DFH 120 minute clone

SSBrew - 728
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Yeahh I think this was a good decision, my brewing laziness truly comes from bottles.

Get this, my wife LOVED that I bought a kegging setup, of course that was after I told her I was buying another keg next week so I can keg my Franziskaner clone which is her favorite beer (brewing it soon so once my son arrives, she'll have her favorite beer for her first drink in 9 months)..

One got the good guys!
 
Jsmith82 said:
Yeahh I think this was a good decision, my brewing laziness truly comes from bottles.

Get this, my wife LOVED that I bought a kegging setup, of course that was after I told her I was buying another keg next week so I can keg my Franziskaner clone which is her favorite beer (brewing it soon so once my son arrives, she'll have her favorite beer for her first drink in 9 months)..

One got the good guys!
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They normally do... espicially when you can get rid of 90% of your bottles. I went from 1 tap to 2 taps to 5 taps installing this weekend!
 
Jsmith82 said:
Yeahh I think this was a good decision, my brewing laziness truly comes from bottles.

Get this, my wife LOVED that I bought a kegging setup, of course that was after I told her I was buying another keg next week so I can keg my Franziskaner clone which is her favorite beer (brewing it soon so once my son arrives, she'll have her favorite beer for her first drink in 9 months)..

One got the good guys!
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once i put my 5 tap tower in this weekend i will have a 2 tap tower for sale,,, if your interested ill give u first dibbs
 
kosmokramer said:
Smuth, what do you set your co2 at to carb this?
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If I remember correctly I think I did like 18-20 psi for a few days and then turned it down to 10 until it was carbed. Then I turned it down to 1 or 2 psi to bottle and capped them one at a time as soon as they were full
 
Did anybody save this yeast cake? do you think they are tired and would produce future off flavors or are they the best of high gravity tolerant strain?
 
I'm looking to do a beer based on this premise (sugar additions). However, I'm not a hophead so will do your standard bittering, flavor, and aroma additions. My question is how much hops for a balanced beer finishing in the mid-upper teens in ABV for 5 gallons. I was thinking about 7 oz hops totaling 80-90 IBU's.
 
kosmokramer said:
Did anybody save this yeast cake? do you think they are tired and would produce future off flavors or are they the best of high gravity tolerant strain?
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I've thought about that too. Don't know if it will be viable enough. We would know how bad it would be when we make a starter with it.
 
hopcop said:
I've thought about that too. Don't know if it will be viable enough. We would know how bad it would be when we make a starter with it.
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What do you think... maybe a low grav 10g batch with the cake? To see what it does?
 
Just added the second dry addition to my batch, drew a wine glass sized sample out since I have people over so others could try it - nothing but amazement, everybody was blown away including yours truly.
 
kosmokramer said:
What do you think... maybe a low grav 10g batch with the cake? To see what it does?
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I'm going to wash the cake and store it in mason jars like I do with my 1056 and 1028. My 120 cake is mixed with 1056 & WLP099. I like your idea of a low gravity 10g batch. I always make a starter and track that info into my yeast log. If they seem sluggish or not cooperating I will just dump it and start over before pitching any brew with it.
I dry hopped the first addition last week and the second will be this week. My buddy tried a small sample last week and he thought it was great! Even if it was warm and flat! I'm getting him into home brewing and make him taste the beer every step of the way. He cringes but he understands. Haha

Cheers
 
hopcop said:
I'm going to wash the cake and store it in mason jars like I do with my 1056 and 1028. My 120 cake is mixed with 1056 & WLP099. I like your idea of a low gravity 10g batch. I always make a starter and track that info into my yeast log. If they seem sluggish or not cooperating I will just dump it and start over before pitching any brew with it.

Cheers
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Mine is 99 and 07. Hopefully is will have the raised tolerance of the 99 and the flavor profile of the 07. Definitely worth the experiment.

How long did you guys leave in primary? Its been about 2 weeks since i stopped with the sugar additions
 
Jsmith82 said:
Has anybody ever carbed up using champagne yeast before? I have not, if somebody wants to give me a crash course this will probably be my only route for carbonation being almost 16%.
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hopcop said:
I'm going to be in the same boat. I think you add the champagne yeast in the bottling bucket. Rack on top and add your priming sugar. That's what I've researched but still not very clear. I've asked a few times on other threads but no response.
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Just add half a pack of dried champagne yeast to the bottling bucket and gently stir in. Do not add it to the priming sugar before adding the beer as the osmotic pressure of the sugar solution could kill it. I've used this to successfully carb a 13.5% beer. It took several months to carb, but eventually got there.

hopcop said:
I'm going to wash the cake and store it in mason jars like I do with my 1056 and 1028. My 120 cake is mixed with 1056 & WLP099. I like your idea of a low gravity 10g batch. I always make a starter and track that info into my yeast log.
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kosmokramer said:
Mine is 99 and 07. Hopefully is will have the raised tolerance of the 99 and the flavor profile of the 07. Definitely worth the experiment.
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Any 1056 or 007 yeast cells will have died at those high abvs. Only the 099 will have survived so you will not get any of the flavor characteristics of the other strains.
 
Bump. If anyone has some thoughts.

sfrisby said:
I'm looking to do a beer based on this premise (sugar additions). However, I'm not a hophead so will do your standard bittering, flavor, and aroma additions. My question is how much hops for a balanced beer finishing in the mid-upper teens in ABV for 5 gallons. I was thinking about 7 oz hops totaling 80-90 IBU's.
Click to expand...
 
sfrisby said:
I'm looking to do a beer based on this premise (sugar additions). However, I'm not a hophead so will do your standard bittering, flavor, and aroma additions. My question is how much hops for a balanced beer finishing in the mid-upper teens in ABV for 5 gallons. I was thinking about 7 oz hops totaling 80-90 IBU's.
Click to expand...

A beer this high in alcohol you need a good amount of hops for balance. I used 12oz of hops and yes it was very bitter in the beginning but with time they have dissipated with the malt coming forward. My brew is exactly at 5weeks and is still in its primary. I've tasted it each week and today it's nice and mellow. I dry hopped last week and the brew has a nice aroma with a great balance of malt first and alcohol on the tongue last. My brew is at 14.87%ABV. I like the way my recipe came out and wouldn't change it. This type needs time to age and during that time the hops will be less and the malt with come through. Hope this helps.
Cheers.
 
hopcop said:
A beer this high in alcohol you need a good amount of hops for balance. I used 12oz of hops and yes it was very bitter in the beginning but with time they have dissipated with the malt coming forward. My brew is exactly at 5weeks and is still in its primary. I've tasted it each week and today it's nice and mellow. I dry hopped last week and the brew has a nice aroma with a great balance of malt first and alcohol on the tongue last. My brew is at 14.87%ABV. I like the way my recipe came out and wouldn't change it. This type needs time to age and during that time the hops will be less and the malt with come through. Hope this helps.
Cheers.
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Your dryhopping in your primary? I thiught with this level of alcohol it was important to get it off the cake?
 
kosmokramer said:
Your dryhopping in your primary? I thiught with this level of alcohol it was important to get it off the cake?
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Yeah I don't have a open fermenter bucket right now. I'm going to bottle on Saturday night just in case. I'm sipping on my gravity sample now and its awesome. It could go longer but I don't want to risk it getting infected.
Cheers.

image-1458891542.jpg
 
5 gallon batch, 9oz hops in the boil, 6oz hops dry.

I have my IBUs calculated at @!#$ing insanity.
 
hopcop said:
6oz Magnum 9.6% AA
3oz Cascade 6.4%AA
3oz Fuggles 4.4%AA

Hop additions are distributed evenly every 3mins through out the 120min.
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Plus I added 6oz total DH last week.

+1 to JSmith on that calculation. I have no idea what my IBUs are. My calculator will not do that measurement.
 
hopcop said:
My calculator will not do that measurement.
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I was bored at work, so I tried to do this using some math. I figured if you use the formula for calculating IBUs, you can get it down to a function of time, weight of hops, and AA%. Since the weight of the hops and the AA% are constant, you can integrate this formula over time, giving the IBU for each hop addition. This is assuming that the hop additions are truly continuous, and not spread out every 3 minutes. The results for the original recipe (5oz amarillo, 4oz simcoe, 3oz warrior) are about 370 IBU :)
 
Any updates fellas?

I went to my LHBS the other weekend to get my fancy new CO2 tank filled, turns out somebody made an oops on the phone, they don't fill tanks :( There is another spot close to my house that fills, I'll be stopping there this week or early next.

The beast is ready for carbonation.
 
Jsmith82 said:
Any updates fellas?
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I started my first dry-hop on Sunday, doing the original recipe from the first page of this thread. I did a **** job filtering my hops from the boil, and was left with some sediment in the fermentor, which I blame for my attenuation being low. I ended right at 19%, which still isn't bad, I was just hoping for that 20% milestone. Still a very fun beer, and the sample when I started the dry-hop tasted amazing.

I was thinking of dry hopping for about 2 weeks, then doing the final dry hop in the keg while it carbs up. I just started kegging, and have yet to dry-hop in a keg, so is this something reasonable to do?
 
I bottled this beast last Tuesday. I finished at 1.006 with a 14.87%ABV. I used 3.8oz of corn sugar with 1pt of water. I used Champagne yeast as well. Lalvin EC-1118. I heated up 1pt of water to 105*F and pitched yeast. Set for 15mins. Stir and let cool to equal temp of priming sugar. Combined the champagne yeast and priming sugar. Pour in when racking to bottling bucket.

We had my parents over yesterday and I decided to open one just to see if there has been any activity and saw a little white haze and heard a small phhht when I cracked it open! The beer itself had some bubbles but not much and I did have a little lacing on the glass. It tasted awesome for only being 7 weeks old. I think in another month I will open another. It was really tasty and got better when it warmed up a bit. I hope everyone else's turns out just as good as mine did!
Cheers.
 
Due to my laziness i never even dryhopped when i went into seconday about 3 weeks ago so i was going to dryhop in the keg at room temp for a week then throw it in the kezzer to carb with the hops still in for a couple more weeks. I havent taken a hydrometer sample but the adjusted refractometer had it at 1.006 at 22.9%. I will post the real hydrometer reading once i get tokeg it:mug:
 
Speaking of updates - I do have one.

I believe I posted my recipe previously, but if I didn't, I will update again soon.

Bottled my beer last week. It was 18%, and I dry hopped for 3 weeks with simcoe, amarillo and citra. Off the top of my head, I BELIEVE it was ~2oz each (whole hops). I removed the bag at the end of every week, and refilled.

Initial tastings were way over the top with simcoe. I got too much of that "catty" flavor typically associated with simcoe, with one beer club member remarking that "it tastes like you are chewing on whole hops."

While my intention was to make a true hoppy 120 brew, this one came out way too strong. All told, I believe I used about 1.25lb between kettle and dry hops for a 5 gal batch, which was over the top. If i did it again, I would cut down on dry hopping duration AND amounts, most likely by reducing the simcoe (or cutting it out completely! in the dry stage).

I am hoping that a couple weeks in the bottle will mellow out some of these harsh hop flavors. On a positive note, the aroma is AWESOME! That probably has something to do with the 5oz of citra added @ 0 min.

Bottom line: reduce simcoe and replace with citra, and be careful with the dry hopping. This brew took way too much time and money to not be perfect, so I don't think I will attempt ever again unless the flavor cools off in the bottle.
 
Sorry it turned out a little too hoppy. I'm surprised the simcoe came through that strong. Whenever I use Simcoe/Citra/Amarillo together I get more tropical fruit, and berry like aromas. Almost strawberry.

I used 6oz of dry hops in my first batch, I wouldn't even describe it as 'hoppy'. Time should do the beer well. In about a month it'll taste much different. 6 months even more different.
 
clex25 said:
this one came out way too strong.
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Blasphemy. :mad:

[joking]

Really though, my money is on 8-12 weeks from now, at one week I'm sure it's pretty grassy - that will fade. Bummer though you're not currently happy with the product, I understand completely it's way too expensive to not be happy with it. I hope it comes around for you :)
 
Hey JSmith since you can't get any DFH in your area you want anything? I can get a decent amount of there product in my area. PM me if your interested and maybe we can work out a deal.
Cheers.
 
I'm doing a version of this now (Paxton's grain bill and Scottland's hop schedule from his Pliny/120 hybrid).

At this point, I'm nervous. Stopped the sugar adds 2 days ago. It was at 15.5% and 1.020, with 1 bubble per 4-5 seconds in the airlock. Got back from my business trip today expecting it to be fermented out. It's not. STILL GOING, down to 1.008 and 16.4% abv, and no signs of slowing. Should I cold-crash and/or add a little sugar back in, or let it go? It tastes awesome, but the alcohol is becoming overpowering, especially in the face of the dwindling malt presence.

UPDATE: added some sugar last night and it's still working on that. Back to 1.010.

How dry would you say is TOO dry, and how much abv is too overpowering to require excessive aging?
 
hopcop said:
Hey JSmith since you can't get any DFH in your area you want anything? I can get a decent amount of there product in my area. PM me if your interested and maybe we can work out a deal.
Cheers.
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tumblr_m0v2s7JKqd1qgzsew.jpg


:ban:

@ Wooby - 1.010 seems to be the target FG for most of us with our Frankenstein 120 recipes. I finished high last year and the beer can get pretty syrupy in the 20s. My batch this year finished at .014 and it tastes great with the doubled hops. The thing about this beer and what all of us keep experimenting with and trying to find, a low FG is hardly dry - the massive additions to this beer really bring a unique and almost thick mouth feel, the best way I could describe it would be take your FG, add .010 on top of it and that's about what it will taste and feel like.

At your current gravity you've beaten the sweetness no doubt, if it's still going strong your call on adding or stopping, just manage to your liking. My recommended goal - 1.010.
 
Jsmith82 said:
tumblr_m0v2s7JKqd1qgzsew.jpg


:ban:

@ Wooby - 1.010 seems to be the target FG for most of us with our Frankenstein 120 recipes. I finished high last year and the beer can get pretty syrupy in the 20s. My batch this year finished at .014 and it tastes great with the doubled hops. The thing about this beer and what all of us keep experimenting with and trying to find, a low FG is hardly dry - the massive additions to this beer really bring a unique and almost thick mouth feel, the best way I could describe it would be take your FG, add .010 on top of it and that's about what it will taste and feel like.

At your current gravity you've beaten the sweetness no doubt, if it's still going strong your call on adding or stopping, just manage to your liking. My recommended goal - 1.010.
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Thanks man. My worry at this point is the alcohol content dominating. I'd like to just stop adding and let it finish, but not at the risk of it hitting something like 1.005 or below.
 
I purposely stopped and landed my beer in the 16% range, it's wonderful. You could take it higher and the body and hops will back you up especially if you brewed SL's adjusted clone with the extra hops. Let's face it, that's a lot of hops!

I do feel though 16% made a balanced end result for me, 20+ is a little gimmicky - it's fun to brew and the priceless look on someones face when you pour them a pint then warn them the one beer has the same effect as a six pack of bud light is sweet, but even the potential behind a real DFH120 in the end seems blinded by the amount of alcohol in it especially as it warms in your glass.

I'll probably brew a 3gal batch and try to take it as high as it can go but for 5-7 gallons of this expensive time consuming monster, 15-17% is a safe tasty range (IMO).
 
The alcohol is going to taste very dominating at this point. A few months from now, it'll calm down. I wouldn't stress over that.
 

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