High gravity brewing

I am planning to follow a recipe (5 gallon) I found to make an imperial stout with OG approximately 1.110 to result in about 11% ABV. The recipe looks like it's trying to clone Rogue imperial stout or Avery Czar, both of which I love. Ohterwise, I probably wouldn't shoot for such a high gravity brew. My mash/lauter tun will only accomodate about 15 lbs. of grain and my brew kettle is only 8 gallons. The grainbill for this recipe (including all specialty grains) is 38.5 lbs. Only 26 lbs. of this is base malt. How would I go about doing this with my equip? Would I essentially do 2 or 3 mashes, yielding about 15 gallons of wort, and then just boil the living crap out of it a third at a time until I'm left with 5.5 gallons or so? Or am I just completely off track with this idea? Any help with high gravity brewing would be great. I've never done anything with an OG higher than about 1.060. I do however want to use AG as opposed to a partial mash regardless of the amount of time/effort involved.

captaineriv

you could scale the recipe in half...( i know its alot of work for 2.5-3 gallons)

sounds good btw whats the recipe?, i wouldnt mind doing a partial mash version with 6 lbs of dme...

im planning on doing a russian imperial next anyway...

Here's the recipe. Looks pretty good to me. Let me know what you think.

And is it just something screwing up on my end, or did my thread get posted 3 times?

captaineriv

My last batch was an all grain clocking in at 1.100. I used 13lbs for a 4 gallon batch. I collected 6 gallons of runoff and boiled it for 2 hours down to the 4 gallons. This was my first time attempting such a gravity so I scaled back the batch size as not to exceed the volume my setup could handle.

I don't see how you would need over 38lbs of grain to reach your gravity for a 5 gallon batch. I averaged an 83% efficiency but even with something around 70% you would only need about 21lbs of grain. I suggest you do some recalculating.

captaineriv said:

Here's the recipe. Looks pretty good to me. Let me know what you think.

And is it just something screwing up on my end, or did my thread get posted 3 times?

captaineriv

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I'll fix that....

i think its supposed to be 16 lbs not 26...that makes more sense
do oats add sugar?
i got an og of 1.112 with 70 percent efficiency using 16 lbs 2-row and 10 lbs (crystal/black/roasted/choco) i didnt count the oats...

Thank you both for pointing that out. Plugged it into Promash and even with only 16 lbs. 2 row, I get 1.110 at 52% efficiency. You couldn't get that low of an efficiency even if you tried. Guess that's what I get for being too lazy to plug that large a recipe into promash. I'll modify this recipe a little as far as grain. The hopping schedule looks fine.

captaineriv

It looks to me the recipe may be for 10 gallons. At 77% efficiency this would put it around 1.110 with 75 ibu's.

PT Ray said:

It looks to me the recipe may be for 10 gallons. At 77% efficiency this would put it around 1.110 with 75 ibu's.

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i was thinking that too. it seems like 10 lbs of various crystal/black/chocolate/roasted was pretty exccesive...

I am buying grains this weekend for a strong (1.120) stout. I can't mash more than about 12lbs - 15lbs of grain. I decided to run this like an all-grain with all the specialties and base malt mashed and sparged as usual, then add 6lbs of DME for the last 15minutes of the boil.

I cheat on my high gravity ales. My equipment is sized for "normal" five gallon batches so I do a "half-mash"; specialty grains and enough 2-row for conversion, then extract to reach the gravity. I add the extract with the flavor hops, so I get good bittering.

I'll probably scale the recipe down the 1st time around (2.5 gallon batch and OG 1.110). Here are some questions about high gravity mashing in general:

For a 2.5 gallon, 1.110 batch (no particular style) with 9.5 lbs. of grain in the mash, around what should my water to grain ratio be for this mash, and also, what about water to grain ratio in the lautering?

I've read that high gravity brews need thicker mashes to hit the OG, but that this can also negatively affect efficiency. What's the best way to get the most out of mashing and lautering without having to spend over 2 hours boiling out excess water to get my gravity where it needs to be? For 5 gallon batches, I'll definitely use DME for some of the base malt, but I don't figure I really need to for such a small batch.

captaineriv

captaineriv said:

I'll probably scale the recipe down the 1st time around (2.5 gallon batch and OG 1.110). Here are some questions about high gravity mashing in general:

For a 2.5 gallon, 1.110 batch (no particular style) with 9.5 lbs. of grain in the mash, around what should my water to grain ratio be for this mash, and also, what about water to grain ratio in the lautering?

I've read that high gravity brews need thicker mashes to hit the OG, but that this can also negatively affect efficiency. What's the best way to get the most out of mashing and lautering without having to spend over 2 hours boiling out excess water to get my gravity where it needs to be? For 5 gallon batches, I'll definitely use DME for some of the base malt, but I don't figure I really need to for such a small batch.

captaineriv

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After all was said and done with my Weizenbock, I think I could have just collected a little over 5 gallons of runoff which would have boiled down to my 4 gallon volume in an hour without a major gravity loss. The 6th gallon of runoff I collected appeared rather dilute and not offering much in the way of gravity. The 2 hour boil was not so much to boil down the volume as much it was to deepen the color and adding maltiness. I used a rather thick mash, 1qt:1lb, which probably helped. This and a really slow sparge.

captaineriv said:

I would assume that I would just use as much water as I can in the sparge to be left with about 2.75 gallons of wort after a 2 hour boil (assuming a 2.5 gallon batch). Even though this is high gravity, it is a very small batch. With that, would the fermentation still be so violent that a blowoff would be necessary, or would the 6.5 gallon plastic bucket with a 3-piece work fine? The reason I'm asking is that I currently don't have any blowoff tubing or an extra carboy to put it in, and without modification, the hole on my 6.5 gallon bucket is only big enough for an airlock. At least for this batch, I'd like to try to use my existing equip. and keep things as familiar and simple as possible.

captaineriv​

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i don't think you'll have a blowoff issue with 2.5 gallons in a 6.5g bucket... but, the hole in your bucket should take a 3/8" OD hose, which is probably what your siphon hose is...