A Tribute to Hunahpu

[bolus14]

I did some looking around and it seems that WLP002 and 1968 are the same strain, or close enough that any differences wouldn't be detected in this beer. So, i'm going make a starter with the 002 that I have to "wake it up," let the base of the RIS i'm looking to do ferment out, then use the spicing from this recipe on a gallon or so. I know it'll be different that this, but I really like the idea so I want to give it a shot. If I end up liking it i'll likely circle back and make this one early next year to give it some aging before next fall/winter.

Thanks for the discussion and thoughts to make this work!!

 

[bolus14]

I did some looking around and it seems that WLP002 and 1968 are the same strain, or close enough that any differences wouldn't be detected in this beer. So, i'm going make a starter with the 002 that I have to "wake it up," let the base of the RIS i'm looking to do ferment out, then use the spicing from this recipe on a gallon or so. I know it'll be different that this, but I really like the idea so I want to give it a shot. If I end up liking it i'll likely circle back and make this one early next year to give it some aging before next fall/winter.

Thanks for the discussion and thoughts to make this work!!

 

[VSGLS1]

Confirmed, blowoff tube required for 1968!


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[MrSnacks]

Is 1968 attenuative enough for a beer this big?

 

[allenH]

Is 1968 attenuative enough for a beer this big?

Wyeast lists it at 67-71%, up to 9% alcohol. CCB has stated that they have no problem getting 1968 up to 13%. I don't believe any of us that used 1968 had any problem with its alcohol tolerance, but we pitched massive starters, or in my case, an entire low abv yeast cake.
IMO, the "party trick" of this particular beer is the fact it finishes in the 1.030-1.040 range, making it thick as hell. And to do that, you need the lower attenuating yeast.

 

[MrSnacks]

Wyeast lists it at 67-71%, up to 9% alcohol. CCB has stated that they have no problem getting 1968 up to 13%. I don't believe any of us that used 1968 had any problem with its alcohol tolerance, but we pitched massive starters, or in my case, an entire low abv yeast cake.
IMO, the "party trick" of this particular beer is the fact it finishes in the 1.030-1.040 range, making it thick as hell. And to do that, you need the lower attenuating yeast.

Ah ok, yeah that's a really high final gravity, makes sense that you'd use 1968.

 

[bolus14]

2L starter of WLP002 made. Planning to put in the fridge Wednesday morning or night, decant thursday night or friday morning if it looks clear, then build a 4L starter Friday night. I want to brew this weekend but this schedule doesn't give me enough time to chill and decant the 4L starter. So, brew day may have to wait till next weekend unless I take a day off during the week.

Really looking forward to this one

 

[edecambra]

So, to throw my two cents in...

I brewed a recipe variant of this beer, similar proportions but with US-05. Bottled in January and I'm drinking one now.... It is GOOD! but... not Zhukov.

I just picked up a few bottles of the Zhukov, and had a glass in the tasting room and I will say that the yeast is a big part of this beer. The real deal has a substantial frutiness, total stone fruit character from the yeast, which is the dominant flavor, followed by sweet toast and roast. I'd say that the english yeast adds a substantial complexity that 05 just cant provide. My version is substantially roastier and toastier, and not quite as thick (again attenuation from us verses english yeast I suspect)

Just some notes. I'll be brewing this again soon, and get some more notes on it. Where is the current best recipe here?

 

[bolus14]

I'm pretty sure around post 60 has the most up to date recipe.

 

[Oophaga]

Keep in mind their og is 1.129 many of the recipes are calling for 1.120. This will also have a substantial impact on the mouth feel.

 

[makubex]

Peeps who have brewed this: what are you doing about your mash pH? The insane amount of roasted malts is putting my estimated pH way below the target. I'm trying to decide between cold steeping some of the dark grains (at the expense of not sqeezing out some of their sugars which has potential to make the body thinner than intended) or playing around with baking soda/chalk, which I've heard can be difficult.

 

[edecambra]

You'd be best to use a meter. Baking soda is the best bet as chalk has a hard time dissolving for all the grains. Calculators can be suspect with such a crazy recipe.


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[makubex]

You'd be best to use a meter. Baking soda is the best bet as chalk has a hard time dissolving for all the grains. Calculators can be suspect with such a crazy recipe.


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I guess that's as good of an excuse as any to invest in a pH meter.

 

[SweetStout]

You'd be best to use a meter. Baking soda is the best bet as chalk has a hard time dissolving for all the grains. Calculators can be suspect with such a crazy recipe.


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Baking soda has a lot of sodium - won't it end up being salty? You're right that chalk (or other source of calcium carbonate) isn't that soluble in water, but in a mash it will dissolve to regulate the pH.

 

[StagsHead]

Baking soda has a lot of sodium - won't it end up being salty? You're right that chalk (or other source of calcium carbonate) isn't that soluble in water, but in a mash it will dissolve to regulate the pH.

I used a combination of Baking Soda and Chalk in my mash to raise the pH. I normally don't use Chalk because of its inability to dissolve in water, but the calculations that I was using had me adding too much Baking Soda. So I supplemented with Chalk to gain the correct pH. My efficiency was down (expected) to around 62% (I normally run around 74%), but I think it would have been lower had I not adjusted the water.

I brewed this back in early April and it has now been in bottle (750ml; cork and cage) for about 2 1/2 months. I opened a bottle on July 13th to test and it was tasting incredible. Still a smidge green, but the cocoa, cinnamon and vanilla were showing nicely (I used sour cherries instead of the chilies).

The body was incredibly thick and the head was persistent with a nice reddish hue. (OG 1.123; FG 1.049; abv 10.25%; steeped the spices in aged rum which accounts for the higher abv)

I've already set aside 6 bottles that will be part of my "Library Selection" so after 5 years of brewing this beer, I will have amassed a nice vertical of 5 different vintages. Named it "The Sweetest Death".

This will be an annual brew for me in the Spring so it will be fully ready by the time the holidays roll around.

Here are some tips that I learned by either not doing what I should have done, or doing something that I shouldn't have done. Trial and Error is the best teacher, right?

1. I should have pitched more yeast. Like an entire cake from a previous stout recipe (OG 1.055 or less); I built up a starter of 1968, but it wasn't enough.

2. I should not have attempted a "no sparge" type of recipe with my equipment. I lost some efficiency and gained a lot of headaches. Unless you have a 15-20 gallon mash tun, you will need to sparge for a 5gal batch.

3. Divide your wort into 2 different fermenters. Thankfully I did this and it saved me some headaches. The yeast goes bonkers in this stuff and would have exploded all over my ferm fridge.

4. If you can, Oxygenate your wort. Shaking or whisking the wort will add some O2, but not nearly enough to get the yeast to perform their best.

5. Use the best quality spices/additives that you can find and buy them in their whole form and grind/crush them. This is a very powerful brew and the spices (cinnamon, vanilla bean, etc.) that you put into secondary will need to be as potent as possible in order to have any effect on the final flavor and aroma. I suggest using whole cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans from a place like Whole Foods or Penzey's. They have a lot of turnover of their products, so they aren't just hanging out on the shelf losing flavor. I spent almost $80 just on grain for this brew, so shelling out the extra $8.00 to get quality spices was a no brainer for me.

Okay, enough of the soap box. Enjoy brewing this beer or the various incarnations of it. It was a blast and I learned a lot about brewing "big" beers by doing it. It is one of those that I will definitely have on the annual brew schedule.

Cheers!!!

 

[edecambra]

So I just brewed this last weekend, and it turned out great! So far that is. I batch sparge and recirc with a pump and my efficiency ended at about 61 - 60 percent, not too bad I guess. I ended up adding a pound of dry extract to the recipe at post 60 or so (I think it is a few posts off from 60) and boiled for 3 hours to get to my final gravity. I pitched a whole pint of thick slurry of Thames valley and it is still fermenting away nicely. I hope the FG endes somewhere in the high 30s or so, low 40's I'd be happy with too.

Cheers,

 

[Dakota21601]

I got a clone recipe from one of the docs I work with and it turned out fabulous. My OG was a tad low since it was one of my earlier all grains, but I am anxious to try again now that I have my routine fine tuned. He had a pic of the amounts of ingredients in a 55gal barrel on the barrel and we used those to equate the amounts for a 5 gal batch. Here is what we did. I am just now cracking into this 6 months later and it is quite a delight.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/106240/hunahpu-clone-

 

[bkaqm6]

I used a combination of Baking Soda and Chalk in my mash to raise the pH. I normally don't use Chalk because of its inability to dissolve in water, but the calculations that I was using had me adding too much Baking Soda. So I supplemented with Chalk to gain the correct pH. My efficiency was down (expected) to around 62% (I normally run around 74%), but I think it would have been lower had I not adjusted the water.

I brewed this back in early April and it has now been in bottle (750ml; cork and cage) for about 2 1/2 months. I opened a bottle on July 13th to test and it was tasting incredible. Still a smidge green, but the cocoa, cinnamon and vanilla were showing nicely (I used sour cherries instead of the chilies).

The body was incredibly thick and the head was persistent with a nice reddish hue. (OG 1.123; FG 1.049; abv 10.25%; steeped the spices in aged rum which accounts for the higher abv)

I've already set aside 6 bottles that will be part of my "Library Selection" so after 5 years of brewing this beer, I will have amassed a nice vertical of 5 different vintages. Named it "The Sweetest Death".

This will be an annual brew for me in the Spring so it will be fully ready by the time the holidays roll around.

Here are some tips that I learned by either not doing what I should have done, or doing something that I shouldn't have done. Trial and Error is the best teacher, right?

1. I should have pitched more yeast. Like an entire cake from a previous stout recipe (OG 1.055 or less); I built up a starter of 1968, but it wasn't enough.

2. I should not have attempted a "no sparge" type of recipe with my equipment. I lost some efficiency and gained a lot of headaches. Unless you have a 15-20 gallon mash tun, you will need to sparge for a 5gal batch.

3. Divide your wort into 2 different fermenters. Thankfully I did this and it saved me some headaches. The yeast goes bonkers in this stuff and would have exploded all over my ferm fridge.

4. If you can, Oxygenate your wort. Shaking or whisking the wort will add some O2, but not nearly enough to get the yeast to perform their best.

5. Use the best quality spices/additives that you can find and buy them in their whole form and grind/crush them. This is a very powerful brew and the spices (cinnamon, vanilla bean, etc.) that you put into secondary will need to be as potent as possible in order to have any effect on the final flavor and aroma. I suggest using whole cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans from a place like Whole Foods or Penzey's. They have a lot of turnover of their products, so they aren't just hanging out on the shelf losing flavor. I spent almost $80 just on grain for this brew, so shelling out the extra $8.00 to get quality spices was a no brainer for me.

Okay, enough of the soap box. Enjoy brewing this beer or the various incarnations of it. It was a blast and I learned a lot about brewing "big" beers by doing it. It is one of those that I will definitely have on the annual brew schedule.

Cheers!!!

I assume you used the recipe from post #57?

Seems like this will be a pretty tight mash in a 10g water cooler mash tun. Any ideas besides doing two seperate mashes?

Did you repitch yeast for bottling?

 

[jammin]

what yeast are you guys bottling with?

 

[bolus14]

Earlier in the thread many said they didn't repitch for bottling. From other threads seems like a lot of people recommend EC-1118 if you want to add yeast at bottling time.

 

[mtnagel]

Did everyone see the announcement...

 

[allenH]

Did everyone see the announcement...

Yeah, and read all the posts where people were going crazy. Didn't they say after Huna Day last year that they were still going to have the party, but only release the beer in distro? That's what I remembered anyways.

 

[JayDubWill]

Yeah, and read all the posts where people were going crazy. Didn't they say after Huna Day last year that they were still going to have the party, but only release the beer in distro? That's what I remembered anyways.

I was just at the Emerald Coast Beer Fest (Pensacola, FL) and CCB was there with Hunahpu on tap if you can believe it. I was chatting with the brewery rep and he confirmed that they are strongly considering making it available through their distributor as a result of last years fiasco.

However another factor to consider is FL Senate Bill 7120 which would make it illegal for breweries to sell directly to the public causing them to buy back their beers from distributors for tap rooms or other selling from the brewery as is the case for Hunaphu. If this bill passes and becomes laws it's a tremendous blow to small breweries in this state who make a good portion of their profit in their tap rooms.

 

[cmoewes]

However another factor to consider is FL Senate Bill 7120 which would make it illegal for breweries to sell directly to the public causing them to buy back their beers from distributors for tap rooms or other selling from the brewery as is the case for Hunaphu. If this bill passes and becomes laws it's a tremendous blow to small breweries in this state who make a good portion of their profit in their tap rooms.

That's very similar to here in Minnesota. The breweries can only serve they beer in the tap room strict an on-sale sort of thing. So when Surly has their Darkness Days (their RIS release event) they actually have to have the municipal liquor store come in and run a pop-up store to sell the bottles.

 

[bolus14]

Off topic for the thread but nothing like showing support for small businesses! Stuff like this is what prevents small businesses from succeeding and hurts the consumer. The brewery loses a percentage of their profits by having to involve a distributor or the like and the consumer loses because this will likely cause prices to go up to lessen the profit loss.

 

[Oophaga]

Sadly our "representatives" here think they are parents of "whining children that don't know whats good for them" ie the craft beer brewers. Its shocking the things they've said, and then others flat out say they are friends of the distributors and back them with all their corruption in the open.

 

[edecambra]

A true shame. I have long thought though that Huna day should be a stand alone "party" which has been tremendous fun the past few years. I love the idea to just send the bottle release into Distribution, it keeps the crazy craft beer speculators away, who are just there to buy as much as they can and hope to turn a profit in the black market (i.e. instagram!) I think this will keep things fun, and I hope they still let bottle sharing and coolers in, that is always cool to see what strangers are pouring.

 

[Wolfhound180]

Well I'm about to mash in. Wish me luck!


13# 4 oz Maris Otter - 47%

5# 8 oz Munich II - 20%

2# 14 oz Flaked Barley - 10%

2# Chocolate - 7%

2# Roasted Barley - 7%

14 oz Black Patent - 3%

14 oz Dark Crystal (Hugh Baird) 150L - 3%

14 oz Crystal Malt (Thomas Fawcett) 60L -3%

28.25# total



Boil for 90-120 minutes

3 oz Magnum (14% aa) @ 75 minutes - 80 IBU

 

[Ysgard]

Just did a mini batch, 1.2gallons stovetop BIAB. Collected 2.6gallons, boiled down. Full 11g of S04. Krausen down in 3 days but still bubbling and smells green. Going with Apple Brandy and Rum version, Gonna dry toast nibs, crushed cinnamon, oak cubes and chopped peppers and steep it all in the booze for a few days then toss just the extract in.

And someone please talk me out of throwing coffee in.

 

[Wolfhound180]

From what I got today, no need for coffee from the wort taste. It's strong enough! After about a 3 hr boil I finally got close to my numbers and hit 1.125 into the fermenter so we shall see. Made a 2L stir plate starter with 2 packs of 1968. Should be interesting.