Dark Double Imperial IPA

Hi, all. I've done a couple AG batches now that turned out well and thought I'd try to come up with a recipe. I wanted to make a dark, high gravity imperial IPA. I only have a refractometer, so I included my measurements in Brix with estimated SG in parentheses. For all post-fermentation SG and ABV calculations I used the calculator http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml

Here's the recipe I came up with:


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5 gal
Estimated OG: 25.725 Brix (1.11 SG)
Estimated Color: 62.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 117.1 IBUs

Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Actual OG: 23 Brix (1.097 SG)
Efficiency: 89.00 %


Ingredients:
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17.5# American Pale Ale malt
1.5# Chocolate malt
0.5# Black patent malt

2oz Chinook FWH
1 oz Chinook 50min
1 oz Chinook 40min
1 oz Chinook 30min
1 oz Chinook 20min
1 oz Chinook 15min
1 oz Northern Brewer 10min
0.5 oz Saaz 5min
1 oz Nugget dry hop secondary
1 oz Fuggle dry hop secondary


Mash in 6 gal (1.25qt/lb) for 60min @ 153F
Mash out @ 170F
Batch sparge 4.5 gal


Yeast: WLP001 California Ale Yeast from 1L starter

In the first 5 days it brought me down to 15 Brix (1.038 SG)

The next part I styled after scottland's DFH120 clone technique.
At this point I pitched a 2L starter of WLP099 Super High Gravity Yeast.

To this I added the following sugars that had been boiled for 15 min and cooled to room temp, after taking pre-sugar refractometer readings (time points listed after addition of WLP099):
0 hours: 1# brown sugar
12 hours: Brix 14.2
12 hours: 1# brown sugar
24 hours: Brix 14.6
24 hours: 1# brown sugar
36 hours: Brix 14.8
36 hours: 2# dark amber sugar from SnickASaurusRex's sugar #4 recipe
60 hours: Brix 15.0
60 hours: 2# SnickASaurusRex Sugar #5 (double cooked sugar #4)

The only immediate post-sugar Brix I took was just now after the 2# of Sugar 5, giving me a 3 point Brix bump. This is consistent with what I've read elsewhere, that 1# of sugar adds about 1.6 Brix to a 5 gal batch.

So, my assumption is my theoretical original brix is 23 + (7# * 1.5 Brix/#) = 23 + 10.5 = 33.5 Brix (1.147 SG). What do y'all think? Is this theoretical OB correct?

Assuming I get my final Brix down to 15 again this puts me at 18.2% ABV according to the onebeer calculator. I might do another 2# of Sugar 5 if it comes down that quickly again... would like to get it in the 20% range.

 

That's really all I have to say. Cool experiment and I hope it ends well. I'd leave it as is and let that sucker age a bit if I were you but I clearly don't have the cojones that you do.

 

Haha thanks. I wound up adding the extra 2# and it's still bubbling about 1/sec in the primary. Figure I'll give it another 5-7 days then rack to secondary with the dry hops.

When I did the extra sugar addition I had to draw off 750mL because the primary was overflowing. Got a nice big taste out of that. Have the rest in the fridge for later.

I imagine I'll have to force carb with a keg. Anyone out there do bottle conditioning with a 20+% abv brew? I searched but to no avail.

 

If you've got yeast still fermenting then you should have yeast to bottle carb it.