Stupid big beer

I've been thinking about making a ridiculously big, hoppy beer. Here's what I've come up with:

Recipe : RedRum Rye

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (GAL): 5.00 Wort Size (GAL): 5.00
Total Grain (LBS): 20.00
Anticipated OG: 1.100 Plato: 23.85
Anticipated SRM: 11.9
Anticipated IBU: 103.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.0 1.00 lbs. Crystal 60L America 1.034 60
5.0 1.00 lbs. Munich Malt(2-row) America 1.035 6
55.0 11.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2
10.0 2.00 lbs. Honey 1.042 0
25.0 5.00 lbs. Rye Malt America 1.030 4

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.75 oz. Magnum Pellet 14.40 42.5 60 min.
2.00 oz. Cascade Whole 7.00 8.3 5 min.
2.00 oz. Cascade Whole 7.00 16.9 20 min.
0.75 oz. Simcoe Pellet 12.00 35.4 60 min.


Yeast
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Whitelabs WLP007 Dry English Ale

My wife is a big time hophead so I promised her at least 100 IBU's:rockin: . I happened to have some leftover simcoe and magnums.
I think the big gravity should balance it out nicely, though. I'm using quite a bit of rye because, well, because I feel like it.
What do you guys think?

what's the expected FG or ABV?

That's a good question...the 007 is fairly attenuative, but I think it will still be pretty chewy. My guess would be around 1.025 or .030.

Looks a lot like Hop Rod Rye. Personally, I wouldn't use cascade for both flavor and aroma. I prefer nuggett, cluster & chinook for flavor in big IPAs

Sounds nice,allthough it's gona need six months to mellow that bitterness,hope you can wait! is 60 min boil long enough? i always do a 90 min boil.

How much sparging are you going to need to do to get 20lbs of grain into a decent efficiency range? I would think you'll be boiling for quite a while to get your volume back down. The recipe looks awesome though.

I figured it would take a few months to mellow...that's a good point about needing a long boil to get my volume down. I'll have to play it by ear and see how much I end up with pre-boil. A 90 minute boil might be needed.

You might need a longer boil than that. I did a 3 gallon doppelbock recently that had roughly the same amount of grain as a 5 gallon brew. I collected 7.5 gallons of wort and had to boil about 2 hours just to get the volume down, then start the hop schedule. I would guess that with 20 lbs. of grain, expect to collect 10 gallons or more.

Interesting....I have an 8 gallon keggle, so I may have to do two separate boils.

I've never made anything this big before...my highest gravity so far has been 1.080. I'm wondering - if I'm not concerned about efficiency, could I do a no-sparge, and would that get me close to my target gravity? I could then use the sparging to make a mild.

Guess I'll find out for sure when I actually do it.

I know this doesn't pertain to the present discussion but I was just at the HBS the other day and I was about to buy some Simcoe pellets that he just got in and they smelled like cat urin. They were terrible smelling and I wouldn't add them to my brew unless I was going for a killer aroma, IMHO.

A few months ago there was a guy posting on here (I can't remember who) and he was doing the same thing but for different reasons. He had poor efficiency so to compensate, he was upping his grain bill until he was mashing 20+ pounds of grain. He was still missing his OG because his sparge mechanics were way out to lunch by that time. I think if you're going to do a big beer you need to pay the piper as it were, and do a proper sparge with the correct volumes, no matter how high. If I have learned one thing since I started brewing, it's that there are no shortcuts. Unless of course, you want to add honey until you get it right like some guys do...

you could just substitute 3 lbs. dme for about 5 lbs. malt...You wont even know the dme is in there.

Second me on the add DME solution. You can just make the grain bill bigger for a non-sparge that could work. The second runnings might even be bigger than a mild. You could possibly get three beers out of that grain!

I don't think I want to add DME....I've just never liked doing that. I feel kind of like I'm cheating (no offense meant to extract users).

I'm willing to sparge a huge volume and boil all day. Sounds like a good excuse to drink a lot of beer.:rockin: