OFFICIAL Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout Clone

I'd carb just as you would normally; I'm a huge fan of nitro stouts, but I'm not going to invest in getting all the equipment together until I've proven to myself that I can consistently produce beers that I feel would be enhanced by the entire setup. Stouts with CO2 can be wonderful as well, so unless you have the facilities already, I'd just go with that. I'll actually be bottle-conditioning (due in part to the sheer amount of beer I ended up with) and figure that, given enough time, they'll be terrific in their own right.

2.4 vols should be fine for a stout, so I wouldn't tweak anything, especially if you have something else on tap at the same time. I'll probably undercarb slightly on mine just because the extended time in the bottle can lead to increased risk of long-term bombs, which would be doubly unpleasant with a beer this dark.

As for the Nitro idea, personally I would not do it with this beer. All the time, effort and money evolved in getting this beer to taste the way it is would be lost in a Nitro set-up.

My thoughts on a nitro are to hide or mask some off flavors in beer. Unless you do a true to style Dry stout or Guinness clone. I've had some Reds, IPA's and other beers on Nitro, even some at my own house and they just loose some of the personality that this beer took time and resources to show.

For my KTG I am going to bottle it this weekend. Cross my fingers that I can get some more yeast activity to pressure the bottle and enjoy them in about a year.

Bottled mine yesterday, tasted great. Reyeasted with a gram of rehydrated wine yeast to ensure carbonation. It dropped a few points in the keg, down to ~1.020. I also took 1 gallon and put it onto cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla, and a couple dried chiles.

Anyones KTG take a long time to carb? Mine have been bottled for a month and zero carb. There was a slight hiss when opening the bottle though.

With the size of this beer, I'd expect several months required for natural carbing. Beers in this gravity range will usually take longer than your typical batch.

Native302 said:

Anyones KTG take a long time to carb? Mine have been bottled for a month and zero carb. There was a slight hiss when opening the bottle though.

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Mine carbed in a couple weeks, but I pitched fresh yeast. I've had a few big beers fail to carbonate, so I started adding fresh yeast.

I just bought my ingredients to brew this up again! Can't wait! I'm going to Partigyle up a black lager with the small beer.

1Mainebrew said:

I just bought my ingredients to brew this up again! Can't wait! I'm going to Partigyle up a black lager with the small beer.

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I am thinking of doing the same thing. How big of a batch will you do for the partigyle? 1/2 the size of the KTG batch?

Man, this thread is making me antsy! I brewed this in May, bottled at the end of September, with some fresh yeast to help carb, and plan to not touch it until Christmas (with maybe a little sample on my birthday a week before Christmas). Can't wait!

Does anybody have any tasting notes of thier clone attempts? I am planning to make a RIS and am leaning towards attempting this one...

JonM said:

Man, this thread is making me antsy! I brewed this in May, bottled at the end of September, with some fresh yeast to help carb, and plan to not touch it until Christmas (with maybe a little sample on my birthday a week before Christmas). Can't wait!

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I know what you mean about being antsy. I brewed a RIS in May, too, intending not to open until Christmas. So far so good. I try not to think about it, but sometimes it's difficult. I've got mine in a corny behind a lot of other stuff. Out of site is out of mind, until I read threads like this.

The RIS was the most complicated beer I've made to date. I didn't think a big beer would be a big deal to make, but it was. My recipe has a lot in common with the KTG recipe, although the grain bill isn't quite as extensive.

I ended up having to buy a new rectangular cooler for mashing. The cooler was the same outside dimensions as one I already had, but it had thinner walls and therefore held more. The mash was still nearly overflowing. After fermenation was complete I oaked it for 5 days using 4 oz medium French cubes.

It helps to have good notes. Waiting months rather than weeks creates some memory challenges. Even on PAs where the turn around time is shorter I always wish that I'd taken more brewing notes.

I almost didn't make it, but I'm glad I did. Hard to think about December when it's heating up on Memorial Day. I'm sure once we get to December I'll feel like a kid hoping for a Red Ryder. It's definately going to be an annual event going forward.

Here's what it looked like in the carboy

gingerdawg said:

I am thinking of doing the same thing. How big of a batch will you do for the partigyle? 1/2 the size of the KTG batch?

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No both 5 gallons, just have DME at the ready in case of a low OG.

Figuring 50% efficiency for Kate and 35% for the Partigyle.

RitsiGators said:

Does anybody have any tasting notes of thier clone attempts? I am planning to make a RIS and am leaning towards attempting this one...

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Chocolate, coffee and strawberry (from the port), caramel, oak and pure deliciousness. There were so many flavors that its almost indescribable the way they all meld together. It's my wife's and my favorite beer. Period. You should totally try this one and be patient enough to let it come into its own. It's truly amazing!

I have a few questions, as I'd like to try this next week.

Should it condition in the secondary, or in bottles?

When getting the wort, they said to take 1/3 for the boil. Is there anything to know about this, or do I just get the first 6.5 gallons?

Thanks!!!

Another couple of questions: it seems that some people had huge fermentations, has that been a frequent issue? Also, how long should the oak be in it?

Yes this beer should condition in secondary with port soaked oak cubes for a month or more after its sat in secondary for a few months. Bulk aging is the way to go for this beer.

I did my secondary in a keg. That is a great option if available.

As far as fermentation goes, just get a blowoff tube and watch in amazement!

aarondl said:

Another couple of questions: it seems that some people had huge fermentations, has that been a frequent issue? Also, how long should the oak be in it?

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Unless you're underpitching or keeping it chilled during fermentation, this is virtually guaranteed to give you a massive fermentation (as with most any "large" beer). I'd recommend using a larger-than-normal fermenter or splitting the batch between two buckets to ensure you don't lose much beer due to blowoff. And absolutely use a blowoff!

When soaking the oak in a port ( I have spirals ), is there any "right" way to do it? I've seen people soaking in tupperware covered and uncovered, some boil the oak first, some don't...

I'm hoping to get on this within the next couple weeks and figure I should get the oak soaking. It will probably be soaking for about a month before it needs to go in the keg.

Thanks.

smagee said:

Unless you're underpitching or keeping it chilled during fermentation, this is virtually guaranteed to give you a massive fermentation (as with most any "large" beer). I'd recommend using a larger-than-normal fermenter or splitting the batch between two buckets to ensure you don't lose much beer due to blowoff. And absolutely use a blowoff!

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Mine went berserk too - I did a three gal batch in a five gal BB, and it was one of the most vigorous I've ever had. (I did it like that so I could bulk age in a nearly-full 3-gal better bottle).

I gave it a healthy starter and two shots of O2. The ferment was SO vigorous, it reached 1.018 in just a couple of days.

stevo155 said:

When soaking the oak in a port ( I have spirals ), is there any "right" way to do it? I've seen people soaking in tupperware covered and uncovered, some boil the oak first, some don't...

I'm hoping to get on this within the next couple weeks and figure I should get the oak soaking. It will probably be soaking for about a month before it needs to go in the keg.

Thanks.

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I'd keep it sealed (airtight), since you're ostensibly supposed to add at least some of the liquid to the brew itself and you don't want it to oxidize. I didn't boil (nor would I recommend it); port typically has enough alcohol in it that microbes won't really be able to do much and the boiling could soak out some of the oakiness.

FWIW, I soaked my oak cubes in vanilla bourbon for ~4-5 months and the flavor's coming out nicely after a few weeks in the beer. I don't think that kind of timeframe is required (I just took longer than expected to brew it up), but more time is going to be better. Sounds like you're on the right track!

I did not add any of the port to the beer that had been soaking into the oak- cubes only. I did add some port to the keg directly too but none that was soaking the oak. The result was beautiful.

I'm still confused about the sparging. It sounds like, from the original directions, that I drain about 1/3 of the wort, then start sparging until I have my 6.5 gallons. Is this correct?

Another question: if I want to resparge after I'm finished getting the KtG wort, what hops would people recommend for that batch? Has anyone made a second, smaller beer from their batch?

I'm not entirely sure what his original instructions intended, but I sparged it just like any other batch: mash, drain, sparge, etc.

Several of us have done the gyle style of pulling another smaller beer out of the remains. Mine was a failure, but several posts in the previous pages reported better results. Generally it seems safe to try for a dry stout, so if you go that route, I'd use a noble hop (EKG or Fuggles would both be good) for just a single bittering addition. Don't aim to get more than 4 gallons or so out of the second though, or else it'll be too thin to hold up (unless you supplement it with more base malt or extract).

Second batch of Kate in the primary with a Partigyle Schwarzbier in the lager primary!

Oldsock said:

I also took 1 gallon and put it onto cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla, and a couple dried chiles.

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Please tell me how this turns out. I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing as you.

dougdecinces said:

Please tell me how this turns out. I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing as you.

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I just bottled it, tasted really nice. I’ve done this once before, with a Breakfast Stout clone and it was once of my favorite flavored stouts.

Finally got around to kegging this today only to crack it open and see a (small) lacto infection developing. Not really the best way to finish off a workday, but c'est la vie. I'll just have to let it ride in the keg and see how things develop; gravity has been stable for over a month now and was still static tonight, so it doesn't seem to have had much time to do anything significant. We'll see if it drops in the keg over the next few months.

I bottled a couple and stuck them in isolation just to see if any kerplode so I can tell if the infection's making any progress. Hell, maybe it'll turn out tasty at the end.

I am trying to set up my water to brew this beer and have run into a major hurdle. My default pH for this beer is 4.7. I have added enough baking soda to push the upper limits of my sodium content, and I'm still sitting around 4.95 for my pH. How do I fix this?

I also tried calculating for slaked lime, but my calcium values shoot through the roof with little benefit to my pH.

I can't help you on pH levels, but maybe my bump can.

My question is a similar to one posed upthread about the lack of affordable Carafa III on the West Coast of Canada. Has anyone made it without the Carafa? As far as I understand, it just adds colour and no flavour, so I'm thinking about just omitting it--no chocolate/black patent substitute, just outright leaving it off the grain bill. The software tells me I'll still have 35 colour, which, while not black as midnight in a moonless sky, is still pret-ty black.

Thoughts? And any other tasting notes on this ridiculous beer?

As far as the dark malts go, my trend has been to add them half way through the mash on just about every dark beer that i do. This gives a very smooth chocolate flavor with very little bitterness. I recently did a RIS in this manner, not quite a kate but very much inspired by it. I just brewed it a couple days ago, but the wort tasted absolutely amazing. Another thing i did was use some homemade very dark candi syrup, gave me some more color and an amazing raisin flavor which i think will play very nicely, also it should hopefully dry it a bit, although i dont know how fermentable my syrup is.

Carafa will definitely add flavor--a very heavy roast aspect that's hard to substitute. Carafa Special (dehusked) adds mostly color, so that might be mixing you up.

Removing it completely would alter things, although it wouldn't necessarily make for a bad beer. You could give it a shot, although I'd just up the amount of chocolate and black patent to compensate for the loss, myself. I doubt it'd be a huge difference-maker regardless, but it'd be closer than ignoring it wholesale.

As for taste, my batch is conditioning at the moment, and currently has a nice oaky flavor that's a bit strong, with an almost buttery mouthfeel (which I hope subsides with carbonation and time). Still hard to judge for now, but once I open up a spot in the kegerator, I'll have a better idea.

Thanks for the replies--I'm intrigued at the idea of adding dark malts half way through the mash, but unfortunately that's already out of the question. I've got the malt already (sans carafa), and it's all mixed in together.

@smagee The recipe does call for carafa 3 special (dehusked), so am I right about the colour? At any rate, since I've never made the beer before, I'm not sure I'll be "missing" anything, so I'm leaning towards going ahead without it.

The other option is buying a March Pump with one pound of Carafa 3 Special, which will make the $21 shipping fee (flat rate with or without the pump!) more manageable.

Hmm... I must have been reading the pm version, which doesn't appear to specify dehusked. You'd privacy be fine to omit it, in that case.

I brewed a 2.5 gallon batch of this 3 weeks ago. Interestingly, I grabbed non-Dehusked Carafa III when I was in the grain room at MW. I realized my mistake, and grabbed DH Carafa III. Since it was already bagged, and like 80 cents worth of grain, I just bought both. So, I have a half pound of non-dehusked Carafa III laying around that I could mail to you.

Curious to get people's opinion on a little SNAFU I had. Went to the LHBS and bought two packs of yeast for a starter. I get home and I have a package of 1056...and a package of 1084 (Irish Ale). Now, as far as mess-ups go, accidentally buying 1084 for a stout probably is low on the list, but I'm curious what y'all think about me combining 1056 and 1084 in the same batch? Also curious to hear what people think the 1084 might do to the end beer.

dougdecinces said:

I am trying to set up my water to brew this beer and have run into a major hurdle. My default pH for this beer is 4.7. I have added enough baking soda to push the upper limits of my sodium content, and I'm still sitting around 4.95 for my pH. How do I fix this?

I also tried calculating for slaked lime, but my calcium values shoot through the roof with little benefit to my pH.

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Anyone?

You'll probably have better luck asking a standalone question in another thread. Not a lot of people check these threads for discussion, and your question is pretty specific. I don't worry about ph levels at all, for example.

So, I'm pretty frustrated. I had absolutely horrendous efficiency yesterday when I brewed this. Came in at 1.074. Oof. I'll report back on how it turns out.

Don't worry my efficiency was in the tubes both times I've made it, but it was still the best beer I've ever tasted (and yes, I have had the real Kate!)

heywolfie1015 said:

So, I'm pretty frustrated. I had absolutely horrendous efficiency yesterday when I brewed this. Came in at 1.074. Oof. I'll report back on how it turns out.

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What kind of system do you have? I've found that you need to take a huge preboil off these huge grainbills and do up to a 120 minute boil to get what you need from them...