Big Brew Day tomorrow... Thoughts?

[lastsecondapex]

I wanted to do a big Chocolate Stout for this upcoming fall and this is what I came up with:

The overall grain/fermentable cost came up to $145.00 (I already had the cocoa powder and the flaked oats). The coffee and vanilla beans are costing me an additional $28.79

I call it The BlackNess Monster



62% 60lbs 0 American Two-row Pale
12% 12lbs 4oz Wildflower Honey
8% 8lbs 0 Chocolate Malt
6% 6lbs 0 Roasted Barley
4% 4lbs 0 Black Patent Malt
4% 3lbs 8oz Cocoa powder
3% 2lbs 10oz Oats, Flaked
96lbs 2oz
Batch size: 20.0 gallons


Original Gravity
(1.129 estimated)
Final Gravity
(1.035 estimated)
Color
(90° SRM estimated)
(Black)
Mash Efficiency
(72% used for O.G. estimate)

60 mins 4.0 East Kent Goldings pellet 5.2
15 mins 2.0 East Kent Goldings pellet 5.2

0.1 IBU / 21 HBU
ƒ: Tinseth


Irish Ale Yeast- 5 liter starter

Alcohol
12.7% ABV / 9% ABW

Calories
426 per 12 oz.


secondary 21 days 3 pounds Coffee, Whole bean roasted info
secondary 14 days 2 pounds Vanilla Bean info


Any thoughts?

 

[Oldsock]

Not a bad deal for 20 gallons of something that big. I think it will make a fine beer as is, but a few suggestions:

Not sure on the amount of honey, you are at ~18.5% of the fermentables. That will dry out the beer, but with such a monster that might not be a bad thing (especially with Irish Ale, which is lower attenuating).

I tend to like some medium-dark crystal to add some of the caramel, dark fruit etc... flavors of a big stout.

More yeast would be a good idea. Even starting with 3 fresh packs yeast on a stirplate Mr. Malty suggests a 24 L starter.

2 lbs of vanilla beans, I would back that down considerably. You can always add more if the first dose is insufficient.

I like a shorter steep for coffee, as little as 12-24 hours with crushed beans, or a couple days with whole beans right before bottling. A short steep seems to get a fresher/cleaner coffee nose in my experience.

Hope that helps, good luck (should be a great brew to age for years to come).

 

[KyleWolf]

According to the math, this will only have about 13IBU I don't think that will be enough hops personally. Also, I think it would be more economical to bitter with a stronger hop. Magnum would probably be a good choice.

I know BJCP guidelines aren't everything, but even if you wanted to scrape by the bottom or even close to, I would recommend getting up to atleast 50IBU. From my math if you used magnum as well, it would work if you tossed in 5.5oz magnum at 60 and 4oz EKG at 15.

But you know what you're doing, so, if you want only 13IBU, then you go do it

(PS) I don't work with HBU, so if there is some difference I don't know about, I wouldn't mind a bit of education.

 

[Brandonovich]

I agree on the IBU's. A big beer with such a high FG will probably need some noticable bitterness to balance it out.

 

[lastsecondapex]

I have 4oz of 12°aa Nugget hops available, think that would help at 60 mins?

I figured tomorrow's brew day with this is going to take a full 8 hours, so Ill have plenty of time to tweak it...

 

[KyleWolf]

I would say throw in all of the 4oz. at 60 and recalculate.

 

[lastsecondapex]

Everything in this brew was difficult... I couldn't have imagined how difficult splitting a 100 lb bill is for mashing/sparging and maintaing 2 simultaneous boils.

We had 7 boil-overs due to crazy pressure changes in charlotte ( we had sun and rain 3 seperate times), and wound up yielding 18 gallons at 1.131 OG (preboil was 1.080).

Wort tasted awesome and we decided to add 2lbs of blackstrap molasses and 2oz of nugget, 2oz EKG at 60, and 2oz nugget, 2oz EKG at 20 mins.

Probably won't ever try this again, but it was a great learning experience.

 

[TrainSafe]

Just out of curiosity, how much help did you have? I'm trying to imagine management of two simultaneous batches with this grain bill.

Pictures?

 

[Skrimpy]

Wow. Now that's a beer!

 

[Skrimpy]

How did it taste before going in the fermenter and is it bubbling yet?

 

[lastsecondapex]

It was a friend, my wife, and myself, but my wife took about a 3 hour nap in the middle of it. The wort tasted amazing- a lot roastier than I anticipated. Will be great with a nice smooth mocha finish from a high end coffee bean.

I pitched the yeast at 10pm and my blow off bucket looked like a full boil with all of the bubbles this morning at 8am. I definitely recommend a fat starter. We had 12L combined that were started Wednesday and so far so good.

Its tough to photograph because this beer is sooo dark, but here's one carboy...

 

[lastsecondapex]

Let me make a quick note:

The honey we used was 12.25 lbs. Wildflower honey from Bee Well in Pickens, SC- it is very neutral and mild. If you want to try this, Acacia or Echinacea honey would be closest in flavor.

 

[lastsecondapex]

Time for an update...the Irish ale yeast pettered out at 1.046 and 1.043 respectively between the fermenters- just over 12% abv. I let it sit until last night where I racked both fermenters into a secondary (there was over 6 total gallons of trub) and pitched some started WLP099 and some Red Star Champagne yeast to try to get it down further. The flavor is out of this world, but it is cloyingly sweet. As of this morning the airlock is at a bubble every minute or so.