Maharaja Clone

Dangit BierMuncher, had to get the IIPA thing going.

Since my 15 gallon pot will be delivered by the brown santa tomorrow, I figured no better way to break it in than to do 10 gallons of Maharaja. SoperBrew and I both love this beer, and I nearly cried when I discovered the local beer store was already sold out! .. so we will split the batch and all will be well with the world again. In a few months, anyway.

Note that Avery uses a staggering 42# of hops per batch to dry hop the Maharaja. Granted, anyone who has seen my freezer blames the hop shortage on me but I still don't think it's NECESSARY to dry hop with that many hops. Instead, I'll use a mere 8 ounces for dry hopping, and apply a slick innovation I came up with for this beer: I'll be stuffing sachets with the blend they use to dry hop the beer. Plunk a sachet in the glass, let it sit for a few minutes.. and voila. Should be able to smell the hops from the next room!

Here's the recipe as I will be brewing it. I planned for 11 gallons after the boil, since I will lose a lot of beer to dry hopping; depending on my brewhouse efficiency (I planned for 65%) I may boil extra wort on the stove top to add after the boil to bring up the volume. At 133 IBUs, I don't think a small change in hop utilization will be noticed!

38# Rahr 2-row
3 3/4# Victory
1 1/4# Crystal 120L
3oz Simcoe 90
3oz Centennial 90
1.5oz Zeus 30
1.5oz Zeus 15

OG 1.090 / FG 1.012 / 133 IBU / SRM 15

Dry hops:
4 oz Simcoe for 2 weeks
2 oz Centennial, Crystal for 2 weeks
1 oz Simcoe + 1/2oz each Centennial and Crystal for hop sachets

Wyeast 1028 London Ale, 1.5 gallon starter, split between two pails

Oh, and a big *** blow-off tube x2.

Per Avery, this beer will be mashed at 151*F. Probably for 75 minutes. With this much grain, I will probably dough in at 130-140*F by adding 75% of the strike water, and then step to 151*F once I get the rest of the strike water heated! I plan to pitch around 62*F and ferment as close to 64*F as I can keep it for a week. It will remain in the primary three more weeks, and get secondaried for another two weeks before bottling in 22oz bottles.

all i can say is holy ****. BTW if you drop hops into carbed beer be prepared for a foam cascade. I had a pale ale i would drop a single pellet into the glass for additional nose which was interesting....As for the IBU's isnt a human tongue not capable of percieving greater than around 80 Ibu's? 133 is huge

scinerd3000 said:

all i can say is holy ****. BTW if you drop hops into carbed beer be prepared for a foam cascade. I had a pale ale i would drop a single pellet into the glass for additional nose which was interesting....As for the IBU's isnt a human tongue not capable of percieving greater than around 80 Ibu's? 133 is huge

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Yes, it is a lot, but this beer is really malty so it tastes surprisingly balanced.. that's why I like it. Avery claims 102, I guess it depends on what formula you use. Eitherway it's an @$$load of hops.

Wow, I bow in reverence.

Looks good, Sac (he he, I said sac). The only thing I have to add is that I've 'step' dry hopped like that before and quite honestly I got more hop nose out of beers that I just threw everything in all at once and let it sit for 2-4 weeks.

ohiobrewtus said:

Looks good, Sac (he he, I said sac). The only thing I have to add is that I've 'step' dry hopped like that before and quite honestly I got more hop nose out of beers that I just threw everything in all at once and let it sit for 2-4 weeks.

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Cool... Since it will be bottled, maybe I'll just throw it all in and let it sit in the primary and rack out of there (carefully) to bottle. I figured I'd have some trouble fitting 4.5 ounces of leaf hops in a bag though the opening of a Better Bottle.

Saccharomyces said:

SoperBrew and I both love this beer, and I nearly cried when I discovered the local beer store was already sold out! ..

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You do realize Maharaja is released in February....so the 2009 batch is on its way very soon...:cross:

Website says March.

So that just means we'll have more to drink.. :cross:

Unfortunately the big storm in the PNW means my hops didn't arrive this week, so this brew will not happen until next Saturday, which happens to be my B-day, so happy B-day to me, 10 gallons of Maharaja makes me giggle with glee...

Saccharomyces said:

Website says March.

So that just means we'll have more to drink.. :cross:

Unfortunately the big storm in the PNW means my hops didn't arrive this week, so this brew will not happen until next Saturday, which happens to be my B-day, so happy B-day to me, 10 gallons of Maharaja makes me giggle with glee...

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The 27th is my bday too!

I will be making Stone xi though

Happy birthday to both of us then!

Drat, the 50' chiller won't get here for another week. Plus I'm going out of town for 10 days on the 29th. I talked myself out of brewing this on Saturday, I have visions of returning to find blowoff has clogged both tubes and caused the lids to explode. Instead I think I'll do the recipe kit SWMBO got me for Christmas (AHS Raspberry Chocolate Stout.. yum!) and brew the Maharaja when I get back. Plus, Soperbrew will be around as a backup sampler. Err, I mean assistant brewer.

Brewing this beast tomorrow. The two 3L starters of WLP013 are getting happy side by side... I mashed 2 pounds of Maris Otter yesterday to step the starter up from 1L to 6L. There was so much wort I was tempted to toss in some hops and drink the starter beer.

Tonight Soperbrew will be coming by, I'll be setting up, filtering the water and adding campden tabs, crushing the 42# of grain, and getting the hops together. I'm guessing 42# will take awhile to crush considering my drill is pretty wimpy and overheats after about 10# of grain!

In a bit I'll be heading to Austin Homebrew to pick up a Banjo burner and some specialty malts to make a partigyle ale.

I'm going to do a single infusion double batch sparge. Based on my crush, I usually get 88% efficiency now -- it looks like flour and rice hulls -- I expect to get 65% efficiency. This will leave enough sugars to get 5.5 gallons of a good smoked porter between 1.050 and 1.060. For the partigyle I'll toss in:

1# C60
1/2# Special B
1/2# Chocolate
1/4# Roast Barley
1oz Peated malt

Steep for 20 minutes at 160*F, and collect 6.5 gallons by fly sparge (too much frickin' grain to batch sparge the partigyle beer efficiently). The partigyle beer will get racked onto a Wyeast 1028 cake from the chocolate stout I brewed on 12/27.

Yes I'll post plenty of pr0n from brew day.

This morning one of the two buckets (one with 6 gallons in it) started foaming in the airlock. I pulled out the bung and it proceeded to spit 4 oz of yeast and beer onto the lid. I dropped in 12 foam control drops, and rigged a blowoff tube by cutting the cross from a 3pc airlock just in case. The other fermenter has 5.5 gallons in it so the krausen hadn't reached the airlock yet. Added foam control drops to that fermenter too. Hopefully that will be the end of the blowoff.

The partigyle beer is chugging away slowly at 65*F. I have the other fermenters at 68*F.

I ended up fly sparging everything because I realized pretty quickly the sparge water wouldn't even cover the grains for a batch sparge. My efficiency to kettle on the big beer was 83%, so Chris and I ended up topping off the Maharaja to 12.5 gallons after the boil for a original gravity of 1.102. After loss to hops, trub, and shrinkage we had just over 11 gallons into the fermenters. If the FG also ends up high (we are hoping for close to 1.012) we can simply "cut" the beer by adding additional boiled water at bottling time; this beer is so *&@ hoppy we don't have to worry about diluting the hops. Hey, I won't complain if we end up with too many bottles!

The partigyle beer ended up with six gallons into the fermenter at 1.046. The combined efficiency of both beers works out to 96%. The spent grains gave up all their sugars!

All in all yesterday couldn't have gone better.

I'll post pics from the brew day, describe how I mashed this thing, and describe how we ranoff the partigyle beer later.

Interesting. I have a batch of Maharaja in the primary right now. Sorry I didn't use your recipe though, I got my recipe directly from Avery brewing! Really nice guys I hope to go visit their brewery sometime soon. Actually they are in the process of brewing up the Maharaja themselves right now or they were last week anyway.

truckmann said:

Interesting. I have a batch of Maharaja in the primary right now. Sorry I didn't use your recipe though, I got my recipe directly from Avery brewing! Really nice guys I hope to go visit their brewery sometime soon. Actually they are in the process of brewing up the Maharaja themselves right now or they were last week anyway.

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Care to share?

Sure. Here it is as given to me by Matt Thrall at Avery.

The Maharaja
OG: 1.090
AE: 1.012

Grist:
Pale 2-Row – 93.8%
Victory Malt – 3.1%
C-120 – 3.1%

Hops:
60min – Columbus (13.9% AA) – 1.09 oz
30min – Columbus (13.9% AA) – 1.09 oz
0min – Centennial (13.9% AA) – 2.18 oz
0min – Simcoe (11.4% AA) – 2.18 oz
Dry-Hop – Simcoe – 4.38 oz
Dry-Hop – Centennial – 2.18 oz
Dry-Hop – Chinook – 2.18 oz

Yeast – California
Ferm Temp – 74F

Here is what I used in Beertools for a 10 gallon batch! The IBU's came out a tad bit lower than what they say is in their beer, but I also threw in an ounce of Chinook into the mash so that will probably bump it up a tad.

[size=+2]The Maharaja[/size]
[size=+1]14-C Imperial IPA[/size]
Author: Avery Brewing



Size: 10.0 gal
Efficiency: 78.0%
Attenuation: 87.0%
Calories: 296.24 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.090 (1.070 - 1.090)
|=======================#========|
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.010 - 1.020)
|==========#=====================|
Color: 14.55 (8.0 - 15.0)
|======================#=========|
Alcohol: 10.35% (7.5% - 10.0%)
|==========================#=====|
Bitterness: 97.6 (60.0 - 120.0)
|==================#=============|

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
32.0 lb American 2-row
1.06 lb Victory® Malt
1.06 lb Crystal Malt 120°L
2.18 oz Columbus (13.9%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
2.18 oz Columbus (13.9%) - added during boil, boiled 30.0 min
4.36 oz Centennial (13.9%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
4.36 oz Simcoe (11.4%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
8.76 oz Simcoe (11.4%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
4.36 oz Centennial (13.9%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
4.36 oz Chinook (13.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

[size=+1]Schedule:[/size]
Ambient Air: 65.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 900 ft

00:05:00 Mash In - Liquor: 10.66 gal; Strike: 164.9 °F; Target: 152.0 °F
01:35:00 Saccharification Rest - Rest: 90 min; Final: 151.2 °F
02:05:00 Fly Sparge - Sparge Volume: 17.06 gal; Sparge Temperature: 195.0 °F; Runoff: 17.18 gal

[size=-1]Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.2[/size]

The one I posted was from 2006, but I used columbus instead of magnum. The recipe has changed a few times.

Less than 3 weeks until the real thing is being released!

Saccharomyces said:

The one I posted was from 2006, but I used columbus instead of magnum. The recipe has changed a few times.

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Cool. It's interesting to see how the recipes change over time.

Transferred onto the dry hops last week after five weeks in the primary. Tomorrow or Saturday I plan to crack the fermenters and take a gravity reading while checking to make sure the hops are fully submerged. I didn't have enough marbles to weigh down the hop bags so the whole leaf hops were just floating there when we transferred.

The partigyle smoked porter was delicious when sampled. It is kegged and waiting for a slot to open up in the kegerator. There was almost six gallons of it so I filled two 1L flip tops and tossed in about a dozen carb tabs in each. It's almost fully carbed so we can have a sampler next week.

I'm brewing my version of the 2008 Maharaja during my Spring break/when I have an empty primary, which ever comes first. Here is what I am doing for a 5 gallon batch:
20lbs 2 row
.75 Victory
.75 Caramel 120L
And maybe some dextrose to reach OG/make sure its dry

Hops:
Magnum 1 oz 60 min
Simcoe 2 oz 60 min
Simcoe 1 oz 40 min
Crystal 1 oz 5 min
Centennial 1 oz 1 min

Dry Hop
Crystal 3 oz
Centennial 3 oz

Thoughts?

Looks reasonable to me although I wouldn't use dextrose to increase the OG. I prefer to use DME if I ever need to do that.

I put the dry hops in my version last weekend! Planning to leave them in there for another week and then into the kegs it goes!

truckmann said:

Looks reasonable to me although I wouldn't use dextrose to increase the OG. I prefer to use DME if I ever need to do that.

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DME is not fully fermentable while dextrose is. The point here is to make sure the beer ferments enough to offer a dry finish. If you are spending that much money, time, and effort into getting a hop bomb, why cover up all that hard work with a sweet finish?

I really wasnt adding the dextrose for the alcohol increase, just to make sure it didnt turn out sweet. I've learned the hard way I don't like my IPAs really sweet

The Maharaja should start around 1.090 and finish around 1.012.

Mine started at 1.102 and I just took a gravity reading in secondary at 1.014 for 86% apparent attenuation and 11.7% ABV. That is with all malt and mashed at 151*F for 75 minutes just like the brewery does it, and fermented with the Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast!

No sugar necessary here. Besides, the Maharaja is supposed to be somewhat malty to balance the hops. If you want a Pliny go brew the Pliny recipe instead. This ain't Pliny.

Aerate well, pitch a huge starter (I pitched a 3L starter stepped from 1L into each fermenter) and it will finish just right.

The alcohol heat is very high, and the hop aroma isn't fully developed yet after a week, but otherwise this is already a dead ringer for Maharaja. Warm and flat it tastes like I left some Maharaja sitting out overnight and am tasting it in the morning. It's awesome. :rockin:

When we go to bottle this beast my calcs show if I add 2.5 quarts of water with the priming sugar to each bottling bucket we'll end up at the proper strength for Maharaja.. since my efficiency rocked down da house.

I was planning on pitching mine on a yeast cake from Nottingham. I'm hoping to brew mine over spring break! I'm still waiting on my hops from hops direct. Bought a pound of crystal, magnum, centennial and cascade, but not specifically for this brew.

The guys in the local club who tried this before me used US-05 and their advice was to mash at 154*F if you use a drier strain like US-05 or Nottingham. Theirs finished TOO dry mashed at 151*F compared to the London Ale version which finishes just right.

I just polished off another pint of this wonderful elixir. This brew will definitely be a repeater!

i get it now....

do you think this'll be a good partial mash?

how the heck did you get it down to 12.....

truckmann said:

Sure. Here it is as given to me by Matt Thrall at Avery.

The Maharaja
OG: 1.090
AE: 1.012

Grist:
Pale 2-Row – 93.8%
Victory Malt – 3.1%
C-120 – 3.1%

Hops:
60min – Columbus (13.9% AA) – 1.09 oz
30min – Columbus (13.9% AA) – 1.09 oz
0min – Centennial (13.9% AA) – 2.18 oz
0min – Simcoe (11.4% AA) – 2.18 oz
Dry-Hop – Simcoe – 4.38 oz
Dry-Hop – Centennial – 2.18 oz
Dry-Hop – Chinook – 2.18 oz

Yeast – California
Ferm Temp – 74F

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Ahh, good old HandTruck. Lost track of this thread...glad to hear your clones came out well. This recipe is the one they distribute at their fanclub (Society for the Pursuit of Hoppiness) meetings.

motobrewer said:

i get it now....

do you think this'll be a good partial mash?

how the heck did you get it down to 12.....

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Exactly as I posted it, it has no problem getting down to 1.012 with London Ale yeast since the wort is highly fermentable (only 3% crystal and mashed at 151*F).

As a PM you could do this, I would recommend using Chris Colby's method to increase fermentability. The idea is to use as much 2-row as you can handle in your system, plus the victory and C120. Add the extract *to the minimash* so the enzymes can break it down and make it more fermentable. Hold between 149 and 151 for about an hour and a half. Then drain and sparge the grains to collect the full volume for the boil.

If you can't do a full volume boil you would need to do something else to increase fermentability like use 2# of corn sugar in place of extract.
]

I can do full volume boils, but my mash tun is a plastic cooler, so the only way to add heat is to also add water. Seems like I'd have to add a lot of water to hold at 150 for 1.5 hours....maybe not.

I can mash 10lb of grain. Adding the extract to the mash seems intriguing, any links to good reading on this? Adding 5lb of DME to the minimash seems like it'd take up a lot of volume and would have to use less water. 10lb of grain + 12.5 quarts of water + 5lb of dme....wonder if that'll all fit in a 5 gallon cooler

motobrewer said:

I can do full volume boils, but my mash tun is a plastic cooler, so the only way to add heat is to also add water. Seems like I'd have to add a lot of water to hold at 150 for 1.5 hours....maybe not.

I can mash 10lb of grain. Adding the extract to the mash seems intriguing, any links to good reading on this? Adding 5lb of DME to the minimash seems like it'd take up a lot of volume and would have to use less water. 10lb of grain + 12.5 quarts of water + 5lb of dme....wonder if that'll all fit in a 5 gallon cooler

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I'd go with 8# and fill er up to the top with water to keep the mash thin. Those 5 gallon coolers will hold temp just fine if they are full, if it drops a couple of degrees you are fine since I worry more about underattenuating than overattenuating in this beer.

I don't know about a resource for the mashing of extract, it's something I picked up chatting with Chris Colby at one of the homebrew club meetings over the summer, he does PMs for 5 gallon batches and doesn't bother dragging out the AG equipment unless he is going to do 10 gallons.

Interesting. 2.5 quarts per pound? Seems like a lot, but I'm not knowledgeable about mashing at all.

Should only have to do one more batch sparge, then, since i'm mashing close to the full volume. Thanks!

I prefer to mash as thin as possible, it makes it easier to stir the mash to work out dough balls and in this case ensures that the enzymes will reach all of the extract. braukaiser.com has lots of information and experimental results with varying mash thicknesses.

how are you guys dry hopping this? i usually use whole leaf hops in a nylon hop bag in the keg. BUT, they are small bags and can only fit ~1 oz per bag. 8 bags would be annoying. maybe I'll get one of the giant nylon bags?

also, how long are you guys dry-hopping?

mb2696 said:

how are you guys dry hopping this? i usually use whole leaf hops in a nylon hop bag in the keg. BUT, they are small bags and can only fit ~1 oz per bag. 8 bags would be annoying. maybe I'll get one of the giant nylon bags?

also, how long are you guys dry-hopping?

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I use pellets and just throw them in. Here's my clone on tap now. Very nice.

Maharaja IPA
14-C Imperial IPA
Author: HBT
Date: 12/9/09

Size: 11.0 gal
Efficiency: 76.0%
Attenuation: 88.0%
Calories: 277.88 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.085 (1.070 - 1.090)
Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (1.010 - 1.020)
Color: 14.32 (8.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 9.83% (7.5% - 10.0%)
Bitterness: 102.5 (60.0 - 120.0)

Ingredients:
34.0 lb American 2-row
1.12 lb Victory® Malt
1.12 lb Crystal Malt 120°L
2.5 oz Columbus (14.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
2.5 oz Columbus (14.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
4.0 oz Centennial (6.9%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
4.0 oz Simcoe (12.2%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
8.0 oz Simcoe (12.2%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
4.0 oz Centennial (6.9%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
4.4 oz Chinook (10.7%) - added dry to secondary fermenter


Notes
Mash at 154 for 60 minutes.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.7

I really dig Maharaja but it's a once in a while kind of a brew for myself. Any ideas on how the hop flavor and aroma holds up over extended aging?

I tried this brew last year when it was in season.....HOLY SH*T.....It threw me for a loop. I had never had an IIPA until this...........EXTREME BREWING is what this is!

you need to use some bullion hops for this to be an authentic clone...