12-12-12 Wee Heavy Recipe Formulation

[DMartin]

Right. So I just brew it up then.

I saw on the '11 swap thread that people could send 12s or 22s. I have 24 bombers in my inventory but I'd rather not part with them since I rarely buy new ones. I'll get started right away!

(well, after Christmas when my new gear arrives, anyway)

By the way, who's in charge of these things?

 

[bottlebomber]

Right. So I just brew it up then.

I saw on the '11 swap thread that people could send 12s or 22s. I have 24 bombers in my inventory but I'd rather not part with them since I rarely buy new ones. I'll get started right away!

(well, after Christmas when my new gear arrives, anyway)

By the way, who's in charge of these things?

Smokinghole started the thread, so that makes him in charge. Usually a mod will oversee the swaps, to make sure there are no problems.

 

[DMartin]

I'm currently reading through the whole thread and it is slow going. Does everyone eventually agree on a basic recipe? If so, could you point me towards it?

 

[bottlebomber]

I'm currently reading through the whole thread and it is slow going. Does everyone eventually agree on a basic recipe? If so, could you point me towards it?

The basic recipe is 20 lbs Marris Otter and 4 ounces of Roasted Barley. Several of us have done this. The other recipes go anywhere from some crystal malt to a whole crap load of specialty grains. Also almost everyone is using Wyeast 1728. Kettle carmelization is mandatory. Oak is optional.

 

[DMartin]

The basic recipe is 20 lbs Marris Otter and 4 ounces of Roasted Barley. Several of us have done this. The other recipes go anywhere from some crystal malt to a whole crap load of specialty grains. Also almost everyone is using Wyeast 1728. Kettle carmelization is mandatory. Oak is optional.

and that's for 5 gal? (thanks for all your help)

 

[bottlebomber]

and that's for 5 gal? (thanks for all your help)

Right, a five gallon batch. The main piece of advice I can give is to shoot for a big preboil, at least 8 gallons. This will really improve your efficiency, and make it more likely that you actually have 5 gallons after the 2 hour boil.

 

[DMartin]

Right, a five gallon batch. The main piece of advice I can give is to shoot for a big preboil, at least 8 gallons. This will really improve your efficiency, and make it more likely that you actually have 5 gallons after the 2 hour boil.

got it. I saw it suggested that I boil down a certain amount first. Is that still a good idea or just take 8 gal over 2h?

EDIT: Ok here's how I understand it so far... start with 8 gal total mash/sparge. take the first 2 gal and boil it down. Now I have a little over 6 gal. Long boil to finish at my 5 gal target. Am I close?

 

[bottlebomber]

got it. I saw it suggested that I boil down a certain amount first. Is that still a good idea or just take 8 gal over 2h?

The first portion that you boil down is the kettle carmelization. Generally 2 gallons of the first runnings was reduced to not more than a half gallon. This is an essential part of the recipe. Then the rest of 8 gallons of runnings is boiled (you can do this in separate kettles to save time, I just used my boil kettle for all of it). Im not going to lie, it was a real ***** to brew and I stopped enjoying myself somewhere around 6 hours in but if you can stick with it it will be worth every bit of the effort.

 

[DMartin]

The first portion that you boil down is the kettle carmelization. Generally 2 gallons of the first runnings was reduced to not more than a half gallon. This is an essential part of the recipe. Then the rest of 8 gallons of runnings is boiled (you can do this in separate kettles to save time, I just used my boil kettle for all of it). Im not going to lie, it was a real ***** to brew and I stopped enjoying myself somewhere around 6 hours in but if you can stick with it it will be worth every bit of the effort.

Ok the only thing Im not clear on at this point is:

Is it [2 gal + 8 gal] or [2 gal + 6 gal to make 8 total]

 

[bottlebomber]

Ok the only thing Im not clear on at this point is:

Is it [2 gal + 8 gal] or [2 gal + 6 gal to make 8 total]

I would pull a total of 10 gallons

 

[DMartin]

Made it through the whole thread! only took me 2 hours....

I'm pretty sure I can handle this now. Got a good read on the process and recipe. I'm gonna stick to the basic 20# MO and 4oz RB, but I am going to join the Crystal camp because I'm not at all confident in my caramelization skills.

I am also not at all confident that I can handle 10 gal of runnings. If I pull off 2 gal for the boil-down that leaves 8 gal for the boil, which is more than I can do at once. If I denatured a few gallons of it, could I add it in later, after some wort has boiled off but before the hop additions?

 

[smokinghole]

I'd bottle in 12oz bottles first off.

Second do you have an additional pot or a large stock pot you'd otherwise use for cooking? If so you can run you 8 gal into your kettle, and then separately boil the 2 gal in another pot. I had to do mine inside on the stove because I don't have a second burner but I had the boils going at the same time. I would also suggest if you can get it to buy an English Extra Dark Crystal like 160L. It will give you better toffee like caramel flavors which is the goal of the boil down. I was only going to use the roast barley but decided to use a little of the extra dark crystal too.

 

[Stephonovich]

What kind of mash schedule is everyone using?

I'm trying to bring in the ABV around 12%, the top of 1728's range. I know it's a bit over the BJCP guidelines, but whatever - it's my beer.

Anyway, I also want to keep the water/grain ratio slightly low to help the flavor. Right now, Beersmith has my OG at 1.120 (22 # MO, 4 oz. RB), and FG at 1.036. This is with a mash profile of:

Dough in @ 104 F 20 minutes
Protein rest @ 122 F 15 minutes
Beta rest @ 140 F 15 minutes
Mash in @ 156 F 60 minutes

I'm pretty set on the dough in and protein rest; unsure if the Beta rest will do much since there's no oats or wheat in the recipe.

If I lower the final mash temp to, say, 150 F, that lowers the FG to 1.027. What kind of FG is everyone going for? 1.036 seems pretty high to me for a FG, but this is a Wee Heavy.

 

[de5m0mike]

If I lower the final mash temp to, say, 150 F, that lowers the FG to 1.027. What kind of FG is everyone going for? 1.036 seems pretty high to me for a FG, but this is a Wee Heavy.

How do you figure that? My software, Beer Alchemy, doesn't adjust FG based on mash temp, and I was under the impression that no other software out there did. I've been looking for a way to estimate yeast attenuation based on mash temps.

 

[Malticulous]

What kind of mash schedule is everyone using?

I'm trying to bring in the ABV around 12%, the top of 1728's range. I know it's a bit over the BJCP guidelines, but whatever - it's my beer.

Anyway, I also want to keep the water/grain ratio slightly low to help the flavor. Right now, Beersmith has my OG at 1.120 (22 # MO, 4 oz. RB), and FG at 1.036. This is with a mash profile of:

Dough in @ 104 F 20 minutes
Protein rest @ 122 F 15 minutes
Beta rest @ 140 F 15 minutes
Mash in @ 156 F 60 minutes

I'm pretty set on the dough in and protein rest; unsure if the Beta rest will do much since there's no oats or wheat in the recipe.

If I lower the final mash temp to, say, 150 F, that lowers the FG to 1.027. What kind of FG is everyone going for? 1.036 seems pretty high to me for a FG, but this is a Wee Heavy.

The beta rest is the one to set fermentability. The higher rest is to insure conversion. It will also raise extraction a bit. You probably want the low rest at a little higher temp for longer time. The actual time needed depends on the DP of the mash. Nothing will calculate it.

 

[JuanKenobi]

How do you figure that? My software, Beer Alchemy, doesn't adjust FG based on mash temp, and I was under the impression that no other software out there did. I've been looking for a way to estimate yeast attenuation based on mash temps.

Beersmith 2 has this feature. I didn't realize that it was doing it until recently, but so far it seems like it's accurate enough.

 

[Stephonovich]

The beta rest is the one to set fermentability. The higher rest is to insure conversion. It will also raise extraction a bit. You probably want the low rest at a little higher temp for longer time. The actual time needed depends on the DP of the mash. Nothing will calculate it.

Yeah, got confused on those two. (Beta and protein).

By low rest, do you mean the dough in, or the protein rest?

 

[corncob]

I haven't brewed yet (I have the ingredients), but I have been thinking about the mash temp as well. The biggest beer I have made to date was about 1.065, and I have seen fermentability of the wort make an amazing difference in the final product even at that OG, especially with high-attenuating yeast.

I was thinking of starting at 149 and letting it coast down for 90 minutes or 2 hours. 2 gallons of runnings boiled down to a quart has got to add a ton of nonfermentables, and I want malty--not cloying.

Wyeast shows the high end of attenuation for 1728 at 73%. I bet a mash as described above would get me up to 78%. For an OG of 1.095, that puts the FG at 1.021, ABV at 9.9%. Seems about right to me.

Why all the different rests? I thought that all English malt was well-modified and needed only a single infusion, or one for beta- and one for alpha-amylase.

 

[Stephonovich]

Oh wow, I completely forgot about the effects of the runnings adding back in.

As to the various rests, I've seen opinions of people smarter than I claiming that a protein rest is always a good idea. I've just started AG (3rd batch), so we'll see. I don't see how it could hurt.

Think I'm going to go with a final temp (mash in) of 148 F, which should give me a FG of 1.023, ABV of 12% (dialed MO down to 20.5 #).

EDIT: After reading more, it seems a protein rest can be detrimental to head retention if oats or wheat are not present. D'oh.

Furthermore, I borrowed my neighbor's stir plate. Going to make another 1 gallon starter; half new wort, half the currently bubbling starter (it's at 1.010 right now; been going for about 30 hours). This is mostly due to not having enough time to wait for the yeast to crash to decant and pitch just the yeast into another starter; I have duty tomorrow, and will be unable to babysit the starter. Oh well - maybe the yeasties will enjoy sitting in a slightly alcoholic starter before they begin their journey into a much stronger beer. I firmly believe that it's pretty hard to mess up beer, so long as you don't get an infection.

 

[MDVDuber]

Wow - this was a big brew day. Finally got to it yesterday - started at about 0630 and finished around 1630 - man was I tired.

My recipe was

22 lbs Golden Promise
4.65 oz Roasted barley (it was all I had left - shoulda checked stock eh?)
8 oz of Muntons Extra Dark Crystal (package said 135-165 Lov)

Mashed at 154 for 45 mins

I managed to boil my first runnings from about 2 gallons to 2 quarts and chickened out at that point as it would thicken to a soft caramel on the spoon as soon as it hit the air.
I stopped part way through the third sparge when it was still running 1.020 and managed a healthy 1.110 SG post 3 hour boil.

I hit it with 1 min of 1 LPH of 100% O2 and pitched about 2 cups of washed yeast from my 70/- and it's happily fermenting away in my newly constructed fermentation chamber at 60 degrees.

So all in all a big day. My first brew with Oxygen, my second ever in the fermentation chamber (actually my under construction fermentation chamber as the second chamber still need a fan), and my longest brew day ever. Now I've got to wait a year to find out if I was successful!

Back to small beers for a while I think!

 

[bottlebomber]

Back to small beers for a while I think!

That's what happened for me, I temporarily lost my desire to brew big beers. Since making that beer I've brewed a czech pils, a hefe, and a kolsch, all not much above 1.050

 

[Stephonovich]

Just brewed mine today - discovered that a big pot (20 gal Boilermaker) with not much in it makes for huge cooling losses (about 1.25 gal/hr).

Had trouble hitting all my temps, but managed.

My OG came in at 1.108, which was a little lower than my expected of 1.112. Not too shabby for my 3rd AG, I think.

Cooled it down to about 55 F, put it in a glass carboy, aerated the hell out of it, and set it in the garage, which sits between 50-60 F in the winter.

We'll see...

 

[bottlebomber]

Just brewed mine today - discovered that a big pot (20 gal Boilermaker) with not much in it makes for huge cooling losses (about 1.25 gal/hr).

Had trouble hitting all my temps, but managed.

My OG came in at 1.108, which was a little lower than my expected of 1.112. Not too shabby for my 3rd AG, I think.

Cooled it down to about 55 F, put it in a glass carboy, aerated the hell out of it, and set it in the garage, which sits between 50-60 F in the winter.

We'll see...

Sounds like you did fine. It's hard to calculate efficiency doing this much grain.

 

[MDVDuber]

Sounds like you did fine. It's hard to calculate efficiency doing this much grain.

Yeah - I would have been happy to get that close to my efficiency estimate on my 3rd low gravity AG. Never mind this monster!

 

[acuenca]

Making a 1728 cake for the Wee Heavy with an ESB tomorrow... What's the minimum amount of time that y'all think this should age for? 6 months? 9 months?

 

[steelersrbrun]

I have mine kegged and ready, finished out at 11.8%. This is my best brewing result yet....could not be happier with all elements of this beer. I had no idea this was for a swap....that's a fantastic idea. I'm in... As long as I don't drink it all before the swap!

 

[bottlebomber]

I have mine kegged and ready, finished out at 11.8%. This is my best brewing result yet....could not be happier with all elements of this beer. I had no idea this was for a swap....that's a fantastic idea. I'm in... As long as I don't drink it all before the swap!

Yeah it's not looking good though is it...

 

[Ezekielsays]

I had a bit of a dilemma - since I'd been too busy getting my kegging setup ready, and doing various household projects, my keezer had 3 empty kegs and no full ones. So, rather than just making this (more difficult than any brew i've yet attempted) I decided to up the ante a bit and do a party-gyle. I now have 3 gallons of Wee Heavy (1.120 OG) and approximately 4.75 gallons of something more sessionable (1.036 OG) fermenting in my cellar (temp 56 F).

Brew day was very long (obviously) but my brother stopped by to help for a large portion of it, and everything went surprisingly smoothly. The propane tank on the burner I was using to boil down the first runnings ran out just as the syrup was getting to where I wanted it - if I had a choice I would have gone a little further, but it was starting to get pretty think and formed strings when dripping it back into the pot (it was getting pretty cold out), so it should be good enough.

Now I can have my wee heavy, and something smaller to drink as well!

Recipe I used:

21 lb Marris Otter
4 oz Roasted Barley
Mash thin (a little over 1.5 quarts per lb) at 150 deg for 90 minutes (only dropped 1 degree)
Reduce 1st gallon of runnings to approx 1 quart
2 hour boil on remainder of first runnings (boiled down to 3 gallons)
EKG at 45 and 30 minutes to approx 34 IBU
Chill, O2, add starter of Wyeast 1728
O2 again 24 hours later
Capped mash with 1 lb Crystal 60L
5.5 gallons on 2nd runnings, boiled down to 4.75.
Ekg 1 oz at 60, 1 oz at 10.
Wyeast 1728

Everything smelled wonderful - here's hoping the taste will be wonderful too!

 

[Golddiggie]

Started my version on 12/17/11... Reduced 2 gallons of first wort to about 2 quarts (if that) while I was sparging and getting the main batch boiling. Had a lower OG than expected due to a mill malfunction, but not too far below. Ended up adding 3# of honey to get it to where I wanted it to be (was added around 12/22)... As of today, it's still going very strong (one airlock burp every 5 seconds). I used two packets of 1728 in a 3L starter (on the stirplate) to get the yeast colony that should be enough. I'm aiming to finish right in the 12% area with this one. Since I'll carbonate it on gas, I don't care if the yeast are all done by the time it goes to keg. I'm also planning on racking it onto oak after about two months.

I mashed for two hours in my keg mash tun. With 28.75# of grain, at 1.252 qt/# I almost maxed out the mash tun (I have a 3 quart dead space under the false bottom). At least I learned the max capacity range of the mash tun.

The kettle caramelization process was interesting. It would foam up heavily, then calm back down from time to time. I would stir it to get the foam to reduce. I noticed that what remained on the sides of the pot would blacken, but that was above the level of the reducing wort. I kept needing to reduce the gas feed to that burner so that it didn't go too insane.

By the time everything is said and done, I should end up with between 5 and 6 gallons of brew from the batch.

I expect to have the mill issue cleared with the next brew (was going to be today, but the stomach flu hit me a couple of days ago, still in recovery mode).

 

[Q2XL]

A question about the recuction of the first 2 gallons of runoff.

Is this something that needs to be stirred constantly or can I let it got for awhile. The reason that I am asking is that I plan on reducing this in the house while sparging out in the garage and I won't be able to keep an eye on it all of the time.

 

[smokinghole]

Not in the beginning but when you get to the end of it you need to watch it closely because it can and will boil over.

 

[Golddiggie]

It wasn't so bad at the start of the boil (once I got that foam under control)... Once it was reduced by more than half, it would foam up much more often. So depending on your setup, you could be doing a lot of running between the kitchen and garage. Unless you have someone that can help and watch the pot in the kitchen for you.

 

[smokinghole]

Well I maybe should have mashed slightly lower but my beer is still chugging a long slowly. My gravity reading today is 1.045 so it's getting there but every so slowly. I might have to add a little amylase enzyme to help out a bit I don't think it'll really dry out of I use enzyme. I think it might make it to the mid 1.020s at the best with amylase enzyme.

 

[Stephonovich]

I'm having some trouble keeping fermentation temps down - I don't have a swamp cooler, or anything like it. Currently it's in a glass carboy in my garage, which during the day, I have the space heater turned off, which keeps ambient temps around 50-ish. At night I turn it on, for the dog - garage is around 60 F then.

Anyway, the beer got up to 70 F, so I removed the blanket insulating it from the concrete floor. That dropped it down to 66 F, but no luck dropping it down further. I think I'm going to try the wet towel idea, and see how that works.

Wyeast says at higher temps, expect ester production (typical for any strain, I suppose). 70 F is still in the range, though. I was really hoping for the smokier flavors that fermenting cold is supposed to give you with 1728. Any idea on what to expect with a mixed temp fermentation?

 

[bottlebomber]

How low did you get them temp before you pitched? If you were able to get the beer temp into the upper 50s then you will probably have the cooler fermentation profile. But if you chilled to 70 or so then its likely the beer never really dropped much below 65.

 

[Golddiggie]

I got my wort to about 60F before oxygenating and pitching the yeast. At least that's what the fermometer read. Need to get an updated temp on mine...

Oh and I did deviate from the group recipe. So not sure if this will qualify for part of the swap...

 

[bottlebomber]

Oh and I did deviate from the group recipe. So not sure if this will qualify for part of the swap...

At least one person had 3 or 4 specialty grains in their recipe I think...

 

[Stephonovich]

The wort was at about 55 F when I pitched. Winter time + counterflow HX makes for awesome cooling.

Also, after a few hours with the towel, temps have crept down to about 64 F.

On an aside, does anyone have a rough head count on number of swap-ees?

 

[bottlebomber]

The wort was at about 55 F when I pitched. Winter time + counterflow HX makes for awesome cooling.

Also, after a few hours with the towel, temps have crept down to about 64 F.

On an aside, does anyone have a rough head count on number of swap-ees?

Probably fine. I mean it is what it is, and I'm sure it will be good.

As far as swap-ees geeze I dunno... it seems like at least a dozen people have participated, but we shall see how many of these are actually willing and able to participate for the swap a year from now. Probably less than a dozen I bet.

 

[Golddiggie]

At least one person had 3 or 4 specialty grains in their recipe I think...

Got four in my recipe, plus some local honey to help with the OG... Of course, the honey was added over a week into fermentation. Still, I doubt there will be much flavor from the honey. I did use some honey malt though, so you should get SOME honey flavors in the brew. Basically, I'm brewing my first wee heavy again, just a bit bigger (first one was 7.7%, this one is on target for 12%, if not higher).