You guys are going to get me in trouble . . .

That thread about Utopia and glass ware got me thinking. I like sort of od beers, hell so far I have made a 11% ABV Scottish ale and a rootbeer porter, so why not give a true moster a shot. If Utopia is a place of ideal perfection I think I may be thinking of a HOLY HELL



Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.50 Wort Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 30.00
Anticipated OG: 1.192 Plato: 42.54
Anticipated SRM: 31.2
Anticipated IBU: 100.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Pre-Boil Amounts
----------------
Evaporation Rate: 15.00 Percent Per Hour
Pre-Boil Wort Size: 6.47 Gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.163 SG 36.92 Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar
% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
50.0 15.00 lbs. Generic DME - Light Generic 99.55 8
33.3 10.00 lbs. Pale Malt(6-row) America 71.27 2
3.3 1.00 lbs. CaraMunich 40 France 69.19 40
3.3 1.00 lbs. Crystal 30L America 71.27 30
6.7 2.00 lbs. CaraPilsner France 71.27 10
1.7 0.50 lbs. Chocolate Malt America 58.81 350
1.7 0.50 lbs. Special B Malt Belgian 60.88 120
Potential represented as Yield, Coarse Grind As Is.

Hops
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.00 oz. Brewer's Gold Whole 7.00 50.0 60 min.
3.00 oz. Bullion Whole 7.00 38.0 40 min.
3.00 oz. Fuggle Whole 5.00 12.0 20 min.
3.00 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.75 0.0 0 min.
2.00 oz. Bramling Cross Whole 6.00 0.0 Dry Hop

Yeast
-----
Pacman to start, once it dies off finish with Distillers yeast
ultra low to no carbonation

Notes
-----
2oz oak chips for entire fermentation


Comments, ideas, and suggestions welcome

I'm flabbergasted...

I may need another beer...

And a knife and a fork for that beer.


Do it.


:rockin: Right on Pumbaa.

Ize

WOW... I like it.

I don't see any problems, other than I hope you don't go overboard on the oak by doing it for the entire fermentation.

But the whole beer is overboard, so why the hell not!

Dude said:

I don't see any problems, other than I hope you don't go overboard on the oak by doing it for the entire fermentation.

Click to expand...

It's a BEAST that's for sure. But I missed the entire fermentation part. Do you think doing the chips in the Primary and leaving them out of the Secondary would make it more mellow? It MAY be too much doing both, and may be too much doing it in the secondary...

Unless you're going for a woody.

Ize

Forgot to mention, nice label too!

You may want to consider a 90 minute boil for a beer that colossal.

what do you suppose it will finish at?

also AMAZING label, actually all your labels are awesome

Yeah I'd think ya need to sparge more and boil it down a bit more to get 75% with that much grain.

The beer sounds hellatious! I commend your PS skillz on the label as well.
How long are you going to age it?

gona age it for two years or three?

Since I think I triggered this thought, of course I'm telling you to go for it!

Good luck with this. How long DO you plan on aging it?

Just one recommendation start the fermentation without the dme and with about 1 gallon less wort. Then after 5 or 6 days of fermentation boil the dme in a gallon of wort and add it to the mostly fermented beer. This should improve the attenuation of the first yeast and reduce the wine notes that the distillers/wine yeast will add to this beer. :rockin:

By the way kick ass recipe and label.

wow, looks great!

why the 6-row instead of 2-row?

Crazy!!!!


This pitching rate calculator says you'll need Three Smackpacks and a 6.5l starter!


Cajones!

Gonna age it for atleast 2 years. Dont tell SWMBO (looks over shoulder) but I'm getting another carboy just for this one to hang out in

I saw some blue 16 oz bottles the other day I think I may use for this one can cap it off with a cork. I figure one pint should be more then enuff for 2 people or one solid night of drinking, hell were looking at schnapps level ETOH in this bad boy.

Why the 6 row? I dunno why not.

Thnx for the label comments but the picture isnt mine I found it on a google search, increased the brighness then just slapped it on my standard background. All my picts are google ganks.

I was thinking about the wood chips last night and I figure if they can store wine and whiseky in a oak barrel for years on end I'm not going to worry about a bit of sawdust in the beer, plus with 2 years of aging it's going to melow out alot (hopefully).

If this turns out (wont know for atleast 2 years) I am going to enter this in the State Fair wine and beer compititon, just so I can laugh at people. talk about a punch in the nutz! I may entire it as a wine and a beer.

yeast wise I was going to make that Miabock ale I wanted to make with my pacman yeast save a bit and freeze it then use the rest of that yeast cake for this beer, so I'm looking at about a 5 galon starter :rockin:

Jsin I thought about what you are saying, problem is I think I'm going to have a hard time getting 15# of DME to disolve in 6 gallons of wort. If I tried to do it in 1 gallon I would have a nice moist brick of DME. I'm figureing I'll have to do a fly sparge and colect every bit of wort I can add the DME and boil it down to my 5.5 gallons. I was thinking of doing ths as all grain but TBH I dont want to make 3 seperate batches, boil them all down to about 3 gallons then combine them and boil the combo down to 5.5

You may want to consider WLP099... an ale yeast good to 25%. I think Wyeast has an equivalent.

I was gonna suggest vodka yeast but Nate seems to know his ****. Your gonna need like 20L of water to get all the sugars out. Well at least 12 litres. I strongly advise you not to jump in and do this unless you are a vet. There's too much at stake here for a learner.

Yeah Nate,

I was doing some snooping around the web and cheked out Red Star (since they are right here in Milwaukee) but then stumbled across the WLP 099 when looking at a store in Huston TX. Think I'm going use that to finish it off.

One other thought on the oak chips:

Utopias are blended from different batches. You COULD get a pair of 3 gallon carboys to age in. One, be fairly aggressive with the oak, the other a bit less so (or none at all). Two years down the road, you could then blend them to create your final product and be able to adjust the level of oak more precisely (you'd also have "leftovers" that were both uber-oakey and non-oakey). Just a thought.

I think what I am going to do with the oak chips is figure out the insidi surface area of a oak barrel they age wine and whisket in and then try to get close to the same surface area with the chips (proprotionatly since I'll only be doing 5 gallons). One thing I didnt think about is Oak chips have a relatively large surface area for their wieght since they are irregularly shaped and so freeking thin

ok a Tennesee whickey barel hold 53 gallons, is 36" high and has a diameter of 21" at the top and botom and 24" around the middle. That gives me a average circumfrance of about 71".

Now split that barrel open and smash it flat I'll have a 71" x 36" rectangle with a surface area of 2556sqinch. I'm not going to worry about the 2 end caps since I know there has to be some air left in the barrel . . .

So if 53 galons of whiseky are covering 2556 sqinches thats about 48 sqinches per gallon, OR 240 sqinches for 5 gallons of beer . . . Now all I have to do is figure out the surface area of the chips and figure out how many ounces it will take . . . I'll be upstairs with my ruler and scale . . . I'll let ya know what I come up with

Pumbaa said:

ok a Tennesee whickey barel hold 53 gallons, is 36" high and has a diameter of 21" at the top and botom and 24" around the middle. That gives me a average circumfrance of about 71".

Now split that barrel open and smash it flat I'll have a 71" x 36" rectangle with a surface area of 2556sqinch. I'm not going to worry about the 2 end caps since I know there has to be some air left in the barrel . . .

So if 53 galons of whiseky are covering 2556 sqinches thats about 48 sqinches per gallon, OR 240 sqinches for 5 gallons of beer . . . Now all I have to do is figure out the surface area of the chips and figure out how many ounces it will take . . . I'll be upstairs with my ruler and scale . . . I'll let ya know what I come up with

Click to expand...

The answer is 42.:rockin:

If you need help with this beer just tell when and where. That goes for drinking it too.

Tell ya what Sause with the way the Milwaukee Fire Department's proposed budget looks, and the fact we will probably be lose one of our guys on the truck companies I'm half tempted to brew this at the firehouse, as a great big FU!! to the chief and mayor, which is probably closer to your place then mine is . . . so I may take ya up on the help

Orpheus said:

The answer is 42.:rockin:

Click to expand...

Indeed! So long and thanx for all the beers.Your beer sounds completly out of control! I may need to go buy another carboy to sit on for 2 yrs and steal your recipe.

Zaphod would be proud

I never saw the connection before, but perhaps Douglas Adams was a homebrewer. I wonder which came first: Don't Panic OR RDWHAHB?

tuff call
Hitch Hickers started on the BBC in 78
Carter signed the law to legalize homebrewing in Feb 79 (congress passed it in Nov 78)

Well I'm sure the fact that it wasn't legal was sufficient to prevent people from homebrewing back then. Sort of like distilling of spirits. No one actually does it. Cuz distilling is bad, um 'kay.

Hey Pumbaa, if this brew of yours works out and tastes pretty good, maybe you should make 55 gallons of it and age it for a year or two in a bourbon barrel. That would be logistically challenging, and a lot of fun, I imagine.

i looked into five gallon wine barrels about a year ago, 100 bucks a pop new, and you have to break them in for a spell before you put spirits in them... i didn't know if i wanted to do all that

I dont think I could afford that B4B . . . .
:cross:
53 gallon grain bill (for a whiskey barrel)

• 144.55 lbs. Generic DME - Light
• 96.36 lbs. Pale Malt(6-row)
• 9.64 lbs. CaraMunich 40
• 9.64 lbs. Crystal 30L
• 19.27 lbs. CaraPilsner
• 4.82 lbs. Chocolate Malt
• 4.82 lbs. Special B Malt

There is an article on barrel-aging in the recent issue of BYO. Now sure if you can extrapolate the info over to oak chips, but there is some decent info on the process and effects.

Oh yeah, I'd kick the Crystal up to 4lbs, reducing the base malts and maybe kick up the LOV a few degrees, like perhaps 60-70.


The rest looks insane!!! (so why would you look at my 'sane' suggestions?)


Do it!

:rockin:

Just found the thread doing a search on Utopias. Have you started this brew yet Pumbaa?

So how much do you think yeast handle handle in the beginning. 1.150 too much for the yeast to handle? Trying to figure this one out still for you Pumbaa.

Now this is an interesting thread. Big Beer. Too many hops, too much grain, way out of line alcohol. I like it. I think it must be my need to self medicate, but I am drawn to these kind of projects. So please move ahead and let us know what you end up with. And if you need some one to give you some feed back, I wil gladly add a bottle to my liver's hate list.

Hey Pumba....

I read on another board that 1 piece 6"L x 3/4" square piece of white oak, toasted in the oven will age the, uh, liquid, quite nicely. I put two pieces in a 2.5 gallon jar. I'm also aging it for a year. I lightly char the sticks with a torch after toasting them. Carmelizes the sugars in the oak. Gives the, uh, liquid a nice carmel color.

I would imagin 4 pieces in a 5 gallon batch of beer (tho can you call this beer?) for a week or two would give it a nice flavor, especially if your aging it for two years

Well I'm doing it. Utopia clone that is. I'm going to use a scottish ale yeast cake on a ~1.080ish wort, rack to secondary, pitch wlp099 starter and the first of 5 daily "doses" of concentrated wort to get and OG~1.190. Grain bill from Sam Adams:

2-Row
Crystal 60
Munich
2-Row Moravian(what is this?) - OK, I'm not going to get this - M.Otter instead?
Bavarian Smoked Malt
"Touch of Maple Syrup" -S.A.
Hops: They list several, I'm using Santiam and Saaz

The concentrated wort method is recommended by whitelabs to achieve 25% alcohol. I'm 'only' looking for 18-19%, I don't want to push too high as I intend to very lighlty carbonate some if not all bottles and I don't want it to get 'stuck'. The concentrated wort will be Light DME, Maple Syrup, Brown Candi Sugar, and a little Dark Candi Syrup. It's going to be a 3 gallon batch. Oak cubes soaked in cognac, bourbon, dark rum will be added(as per Sam Adams). And because I ,of course, have not had Utopia I will not know how 'close' I get. Should be fun. Still working on malt %'s. I'm not sure on IBU's either, ideas? I want to try to balance the sweetness/maltiness a little right.

<insert cricket chirping noise here> Is this thing on? What do you guys think?

landhoney said:

Well I'm doing it. Utopia clone that is. I'm going to use a scottish ale yeast cake on a ~1.080ish wort, rack to secondary, pitch wlp099 starter and the first of 5 daily "doses" of concentrated wort to get and OG~1.190. Grain bill from Sam Adams:

2-Row
Crystal 60
Munich
2-Row Moravian(what is this?) - OK, I'm not going to get this - M.Otter instead?
Bavarian Smoked Malt
"Touch of Maple Syrup" -S.A.
Hops: They list several, I'm using Santiam and Saaz

The concentrated wort method is recommended by whitelabs to achieve 25% alcohol. I'm 'only' looking for 18-19%, I don't want to push too high as I intend to very lighlty carbonate some if not all bottles and I don't want it to get 'stuck'. The concentrated wort will be Light DME, Maple Syrup, Brown Candi Sugar, and a little Dark Candi Syrup. It's going to be a 3 gallon batch. Oak cubes soaked in cognac, bourbon, dark rum will be added(as per Sam Adams). And because I ,of course, have not had Utopia I will not know how 'close' I get. Should be fun. Still working on malt %'s. I'm not sure on IBU's either, ideas? I want to try to balance the sweetness/maltiness a little right.

Click to expand...

Both of you guys are making my liver hurt...

Go for it, what have you got to lose (besides your liver and your sanity)? Keep is in the loop though, I don't want to miss any of this.