshot my gravity... I used the suggested 65% where I normally get around 75%. O.G. is 1.117 and its far to late to boil up a gallon to top it off. Can I add a gallon in tomorrow?

BigDaddyBeard said:

Way overshot my gravity... I used the suggested 65% where I normally get around 75%. O.G. is 1.117 and its far to late to boil up a gallon to top it off. Can I add a gallon in tomorrow?

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You could add it tommorow without a problem. I've also topped up straight from the tap without a problem.