Help me with a Surly Darkness clone recipe!

I honestly have ZERO homebrewing experience, but want to get into it soon. Obviously, this beer wouldn't be done on my first brewing attempt, but it my favorite beer that I one day hope to replicate.

I hope that some of you have had Darkness so that you can provide some good info on how to come up with something similar once I finally do step up to the appropriate level. Who knows, maybe someone else has wanted to try to brew this also and they can get a head start.

Info from the Surly website:

STYLE: Russian Imperial Stout/American Double Stout
MALT: Pale Ale, Golden Promise , Crystal, Dark Crystal, Oats, Black, Chocolate, Roast
SUGAR: Belgian Dark Candi Sugar
HOPS: Columbus, Amarillo, Simcoe
YEAST: English Ale

OG: 29° Plato
ABV: 9.8 % v/v
COLOR: 55 ºL
IBU: 85

here's what a nice guy on another forum came up with: thoughts?

Just threw this together...

13.00 lbs Pale
4.00 lbs Golden Promise
2.00 Crystal 80
1.75 Flaked Oats
0.75 Chocolate
0.30 Black Patent
0.30 Roasted Barley
2.00 Dark Candy Sugar

The trick here is the hops. But depending on your system/efficiency this could be all over the board

2.00 Columbus 90
1.00 Amarillo 15
1.00 Simcoe 15
2.00 Amarillo 0
1.00 Simcoe 0

And one HELLOFA yeast starter.

I have only had this once so take it from there. If you like it a bit more hoppy you could bump that up &/or dry hop it as well. It wouldn't surprise me if Choc malt wasn't a lot more than what I listed as well.

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That's ballpark low 60s apparent attenuation. I would use a lot of crystal and mash high.

Nice I might make this next

friend had this last night, might be able to get some more.

Well, for your first brew you don't want to start with an all grain recipe. I would recommend doing extract batches at the beginning of your brewing career so that you can gain a better understanding of the process and build some solid skills that will be the foundation of your future efforts.

We can help you convert this into extract. Give me a couple hours to get some other stuff done and I'll take a stab at it.

Oh snap. After I posted, I noticed that the OP is almost the years old.

This is an old post, but has anyone had any luck with this? I'm thinking of doing one soon so it's drinkable by Halloween.

I may convert this to extract since I have 12lbs laying around. Not sure if I'm going for a 'clone', just a big RIS with a lot going on and hopefully some of the characteristics of Darkness. I'll post the conversion if I attempt it.

I did something similar(see below). OG: 1.110 after a 3 hour boil. I have have this in the fermenter(brewed in Feb.). When I took a gravity reading last month the gravity had dropped to 1.035 and the taste was really nice, but I might not have hopped it enough. It's too early to tell though. I like my RIS's to be more matly then hoppy so this might work out ok! I have a 2012 bottle of Darkness that I will open in November and compare my version to Surly's version.

10 lbs Pale Ale Malt
5 lbs Golden Promise
2 lbs Oat Malt
1 lbs American Crystal 60
1 lbs Special B
.5 lbs Chocolate Malt
.5 lbs Roasted Barley
.5 lbs Black Patent
.5 lbs Blgian Chocolate Malt

1.5 oz Horizon Pellet (60 min)
1 oz EK Golding (10 min)
1.5 oz EK Golding (Whirlpool)

Pitched on a yeast cake of WYeast London Ale.

3 hour boil!!? Wow, how come? Good to know about the hops. Surly always says "hop it like an ipa" about darkness. I'm guessing a iipa

ja09 said:

3 hour boil!!? Wow, how come? Good to know about the hops. Surly always says "hop it like an ipa" about darkness. I'm guessing a iipa

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To get some kettle caramelization and to get to the FG where i wanted it. After a double sparge I ended up with a lot of wort that needed to get boiled down to get 5.5 gallons in the fermenter. By the end of the boil it looked as thick as motor oil.

Have you had Darkness yet? Do you get a lot of american hops from it?

mrdauber64 said:

Have you had Darkness yet? Do you get a lot of american hops from it?

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I had a couple 2012 bottles and I have one cellared. Yes, I definitely pick up some american hops, but it's just such a big & complex beer that it doesn't seem as hopped as it is.

Here's the info from Surly's website, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to use Columbus, Amarillo & Simcoe.

STYLE: Russian Imperial Stout/American Double Stout
MALT: Pale Ale, Golden Promise, Crystal, Dark Crystal, Oats, Black, Chocolate, Roast
SUGAR: Belgian Dark Candi Sugar
HOPS: Columbus, Amarillo, Simcoe
YEAST: English Ale

OG: 29° Plato
ABV: 9.8 % v/v
COLOR: 55 ºSRM
IBU: 85

Nice, good luck! Report back how your version turns out!

dukedevil0 said:

here's what a nice guy on another forum came up with: thoughts?

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I have been looking at using darkness clone recipes for my base malt bill on my own RIS. Surly used Golden Naked Oats on all of their published recipes (see Northern Brewer for most of these) so I would assume the oat malt would fall in line for darkness. Brit ale 2 is also the only ale yeast they really use so White labs 007 or Wyeast 1335 would be the logical choice for a clone. I think special B is part of the original as I definitely get the raisins coming through in the profile and all the roasted malts will be English (chocolate, black, roasted). I am probably going to go with 1/2 Golden Promise and 1/2 2-row for my base malt on this one to bring through some sweetness. I would also expect that Surly hops the heck out of it and lets it sit to mellow out for at least 6 months.

Wow that was long winded but I hope it helps

Joker_on_Jack said:

Wow that was long winded but I hope it helps

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Definitely helps, thank you! I'm surprised there hasn't been more Darkness discussions on this forum. I hope to get some more going and maybe someone can clone it pretty well. My attempt will use leftover extract and I'll post the converted recipe soon... so no clone for me, but hopefully something remotely similar & delicious for next winter.

It is a beer that seems to change every year, I do wonder if they tweak it around a bit to do so. I got 8 bottles this year and hope to do some nice comparison with mine come next winter, though I will will use different hops.

Joker_on_Jack said:

It is a beer that seems to change every year, I do wonder if they tweak it around a bit to do so. I got 8 bottles this year and hope to do some nice comparison with mine come next winter, though I will will use different hops.

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Well if you're itching to have some more without cracking another bottle, Happy Gnome had some on tap last night leftover from a party. I still can't get over how good the last half of the glass is, especially the last couple sips. I think it was meant to be, brewing this on Tues!

ja09 said:

Well if you're itching to have some more without cracking another bottle, Happy Gnome had some on tap last night leftover from a party. I still can't get over how good the last half of the glass is, especially the last couple sips. I think it was meant to be, brewing this on Tues!

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And of course I was busy last night... watching kids to remind me why I don't have any yet...

dukedevil0 said:

Info from the Surly website:

STYLE: Russian Imperial Stout/American Double Stout
MALT: Pale Ale, Golden Promise , Crystal, Dark Crystal, Oats, Black, Chocolate, Roast
SUGAR: Belgian Dark Candi Sugar
HOPS: Columbus, Amarillo, Simcoe
YEAST: English Ale

OG: 29° Plato
ABV: 9.8 % v/v
COLOR: 55 ºL
IBU: 85

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From what I've gathered you'd need OG 1.124 and 1.049 FG from these numbers to reach ~9.8 %. How on Earth can you get 1.049 FG?

dukedevil0 said:

From what I've gathered you'd need OG 1.124 and 1.049 FG from these numbers to reach ~9.8 %. How on Earth can you get 1.049 FG?

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You can either choose a yeast with an alcohol tolerance in the 10% range (like WL007) so it cant ferment further or you can cold crash the fermentation and preserve the profile at a point. Given that Surly is probably using WL007 for this beer its alcohol tolerance is about 10% it should preserve those remaining sugars and hit a high final gravity.

Joker_on_Jack said:

You can either choose a yeast with an alcohol tolerance in the 10% range (like WL007) so it cant ferment further or you can cold crash the fermentation and preserve the profile at a point. Given that Surly is probably using WL007 for this beer its alcohol tolerance is about 10% it should preserve those remaining sugars and hit a high final gravity.

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Wouldn't WL007 ferment out way lower normally (like 1.124 to 1.030)? I know that's what Surly is using so could they be cold crashing before fermentation is complete? Then, racking off the yeast as much as possible. Then, loooong secondary. Rack off any yeast again. Then, force carbing?

Would this actually work (no bottle bombs)?

Why do you guys think the FG is so high? I just assumed it was somewhere around 1.028-1.034, and that's what I was shooting for. Mine finished at 1.033 with 007, but I wasn't trying to clone it exactly.

ja09 said:

Why do you guys think the FG is so high? I just assumed it was somewhere around 1.028-1.034, and that's what I was shooting for. Mine finished at 1.033 with 007, but I wasn't trying to clone it exactly.

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From Surly's numbers on their website.

OG: 29° Plato = 1.124
ABV: 9.8 % v/v

So has to be FG 1.049 by calculation

Just trying to figure out how to get there...

There's another Surly Darkness thread where I posted a recipe given to me from the head brewer - the percentages don't quite add up to 100% but it's a great start. He says the recipe changes slightly year to year based on the malts available.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/surly-darkness-recipe-273322/

skibb said:

There's another Surly Darkness thread where I posted a recipe given to me from the head brewer - the percentages don't quite add up to 100% but it's a great start. He says the recipe changes slightly year to year based on the malts available.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/surly-darkness-recipe-273322/

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Thanks skibb, I did find that and it's a big help. Just trying to sort out this final gravity thing, because even in the recipe you posted has 1.040 FG which I'm having trouble replicating in beersmith and on brewtoad. Maybe I'm missing something.

Maybe I'm missing something.

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Yes - yeast attenuation. I'm not familiar with brew toad, but when you add any yeast to the recipe in BS, it has a preset ADF (apparent degree of fermentation). If you double click on the yeast you can adjust the Avg. Attenuation to make it fit the specs of this beer (which would probably be around 60% just be eyeballing it).

dukedevil0 said:

From Surly's numbers on their website.

OG: 29° Plato = 1.124
ABV: 9.8 % v/v

So has to be FG 1.049 by calculation

Just trying to figure out how to get there...

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haha, guess I overlooked a thing or two.