Imperial Red with an OG 1.130

[thecrazypalate]

So I made an imperial Red IPA. Extract brew with 12 lbs extract and 4oz brown sugar. Yield was about 4 gallons and the OG was 1.130. Used two packs of American ale yeast. Fermentation started but worried about the final beer being way to sweet or off balanced. Any thoughts or comments?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[kharper6]

I'd say you have a lot of fermenting to do. Probably going to take a while.

 

[thecrazypalate]

Any advice on taking a gravity reading along the way? What's the best way to make sure fermentation is done?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[kharper6]

Wait another week, ramp your temp up to the upper 60s. take a gravity reading. Wait 2-3 more days, take another gravity reading. if they are the same, and your calculated attenuation is close to the yeast attenuation rate, then you're good to go.

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew/beginners-attenuation-and-flocculation-definitions

 

[brettg20]

Did you make any kind of a yeast starter?

 

[thecrazypalate]

I did not make a yeast started but used two smack packs. The recipe only called for one.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[broncosmoker]

You're going to be sitting on that one for a while. That thing will be bubbling for a long time.That high of OG plus added sugar should help it dry out, but you are months away for it to get there.

 

[jbaysurfer]

I'll be surprised if you can get that thing to drinkable levels. Extract can be hard to attenuate sometimes anyway, but that much extract is gonna take a lot of coaxing, doing everything right...and you're probably going to need to pitch a healthy starter of a high gravity yeast as well. Two vials going into that is probably 3 vials too few. You needed to use both of those vials in a 5.3L starter to have enough yeast. If pitching only vials, you needed 5 vials to start with.
-
I have no problem with experimentation, but what possessed you to put 12lbs of extract into 5g of beer?

Edit, I'd go buy 3 more vials of yeast right now if you can, and if you have a way of oxyegenating it, I'd use a metric **** ton of 02 as well.

 

[thecrazypalate]

I found a recipe for an imperial red IPA and that's what it said to use. Check out the attachment. Screen shot of the recipe.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Trox]

I hope you aerated with pure oxygen instead of just using the "shake the hell out of it" method; a beer that big is going to need as much oxygen as you can get into it for the yeast to get it much past 10% ABV.

 

[nvious23]

That recipe call for lme did you use liquid or dry extract. If you used dry I could see the difference in s.g. being that much.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Braufessor]

Also called for 5.5 gallons, not 4. I would consider throwing in some US05 dry yeast. Same thing.... cheap. and lots of yeast. I do agree you are going to have trouble getting this to ferment out. But, be patient - don't go trying to "transfer to secondary" in a week or anything like that. I would plan for a 3 week primary and ramping temp up as mentioned earlier. A LONG secondary, and a long bottle condition.

 

[elkshadow]

Agree with Brau, pitch in a packet of dry US-05 and you should be alright. One month primary, at least 3 secondary/bulk age, probably have to add some yeast at bottling.

I just had one packet of 05 chew through an 1.101 down to 1.015 in 7 days so I wouldn't worry too much about it. The yeast is powerful but you just didn't pitch enough.

 

[jbaysurfer]

I found a recipe for an imperial red IPA and that's what it said to use. Check out the attachment. Screen shot of the recipe. View attachment 187935


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

OK, I plugged that into beersmith. Looks like you used 12lb of Dry into a 4G batch when you should've used 12lb of liquid (malt extract) into 5.5G. That accounts exactly for the differences.

All the above suggestions are recommended. Oxygenate, add more yeast. Ramp up temps as you go. It's gonna take some serious yeast whispering to finish out.

 

[FatDragon]

Some well-timed simple sugar additions could keep the yeast munching and dry out the beer, but at the cost of adding even more ABV to the beer.

What does everybody think about the adding a gallon and a half of distilled water to the fermenter? Too late?

 

[BWE]

Subscribing to this... That thing will be a beast. As far as adding the water, just my opinion, but I'd let it ride and see what happens. The extra yeast is a must though. Maybe even get a 2L starter ready (if someone hasn't said that yet) and pitch the whole thing at high Krausen.

 

[thecrazypalate]

That recipe call for lme did you use liquid or dry extract. If you used dry I could see the difference in s.g. being that much.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Home Brew mobile app

I used a liquid extract.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[thecrazypalate]

OK, I plugged that into beersmith. Looks like you used 12lb of Dry into a 4G batch when you should've used 12lb of liquid (malt extract) into 5.5G. That accounts exactly for the differences.



All the above suggestions are recommended. Oxygenate, add more yeast. Ramp up temps as you go. It's gonna take some serious yeast whispering to finish out.

I used a LME. Wasn't a dry extract. As far as gallons go I used 5.5gallons of water through out whole process.

3G to steep. 1 gallon to rinse steeped grains in sac. Added 1.5g to fermenter. Ended up with 4g.

Should I have added more water to get it to 5.5 after the boil?




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[thecrazypalate]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. This is my first post on here and I can tell you are all passionate and have tons of experience. Will be posting again!

Thanks.

Forrest


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[FatDragon]

Should I have added more water to get it to 5.5 after the boil?

c

Yes. The volume listed on a recipe is the volume of boiled wort that should go into your fermenter. With extract, the only losses you're likely to experience are boil-off and maybe some trub loss to hops that go into the boil. The typical procedure for an extract brewer is to use top-off water, often poured directly into the fermenter, to hit the volume.

 

[jbaysurfer]

I used a LME. Wasn't a dry extract. As far as gallons go I used 5.5gallons of water through out whole process.

3G to steep. 1 gallon to rinse steeped grains in sac. Added 1.5g to fermenter. Ended up with 4g.

Should I have added more water to get it to 5.5 after the boil?




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

That's weird because the difference from LME to DME along w/ the volume change got me right to 1.130 in Beersmith...Meh...who knows?

The recipe is designed for you to yield 5.5G, not start with that amount. So yeah, typically what you'd do is just top it up to 5.5 right before you pitch. Give it your best effort, I have a feeling several of us are curious to see what's gonna happen. Keep us posted

 

[FatDragon]

That's weird because the difference from LME to DME along w/ the volume change got me right to 1.130 in Beersmith...Meh...who knows?

The recipe is designed for you to yield 5.5G, not start with that amount. So yeah, typically what you'd do is just top it up to 5.5 right before you pitch. Give it your best effort, I have a feeling several of us are curious to see what's gonna happen. Keep us posted

The OG could be off as a result of poorly-mixed wort: my quick Beersmith check gave me 1.118 for 12lb LME, 4 oz. brown sugar, and 4 gallons of water.

It seems to me if an extract brewer is keeping track of his numbers, OG sampling is unnecessary - the sugar you get from the extract will essentially always be the same, but because of poorly-mixed wort, new extract brewers get freaked out by their OG readings varying significantly from the recipe. Taking OG readings for the practice is nice, but extract kit instructions should probably come with a disclaimer that your OG reading is likely to come out wrong unless your wort is perfectly mixed.

 

[thecrazypalate]

That's weird because the difference from LME to DME along w/ the volume change got me right to 1.130 in Beersmith...Meh...who knows?



The recipe is designed for you to yield 5.5G, not start with that amount. So yeah, typically what you'd do is just top it up to 5.5 right before you pitch. Give it your best effort, I have a feeling several of us are curious to see what's gonna happen. Keep us posted

Thanks for the tips. It is fermenting away pretty vigorously right now. I will definitely post again when I find out more.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[thecrazypalate]

The OG could be off as a result of poorly-mixed wort: my quick Beersmith check gave me 1.118 for 12lb LME, 4 oz. brown sugar, and 4 gallons of water.



It seems to me if an extract brewer is keeping track of his numbers, OG sampling is unnecessary - the sugar you get from the extract will essentially always be the same, but because of poorly-mixed wort, new extract brewers get freaked out by their OG readings varying significantly from the recipe. Taking OG readings for the practice is nice, but extract kit instructions should probably come with a disclaimer that your OG reading is likely to come out wrong unless your wort is perfectly mixed.

That is the kettle I used and when I transferred it I out my fermenter under the ball valve and opened it up. I figured the gravity pour dropping down about 3 feet plus shaking it was enough aeration and mixing to get an accurate gravity read and solid fermentation.

What do you think?
D


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[thecrazypalate]

Hey so just transferred the imperial red into secondary and gravity was 1.026. Definitely isn't a sugar bomb. Has a nice hopped profile but solid malt backing. Added 1.5oz blend of simcoe, centennial and chinook for dry hopping. 2 more weeks and I'll keg this bad boy.

Looks like it finished fermenting without any plateaus or anything.




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[jbaysurfer]

Hey so just transferred the imperial red into secondary and gravity was 1.026. Definitely isn't a sugar bomb. Has a nice hopped profile but solid malt backing. Added 1.5oz blend of simcoe, centennial and chinook for dry hopping. 2 more weeks and I'll keg this bad boy.

Looks like it finished fermenting without any plateaus or anything.




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

That's fantastic. Congrats! I'm mildly surprised it went that well for you just since beers that big so frequently don't finish out without lots of coaxing. That's 104 pts of 130 that fermented out= 80% attenuation. Nice work...

 

[gstrawn]

Nice job. I think that brown sugar helped a lot. How's the alcohol, does it taste hot??


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew