w00t Stout on Deck

[OdeCloner]

Hey There,
Getting ready to make w00t stout from the kit that NB sells.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/wil-wheaton-s-w00tstout-all-grain-recipe-kit

When I run this through Beersmith I come up a little low on target gravity for my setup versus NB's (1.097 vs 1.106). What would you recommend I add to bump the gravity back into the target zone? More 2-row? Golden Promise? (I know I'm in the margins here...)

I typically mash/fly-sparge with 83% calculated efficiency, but am using 75% in my calculations because I've read lots of anecdotes here about lower than normal efficiencies when brewing big beers.

Thanks!

 

[pdm1982]

I recently did their all grain recipe and my Beersmith had my estimated OG at 1.123 even though the kit's instructions said it should be 1.108.

I hit 1.120 on my OG. I'm not sure why there's such a wide discrepancy, but if I were to add a bit of anything it would be one of the base malts. I probably wouldn't mess with specialty malts.

 

[OdeCloner]

Thanks!

The recipe calculates okay if I use my normal efficiency of 83% (what I've measured on previous beers up to 1.071). Maybe I just won't worry about it and see what happens. Not a big deal either way, I've just never brewed a beer this big.

 

[pdm1982]

I had my brewhouse efficiency set to 75% which caused the mash efficiency to need to be 83%.

On these types of beers I don't worry about that so much since I plan to just sparge as much as needed and boil off the wort all day long as needed. I used a refractometer during the sparge to make sure I didn't over sparge. I took the SG on the runnings down to about 1.012 before terminating the sparge. That netted me close to 10 gallons of wort that needed to be boiled down to about 7.25 gal with a SG of 1.093 for the "official" pre-boil volume. Does that help or make sense?

 

[OdeCloner]

Yes, thank you. I will remain flexible as you said and just do a little extra sparging if needed, followed by a little more boiling.

I'm going to shoot for 7.5gal pre-boil, lose 1.875gal in the 90min boil, which should leave me with a post boil of 5.625gal. I then lose .25gal to the bottom of my BK and .125gal to my pump and hoses. So that should leave me with just over 5gal ready to go into the fermenter.

I also wonder how much loss NB accounts for in the recipes. I feel like I end up starting with larger volumes than they probably plan for, and therefore start encountering this problem.

pdm - did you mash for the entire 2hrs? I assume the combo of a 148F mash and the 2hr timeframe is to get this thing to be as fermentable as possible for the high alcohol target.

 

[pdm1982]

It sounds like you got it!

Yeah I totally disregarded the 2 hour mash time and even aimed a tad higher (151) on the mash temp just because. I can't remember if I did a 60 min mash or a 90 min. I think I intended on doing a 90 min, but the times on my notes suggest that I may have just waited 60 min. I'm not sure what added benefits there are to a longer mash time.

I posted my brew day results and other info here (I need to update it):
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=541548 Hopefully all that's helpful.

Mine has been in bottles for almost 5 weeks. It's been very slow to carbonate but is otherwise very promising.

 

[OdeCloner]

Great link. Thank you! I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[OdeCloner]

Just for future searchers...

Brew went well. Did the 2hr mash and 90 minute boil. I don't know why I did the 2hr mash, other than it's what the recipe said to do. My numbers were right on, but I'd boosted the recipe by 1.5lbs of Golden Promise to help me hit my numbers when planning for loss. (I have a full 5.25gal in the fermenter now.)

1.108 OG, pitched a massive 3L starter (decanted, obvs) of WLP001 and it blew off like crazy! I could have drank the blowoff bucket. 2.5 weeks later (with not much activity after the first 5 days) it's down to 1.025, fully attenuated and showing 11.1% ABV.

The gravity sample tasted amazing - rich, thick, chocolate, vanilla, warm spices. Absolutely delicious. I could drink it now.

I'm going to move to secondary this weekend with the Bourbon and oak, then put it away for winter.

Until next time!

 

[pdm1982]

I'm glad to hear your's fermented out better than mine did. I had to pitch more yeast just to get it down to 1.032. It took mine about a month to come down. I might have mashed a bit higher though. I did 152.

Mine has been in bottles for 2 months and still aren't carbed. Hopefully your's carbs faster than mine too.

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

Hey ode any recent updates? I just Brewed the extract version. I am not set up for AG yet. After two very successful first time brews I found this one and was very excited as it was my favorite beer last year. How's the secondary coming along? Have you bottled yet? Mine has been fermenting at 18-19C for 2 days now. Added a blow off tube last night but it didn't seem to need it yet. Pitched 2 rehydrate packs of us05.

 

[OdeCloner]

No updates yet. I've sampled it twice, and both times it's been spectacular. It's been sitting on oak for almost two months now per the directions. I've been storing it in the basement where it's dark and about 59F. I will say the last sample I had was pretty well oak-flavored. I think this will need some time to mellow out. I'm going to try and bottle this weekend, and then I'll probably leave it alone until the fall. If I get antsy and crack one sooner, I'll let you know! I'm prone to doing that.

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

Same plan here. Have you had the actual version? If so how is it comparing so far? Do the pecans and Bourbon come though well? What Bourbon did you use? I have the oak cubes soaking in 8oz of knob Creek small batch for the fermentation month.

 

[OdeCloner]

I bought three of the originals and drank one over Christmas. Hard to say at this point, but I thought it was pretty close. It's rich, thick, sweet, chocolate, caramel, vanilla. All those good things. I can't say I can call out the pecans, but the oak and bourbon are there. If anything, the oak on this one is way more present.

For the bourbon, I used a mid tier one I got locally, Buillet. Was about $22 for the bottle. One half went in this, the other went in a bourbon porter!

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

Awesome info! Thank you! Glad yours is coming along so great!

 

[Bambooshoot]

BarrelAgedForrest, I'm curious to hear how yours attenuates, I'm thinking of using 2 packs of US-05 like you did, but if you run into any attenuation trouble, I might go with a starter of 1056 like OdeCloner. Let us know how its going!

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

Will do. It's been fermenting like freaking crazy for over 3 days now with no stopping in site probably 3 or 4 bubbles per second coming out of the blow off. Krausen is starting to sink a bit though.

 

[Bambooshoot]

Are people doing the recommended 122f protein rest for this beer? It seems unnecessary to me given the relatively low percentage of unmalted grains.

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

not sure, im doing the extract version.

 

[pdm1982]

I had attenuation problems using 3 packets of US-05. I mashed at 152F for 60 minutes. I ended up having to repitch yeast after about a month to get the SG out of the 1.040's down into the 1.030's. It ended up finishing at about 1.032 I think. If I were to do it again I'd mash longer, maybe lower, no mash out, and add yeast nutrients. I'd also make a beast of a starter and use liquid yeast. Maybe aerate the next morning after brew day as well. This was just my experience.

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

Since mine was extraxt I felt 2 packs would have been good. I've been keeping temps in check and since the Krausen started sinking I've been slowly raising temp from 66 to 70 will hit 71 or so tonight when I get home. It was at 71 most the day yesterday. It's still chugging along. Plenty of Krausen still and plenty of bubbles, though the bubbles have slowed. but it is still going for sure and today is day 5 so I'm hoping it's attenuating well.