Who's brewing 08-08-08 RIS? Post your notes here!

Checked the gravity today, 11 days after brewing, FG 1.022 from 1.082, 7.9% ABV. I'll rack to secondary later tonight and let it sit there for a few weeks. The sample tasted REALLY good! I'm more excited about this now than when I brewed it.

I can't wait for the hops to mellow. Something about them is way too BLAM in my face. Maybe my razz version will be delicious too! *stares at his bucket*

if mine doesn't drop any more points in the next week, i'm pitching some nottingham. it tastes great but a little sweet, and 1.030 only makes for 66% attenuation. i definitely want it a bit drier.

1 more day till crash cool time. It's been fermenting for 13 days at 60 degrees like the recipe says.

I should be interesting as I used Herzbrucker instead of Cascade by accident. Doh!

I guess I can call it the German-American Imperial Stout ja?

As of yesterday, still a bubble every minute or so. It's been in Primary 9 days and I'll probably take a hydro reading in a few more days and see what happened so far.

Taken from the 08-08-08 thread: (I didn't realize where I was posting.)

Twelve days in the carboy and the gravity is at .030. I haven't really been watching the blow-off tube so I can't say if she's still bubbling, but I am gonna switch to an airlock and see how she looks. Either way, it'll stay in primary for at least a week longer.

BTW, tastes yummy.



My fiance called it the "Blood of Satan". Hmmm, I think we have a winner for a name! No longer is it just 08-08-08 RIS. From now on it shall be dubbed the "Blood of Satan RIS".

lol, "The Blood of Satan!"

i dig it

1.022 after almost two weeks (It stopped bubbling a few days ago, but I just got around to taking a reading). Nice stout-like flavor, but seems to be not as chocolately as I would like. I think this may have to do with having one big bag of specialty grains as I mentioned earlier.

I'm thinking of trying to track down some cocoa nibs for the secondary. All and all, I still think this is going to be a damn good brew.

Ordered the cocoa nibs yesterday, hopefully they'll be here by the end of the week. Then on to secondary for cocoa and dry-hopping.

so my brewing temperatures turned out perfect! i kept it at about 65 for its primary fermentation, then when i went to turn it down, i found that my fan isn't working! i was going to fix it, but then a cold front hit us. it was at about 72 for a day, then for the last couple of weeks, the fermenter has not been over 60 degrees. this is awesome...so lucky.

it does make me a little lazy, tho. i haven't even figured out what's wrong with the chiller (it could be just a loose connection, but i think it's the fan itself.)

i'm going to transfer around the 1st of february sometime and let it sit for another month at these nice temps and get the chiller fixed just in case i need it. i'll check the gravity again at that time.

this brew is going to be awesome :rockin:

My FG is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.025. There are a ton of unfermentables in this brew. Tastes great, though.

Bottled today. 1.021 FG.

I gave this one a try yesterday as my 2nd AG batch. I realized that sparging should not take 3 hours and that my turkey fryer doesn't have the juice to effectively boil a big beer like that. Still got an OG of 1.075 and after pitching less than 12 hours ago-there were signs of a kreusen this morning...given that this baby took about 14 hours to brew-I hope the adage of 'you get out what you put in' holds true.

Nastiest Carboy clean up yet:

I have been doing some thought on this, My Brother in law is getting married next Fall (Fall of 2009). I am thinking that this would be a great opportunity to try something spectacular. Here is what I have been pondering.

An Apple Honey Pilsner Mead

I have been doing a lot of reading on meads, and what concerns me is the fermenting stalling, since in a standard mead there is no nitrogen in it, this is cause for issues for stalled fermentation, since beer has a lot of nitrogen so there is very little for the yeast to stall I have came up with this Recipe Idea

23 Litre Batch

with 6 litres of water add in 3 pounds of a Pilsner grain medley,

Add in Hallertau and fuggles hops,

add in 4 litres of honey,

let the mixture cool to 85 F

mix in pure apple juice to top it to 23 litres, should now be down to 72 F, take gravity and then pitch Wyeast Sweet mead yeast.

let ferment and age for 8 months, then bottle to condition.

So it looks like it wasn't a problem with my yeast---landhoney said his half of the batch finished around 1.030 as well.

Anyway, three cheers for the 'Pastor on this one-it tastes absolutely magnificent, and it's only been in bottle for 3 weeks. I can't wait to see how this one ages.

sAvAgE said:

I have been doing some thought on this....

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Not to be an ass, but what does this have to do with the 8-8-8 RIS?

Back to the topic at hand, I think I'm going to let mine bulk condition for awhile and probably bottle it come March.

shunoshi said:

Not to be an ass, but what does this have to do with the 8-8-8 RIS?

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I think he misunderstood the thread topic. Hell, you can brew whatever you want on 8/8/8, dude, but it won't be the Official HBT 888 RIS.

Back to the topic at hand, I think I'm going to let mine bulk condition for awhile and probably bottle it come March.

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IIWY, I'd bottle sooner rather than later. I tend to have more problems with bulk aging when the beer in question is rather high in ABV...meaning, it's harder to get the bottle fermentation going the longer it sits. I still have a bunch of bottles of a barleywine that are very hit-or-miss when it comes to carbonation, and it was a batch I bulk-aged for 3 or 4 months. I even repitched an entire reyhdrated sachet of new yeast at bottling. I mean, you can do what you want, but my new rule of thumb is, unless it's a lager, I'd rather age it in bottles.

sAvAgE said:

I have been doing some thought on this, My Brother in law is getting married next Fall (Fall of 2009). I am thinking that this would be a great opportunity to try something spectacular. Here is what I have been pondering.

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Indeed, as the others mentioned, this thread is intended specifically for the HBT 08-08-08 Russian Imperial Stout brew log. Thanks for posting here, and I like your idea, but we are trying to stay on-topic in this thread. If you PM one of the mods, they might be able to split your reply off into its own post for you.

As an aside, I have no idea whether your new post should be in Recipes/Ingredients, in Mead, or in Cider sub-forums. Hard to classify.


@BierMuncher: Are you going to try just the standard OxyClean treatment? Let us know how much it cleans on contact, and how much you have to scrub. I'm very curious about OxyClean's "magic" on your carboy.

@Evan!/Shunoshi: I'm bottle aging, and like Evan!, I'm shoving mine into bottles as fresh as possible. The 1/2 batch of non-Raspberry is already in, and Raspberry goes in tonight (was supposed to be a week ago, but I got busy with other things). I pushed it into bottles ASAP for the same reason, I've heard horror stories of inconsistent carb'ing with repitched yeast on bulk aged batch... so I just went with the "safest" solution. I am eager to hear how yours goes, Shunoshi, I really hope it works out well!

Evan! said:

IIWY, I'd bottle sooner rather than later. I tend to have more problems with bulk aging when the beer in question is rather high in ABV...meaning, it's harder to get the bottle fermentation going the longer it sits. I still have a bunch of bottles of a barleywine that are very hit-or-miss when it comes to carbonation, and it was a batch I bulk-aged for 3 or 4 months. I even repitched an entire reyhdrated sachet of new yeast at bottling. I mean, you can do what you want, but my new rule of thumb is, unless it's a lager, I'd rather age it in bottles.

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Hmm, guess I didn't think about that. When I brewed my Winter Ale, I let that bulk condition for about 3 months and had no issues with bottle carbonation. That wasn't a really high ABV though. Only came in at around 5%-6%.

I may have to consider bottling a bit sooner. I'd hate to sit on a great beer this long only to have it be flat.

BrewPastor?

Folks are wondering the best process for conditioning / carbonating.

Any thoughts on a consistent process?

I’m about 1 week of conditioning in a keg (no gas) at 45 degrees. My intent was to continue to bulk condition for another month + and then either:

1) Force carb in the keg and then BMBF fill the bottles.
2) Rack to bottles with priming sugar and bottle condition at 72 degrees for three weeks prior to shipping. (no additional yeast, ½ - ¾ cup of sugar)

Any thoughts. From a 1.088 down to 1.022 and a total of 12-15 weeks from brewing, will we (I) need additional yeast or can I rouse some off the bottom of the keg when I rack to the bottling bucket?

I'm not the Pastor, but I wouldn't count on the yeast in the trub. If it's been more than 6 weeks since primary ferment, I'd pitch new rehydrated US-05 or notty. That way you don't have to get the by-products from the trub that you don't want. I didn't repitch, but I went from kettle to bottle in 24 days---and it's carb'd fine.

Evan! said:

I'm not the Pastor, but I wouldn't count on the yeast in the trub. If it's been more than 6 weeks since primary ferment, I'd pitch new rehydrated US-05 or notty. That way you don't have to get the by-products from the trub that you don't want. I didn't repitch, but I went from kettle to bottle in 24 days---and it's carb'd fine.

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I've never repitched yeast for bottling. I guess it doesn't matter the quantity of yeast, since there's such a limited amount of sugar t process.

BierMuncher said:

I've never repitched yeast for bottling. I guess it doesn't matter the quantity of yeast, since there's such a limited amount of sugar t process.

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I do it regularly for anything past that 6 week cutoff. Sometimes I'll pitch just a few sprinkles---other times, like with that barleywine, I'll pitch a whole sachet.

shunoshi said:

Not to be an ass, but what does this have to do with the 8-8-8 RIS?

Back to the topic at hand, I think I'm going to let mine bulk condition for awhile and probably bottle it come March.

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My Bad Did not realize that this is a RIS? (Russian Imperial Stout?)

Did not realize I thought it was something different . Just ignore it

sAvAgE said:

My Bad Did not realize that this is a RIS? (Russian Imperial Stout?)

Did not realize I thought it was something different . Just ignore it

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Yeah...Russian Imperial Stout. Everyone brewed the same recipe from post #1 on https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=41782 as kind of a fun thing to drink on 8/8/8.

Brew it up! You got time.

Brewpastor said:

The pics are great, thanks for the effort. As far as stress is concerned, it will be fine. Trust me!

The dogs ate 1.5 pounds of my pale chocolate. Good thing I bought 10 pounds!

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Damned that Rufus!!!

That same dog eats everything she can. I just wish she would stick to the worthless crap in the yard!

I just tried another sample after dry-hopping and adding 8oz of crushed cocoa nibs five days ago. Who would have thought that a few ounces of room temperature beer would taste so good, that I almost sanitized the thief for another sample?

Brewpastor said:

The dogs ate 1.5 pounds of my pale chocolate. Good thing I bought 10 pounds!

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Really, that sounds worse to me than the dog eating your homework.

And it's a good thing barley isn't toxic to dogs (like chocloate).

Kegged my Blood of Satan RIS. Gravity was at .027 after nearly 40 days in primary. Lots of unfermentables, I guess. This one is gonna need a looooong time to condition.

The chocolate nubs sounded like a good idea. Maybe some nubs and a vanilla bean?

I just bottled mine this morning. Man does this stuff taste GOOOOD! It has a serious bite to it, almost makes my mouth tingle. I can't believe the difference it has from a couple of weeks ago. It was terrible then. Man do I hope I can let this stuff last until August! Good thing we're shipping early for the swap so I don't drink it all!!

Bottled mine last night. Its even darker than my previous RIS but the alcohol bite is more mellow. This is probably going to be even better. I will save some for 08-08-08 but you can be sure that several samples will disappear before then.

Craig

I bottled mine tonight...

OG: 1.088 --> FG: 1.028

67% attenuation, 8% ABV

tastes DAMN good. i love how dark it is but still has a nice brown to it. "blacker than the blackest brown"

i yielded 12 - 22 ouncers and 21 - 12 ouncers. that's about a 4 gallon yield...smaller than i'm used to, but i usually do 5.5 gallons.

fantastic brew...i sealed up the boxes and am going to store them away someplace nice...maybe play some light metal every now and again for the yeasties

i don't plan to open until just before swap time, and if i keep brewing like i have been, i won't need to!

I opened one the other day, it was carbed well but maybe not fully carbed. It was really thick, huge body. I definitely needs time, but I think its going to turn out great.

Every night I pull into the garage (where I've hidden the keg) I'm tempted to bring a picnic tap out and draw off a sample.

Garage has been at 45 degrees for about 4 straight weeks.

That baby is going to sit there until about 2 weeks before shipping, then I'll force carb and bottle.

Updated my pictures for this thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/whos-brewing-08-08-08-ris-post-your-notes-here-49497/index2.html#post497306