21% All grain brew.

[Akavango]

I would love to age it in a oak barrel but they are hard to find here in Ireland. I guess I could contact a few distillery to see if I could purchase one from them. I have some american oak chip that I have added to a previous brew with great effect. I was already thinking of aging it with those chips.

I get your point about adding sugar but the whole point of doing this brew is to do an all grain without added sugars. I guess that as a last resort I might just do that. I'm not there yet.

As for the recipe it will be single malt and not too much hops so that hops compound won't hurt the yeast.

How long did you age your stout before drinking it?

 

[sfrisby]

Good luck. Look forward to hearing how this goes. Beano in the mash?

 

[TheBreweryUnderground]

It spent two months in the carboy before I bottled it two weeks ago, I may open up one soon just to see how it's doing but they'll sit for a while still. For me it only needed two weeks before the gravity was pretty low, the yeast ate it up very quick and it was hard to keep the temps down without a fermentation chamber. I let it sit in a dark room in the 60s the first night but temps rose up to the mid 80s by morning and I put it in a cooler with water and ice to lower the temps to something more reasonable. The taste at bottling was a good balance of bourbon from bourbon barrel cubes that balanced the thick sweetness, they're much easier to add than taking care of a barrel if you can even find a small one. The brew club I just joined bought up some used casks from Goose Island here in Chicago for very cheap but they were all 53 gallons and needed a lot of people brewing to fill them up.

 

[Akavango]

What was your OG? Did you dump it all on the thrub? Or did you go gradually. What kind of yeast did you use?

 

[TheBreweryUnderground]

I poured in the second runnings directly on the trub and no chilled the first runnings (two boils) to add the day after and then added molasses a few days after that. I'm not sure exactly what the OG was because I added everything together at different times and my hydrometer was broken, but the calculated was 1.165 or 1.159 without the molasses. I used a huge yeast cake of WLP 099 the Super High Gravity yeast, on their site they also have suggestions on how to get it to work all the way up to 25%. It might almost be worth ordering the yeast straight from their site to get the healthiest yeast possible. My FG was 1.01 but it still tastes sweet even with the coffee, bourbon oak, and tons of roasted malt. I opened my first bottle last night and it actually had the slightest bit of detectable carbonation, it was thicker than any beer I've ever tried and not as much alcohol heat that I felt at bottling.

 

[old_tx_kbb]

I only offer my experience at super high gravity brews. I have an RIS that had an OG of 1.115 that I racked to a fresh yeast cake of WLP004. I aerated it with pure O2 for a couple of minutes. It slowed down within 2 days of fermenting and was at 1.032. Pretty good apparent attenuation on the 004. Then I added 3 lbs of honey....and aerated again. It stopped fermenting at 1.042. I made a 2 quart yeast starter of WLP099 and aerated the starter for a couple of minutes....then pitched.

Within 24 hours it was down to 1.015. My fermentation temp was a steady 70°F. I wanted to take it up to 18% ABV with more fermentables; but decided to leave it just above 16%. I crashed it at 31°F for three days.

My point is that when I brew super high gravity, during early fermentation I will aerate with O2. With my 2nd yeast addition, I aerated my starter so that the yeast cells would have strong cell walls....but not the primary wort.

I have an awesome RIS that is about to rest in an oak whiskey barrel for awhile. There's no hot solventy taste and it has a nice(but not huge) alcohol perception. This one will be nice when it reaches it's stride.

I had a 20% ABV barley wine 2 years ago that the WLP099 took down to 0.995....it was rocket fuel for sure with no body at all.....that's why when this RIS hit 1.015 that i crashed it immediately to stop fermentation.

Good luck !

 

[Akavango]

Actually I have an ipa that i can put in the secondary and use the thrub of it to start this brew. The wlp is not building as much of a thrub as I was hoping for despite the daily aerating and nutrient feeding.

The Ipa has a nice thick thrub of wlp001 that would work great (I hope) while I feed a new starter to the wlp99. I'm going to crash the 099 starter overnight and see if by how much the thrub is increasing. I'm not set yet.

I have to say I have never given this much tough to a brew before.

I would be happy too if it could end at about 1.015.

 

[Akavango]

I used a huge yeast cake of WLP 099 the Super High Gravity yeast, on their site they also have suggestions on how to get it to work all the way up to 25%. It might almost be worth ordering the yeast straight from their site to get the healthiest yeast possible.

Ordering straight from white Lab is not an option they don't ship to individual overseas and the cost would be prohibitive (about $30 for shipping only). My supplier get really fresh batches everytimes and I never had a problem with the yeast i got from him. That specific tube was only 3 weeks old when I pitched in my first starter.

Your beer sound really tasty.

 

[Akavango]

Mash is under way a 147F for 90'. I had to leave a couple of liters of the mash because there simply wasn't any room left. I have never seen it this full. I put 7 crushed beano tab into it.

I almost had an electrical problem, the 2 kettles were too much for the fuse. it kept blowing up. Fortunately an extension cord saved the day.

I decided to use the thrub of wlp 001 and will pitch the wlp later during the week when fermentation stalls. The yeast is being washed.

This is going to be a long brew day.

 

[FATC1TY]

Yikes.. That tun is FULL!

Have fun sparging that!

 

[TheBreweryUnderground]

Looks awesome!

 

[Akavango]

Yikes.. That tun is FULL!

Have fun sparging that!

It's an 106 Quart tun. I didn't have rice hulls but I didn't need any. It emptied like a champ.

 

[Akavango]

The Boil started at 3:44 PM almost 3 hours ago. and it is evaporating at a rate of about 3L/hour I have about 27 liters in each kettles and need to bring them to 16 before combining them. So about another 3h and 40'. then another couple of hours before reaching the end of the boil. 8H boil that is crazy. I will take a gravity sample after 4 hours.

 

[Akavango]

Got a bit of Drama here, the heating element of one of the kettels gave up before the 4th hour of boil. I dumped all the wort into a fermenting bucket and cleaned it but, it didn't work and the heating element is dead. It was covered by sugar and underneath the first layer it was completely black. See picture after a bit of scrubbing.

So I'm left with one kettle that is probably fail too. I have put some of the wort from the failed kettle and top off the other one. I'll take it as far as I can take it.

I measure the gravity of the wort and it is only at 1.092. There was a strange thing in the bucket and you can see some to it from the sample.

The wort is really sweet and the strange thing at the bottom does not have much taste.

Edit: Found another heating element and the second kettle is now brewing again. Down to 43 liters 18 to go.

 

[Akavango]

The back up heating element has failed too, it lasted less than an hour. The other kettle is still working fine. I decided to add the hops so if it fails then I still have a beer and not a bunch of hopsless wort.

The OG is now up to 1110.

I can for the most part filter those weird thing with a hops bag.

 

[Akavango]

One hour left in the boil. The latest sample is at 1026 OG. It is getting darker and sweeter. I'm not going to get the OG i was hoping for. Oh well. Hope I can still make of it a good beer. It has been boiling for almost 9h now, all but 6 liters of the original 70 have gone in the final kettle. Can't be bothered at this point to wait to more hour to boil it all.

Wonder if there is any fermentable left in it.

 

[Bradinator]

You did a 9 hour boil? It must be like syrup at this point. Interested in seeing how this turns out. Good luck!

 

[Akavango]

9 and 1/2 actually. At the end I had 22 liters left and the OG was 1134. Very dissapointed. Let's put this one in the experiment category.
It is 3 am and I started at 1pm yesterday. It was a long brew day to say the least. Well at least I have monday off.
Now let see how it ferment.

 

[Bradinator]

Got to give you credit where credit is due! You are a man of great patience. Hope it still turns out in the end.

 

[Akavango]

Well good news the beer is fermenting nicely. It has a healthy inch thick krauzen and is happily bubbling away.

Learned a few things yesterday.
- Don't do this with an electrical kettle, I destroyed 3 heating elements
- Need a system that evaporates faster. 3 Liters an hour make the boil so long that funny stuff develloped during the boil ( you can see it in my hand below) I was able to filter most of it away. I did not use pellets and the hops where in a muslin bag as I didn't have a hop strainer on the good kettle. That stuff showed up way before the first hop addition.
- Do a smaller volume, less volume => shorter boil time.

If I ever get my hands on a gas set up with a proper evaporation rate I would try it again without hesitating.

Now that my experiment failed, I wonlder if I should add some brewing sugar and go for gold. I really need to get the 20% abv beer out of my system.

As for the taste and texture. It was really sweet and a little syrupy but not too thick. I'll take a gravity sample tomorrow and see how it change.

I'll wait for the wlp 001 thrub to pitch the wlp099.

Any bets on the final gravity?

 

[MattHollingsworth]

One trick:

Buy a lees stirrer or other stirrer. I used one that is intended for plaster or something, cleaned it and sanitized. Since you're fermenting in a bucket, pop the top and use this mixer on a drill to aerate and degas the wort. Start slow with it as the CO2 will cause foaming. You might not have enough head space to do it properly, it could foam over, so be careful. You can do this a few times per day until you reach 1/3 sugar break. Your gravity was 1.132? 1/3 sugar break would be 1.087. This will get the CO2 out of solution, which makes life easier on the yeast AND will get some air in there for them as well.

I did this with a strong Belgian recently using Wyeast 1214. I went the route of adding sugar in the form of honey into the fermenter to step up the gravity, though. That said, the beer went from an estimated 1.131 down to 1.014 or so just in primary, ~15.8% abv, without adding any additional yeast. I'd assume it may be down to 1.012 by the time I bottle it, so might hit 16%.

I used a 55 liter fermenter for 20 liters of wort and would estimate that it foamed up to about twice its volume, so 40 liters, but I was using the drill on super high speed once I eased into it.

All that and the beer actually tastes good!

;-)

Best of luck. It's all down to fermentation management now.

 

[Akavango]

Interesting, I have never heard of this process. I'll be looking into that.

 

[harrymanback92]

That weird stuff looks like gluten to me, but I may be totally wrong. It's basically just protein; not surprising you got so much with that grain bill.

Seriously, good effort man. Sorry it didn't work out, but you definitely gave it your all.

 

[Akavango]

never seen so much gluten, would it have hurt the beer if I left it in it?

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Interesting, I have never heard of this process. I'll be looking into that.

It's a sort of mead making technique. Worked for mead, so I just used it for that strong beer and worked pretty well.

 

[Akavango]

I really like the idea, but I don't have the headspace to let it build up much foam. I assume that you could do this several time or do you do it just one at the beginning of fermentation?

 

[MattHollingsworth]

I really like the idea, but I don't have the headspace to let it build up much foam. I assume that you could do this several time or do you do it just one at the beginning of fermentation?

With that beer, I degassed twice a day until 1/3 sugar break. With that beer, which fermented fast for being so strong, that was 2 days after brew day. Finished brewing on a Sunday afternoon, degassed that night, then twice Monday, twice Tuesday and that was it.

 

[Akavango]

I did a gravity check on yesterday morning and it was down to 1094. I aerated, added some beano and kg of sugar. Bringing the Og to 1150. Checked it again today and it is at 1090. I will picth the wlp 99 tomorrow morning and we will see.

Would be very surprised if gravity fall much lower, I think that there is a lot of unfermentable as predicted by some of you.

Unfortunately Matt idea while interesting is out of the question for budgetary reasons. I don't have a drill and was unable to find the lees stirer In ireland or UK.

It does taste very sweet and not as thick as it was after the boil.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Only down to 1.090? What? What happened?

As for lees stirrers, I used one of these kinds of plaster stirrers, attached to a drill:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...form=QBLH&pq=plaster+stirrer&sc=0-8&sp=-1&sk=

You're approaching 1/3 sugar break, but some people with meads go to 1/2 sugar break. I haven't done it, though.

 

[Akavango]

I guess a lot of unfermentable happened after the 9 1/2h boil. I have dumped more beano and the wlp99 this morning but didn't check gravity.
Wish i wasn't working this week end to check the hardware store for it.
Thanks Matt.