Imperial Stout Dark Night of the Soul Russian Imperial Stout

[smokinghole]

Okay I have mine stuck at 1.032ish. I'm going to throw a vial of yeast in there to try and bring it down some more. I found out my water heater is on my second floor today so I took off the access panel to add a little bit of additional warmth to the closet I have my fermenters in. My house typically stays at 65 or a bit lower so I figure exposing the water heater to the closet space and keeping the doors closed will bring it closer to 70.

 

[smokinghole]

I think the next time I do this I either need to watch temps more closely and or use the high gravity ale yeast. I got mine down to 1.032ish and it wouldn't move anymore. I thought about making a champagne starter but decided it was close enough to 1.030 which is with in standards for a stout. I ended up at 12.1% ABV.

 

[Apendecto]

I was thinking about tossing the wort from this right on a yeast cake from a 1.044, 40-60 IBU (I'm getting different numbers from different sources).

I know both OG and IBU's have an effect on how well the yeast attenuates. So is this a good idea? Bad idea? Am I over pitching?

Recipe for the "starter"

7lbs LME
1/2lbs Carapils
1/2lbs Crystal 10L

1.5oz Cascade (7.5 AA) at 20mins
1.5oz Cascade (7.5 AA) at 10mins
1.5oz Cascade (7.5 AA) at 5mins
1.5oz Cascade (7.5 AA) Dry Hopped

Thanks.

 

[smokinghole]

With a recipe like this I don't think you can really over pitch. I would wash the yeast and throw the washed yeasties in to negate any effects of the hops in the trub.

 

[eulipion2]

Apendecto, I pitched onto the yeast cake of Rhoobarb's Damned Kids Oatmeal Stout, and it turned out wonderfully. Didn't even wash it first.

 

[Apendecto]

Apendecto, I pitched onto the yeast cake of Rhoobarb's Damned Kids Oatmeal Stout, and it turned out wonderfully. Didn't even wash it first.

Cool. One less step for me. Plus, do you really think you could taste any off flavors from the first batch in this motor oil?

I'm excited...


...for sometime next year.

Thanks!

PS How the the FG come out? Did you do anything sneaky to squeeze out a few points?

 

[eulipion2]

do you really think you could taste any off flavors from the first batch in this motor oil?

I could taste a hint of "plastic bucket" due to siphoning issues that caused me to try and just save the batch without regard for sanitation. Could also have been brought out with a lot of roast, maybe.

PS How the the FG come out? Did you do anything sneaky to squeeze out a few points?

F.G. was 1.024. Didn't do anything special, just had a nice big yeast cake.

 

[eggbeater59]

i'll be brewing this in a month or two, after i run out of propane. with the amount of water that i need to heat up and at least a 2 hour boil time, i'm afraid of running out.
i'm trying to figure out the math for batch sparging. i figure i have enough water for a single batch sparge of 3.25 gal. will that be enough for the 23.5 lb grain bill? i havn't done a high gravity beer like this before. i suppose i could put a paper plate on the grain bed and do a "hybrid sparge" lol.
i'm guessing that i won't be able to hit 75% with my normal ag methods...

 

[2-0turbo]

Just a quick question for you guys who are more experienced at recipe formulations than me. For whatever reason, when I was clicking "buy" at my homebrew store, I bought Pilsner malt instead of Pale malt. Should this change the character of the beer too much? Due to availability, I am also substituting Magnum hops (12.5%) for the Columbus as I couldn't get any here in France. I've also got some smaller substitutions on the C120/C150 and special B. I figure I'll adjust the quantities in Beersmith to keep the colors and gravity right and it should be good, right? : )

My only real worries are the Pilsner malt and the hops. I just started brewing with grain, so I have no idea what that will do. And, I have never done hop substitutions, so I'm new to that at well. Probably everyone will say DWHAHB...at least I'm hoping. The more beer I brew, the more I find it doesn't matter.

 

[Apendecto]

Just a quick question for you guys who are more experienced at recipe formulations than me. For whatever reason, when I was clicking "buy" at my homebrew store, I bought Pilsner malt instead of Pale malt. Should this change the character of the beer too much? Due to availability, I am also substituting Magnum hops (12.5%) for the Columbus as I couldn't get any here in France. I've also got some smaller substitutions on the C120/C150 and special B. I figure I'll adjust the quantities in Beersmith to keep the colors and gravity right and it should be good, right? : )

My only real worries are the Pilsner malt and the hops. I just started brewing with grain, so I have no idea what that will do. And, I have never done hop substitutions, so I'm new to that at well. Probably everyone will say DWHAHB...at least I'm hoping. The more beer I brew, the more I find it doesn't matter.

I can't help you with the grain, but I don't think the hops will matter too much. I've heard people say if the hops are just for bittering, you can use just about anything if you keep your IBUs the same. Then again, what do I know?

 

[2-0turbo]

I can't help you with the grain, but I don't think the hops will matter too much. I've heard people say if the hops are just for bittering, you can use just about anything if you keep your IBUs the same. Then again, what do I know?

I don't know, I only have 9-more posts than you--you might have been doing this for years! : ) I looked at some other recipes and plenty of other recipes use Pilsner as the base and then add color with some of the darker malts. When I made the change in Beersmith, the color changed from like 48.8 to 47.9. I'm going to be making a bunch of other minor tweaks with the Crystal and the chocolate, so I'll have to tweak some other things. I'm sure it will turn out dark, bitter and alcoholic. Aged for a year, it should be perfection!

 

[claphamsa]

I think youll be fine, there is a difference.... but in this kind of beer, the vienna vs pale malt wont be noticable!

 

[ftlstrings]

I can't help you with the grain, but I don't think the hops will matter too much. I've heard people say if the hops are just for bittering, you can use just about anything if you keep your IBUs the same. Then again, what do I know?

With high alpha acid hops I'd agree with this, especially with the 9-12 month wait on it. If you are trying to do a lot of bittering with low AA hops you can end up with a 'grassy' taste from the huge mass of green stuff you'd need...

 

[2-0turbo]

So I took a stab at this beer this weekend. I scaled it to a 3-gallon batch as I'm not sure how it will turn out and I'm leaving Paris for the USA next year and can't take any alcohol with me. So, with a year to age, I don't want to be giving away a ton of beer before I go.

I hope it works out well. I am quite new to brewing to be honest, this being only my 7th batch. My OG was 1.116, a bit lower than I was hoping. Color seems right and it is definitely bitter! : ) The wort is good to go, I'm just hoping I can get it to ferment out. I'm using a Wyeast XL 1272 that I pitched a couple days ago into a 2.5 liter starter. Today, I decanted off about 1-liter and then pitched the remaining 1.5 liters into my wort. 4-hours later and it is going crazy. I did 3 or 4, 1-minute vigorous shaking episodes with my fermenter and used some yeast nutrient at the end of the boil. I think the only thing I could have done is oxygenated the wort more, but I don't have the equipment right now.

I'll link to my blog once I get the pictures uploaded. I think I'll shoot a video of the fermentation tomorrow as it is one of the more vigorous fermentations I've seen. As a bonus, I didn't do any sparge. Well, I started and realized my grain didn't soak up as much water as I thought, so I didn't sparge. But, I did sparge the grain into another vessel and ended up with about 5-liters of 1.070 wort (off the runnings!) So, I diluted it down to about 1.030, boiled it for 20-minutes and threw some hops in and ended up with about 9-liters of "bonus" beer that I threw some S-05 on. It is already bubbling too.

I'll post updates.

 

[2-0turbo]

I shot just a short video of my 3-gallon batch fermenting today. This is 24-hours after pitching. It doesn't look so black in the fermenter because all the trub is stirred up. But, before I pitched and the beer was still, it is quite black--or even devoid of light...

 

[2-0turbo]

UPDATE: My RIS has been slowly winding down. Still bubbling a little, mabye once or twice every minute--no Krausen. So, I decided to pull a sample today and see how things are going after being in the fermenter for 2-weeks.

F.G. - 1.026

Excellent! I was a little worried that the yeast wouldn't go that high, but it appears that the nice big starter did its thing. According to my calcs, this works out to about 11.8% ABV, which is a bit lower than it was supposed to be, but a pretty good effort.

The taste is good. It still has some bitter aftertaste that will need to mellow, but it tastes pretty good. I'm happy.

 

[2-0turbo]

Update: After 3-weeks, it is still slowly bubbling away. Much slower now, but still here and there. I very optimistic that I'm over 12% alcohol based on my last reading. I'll probably let it sit a total of 4-6 weeks on the primary yeast cake and then transfer to the secondary for extended aging. The time it takes to make this is so long, I might have to just start another batch going before I even see how this one turns out.

Still haven't updated the blog. Probably this week.

 

[smokinghole]

I'm thinking about doing another batch myself. That way I can have it aged for somewhere around 18 months for christmas 2011.

 

[ftlstrings]

I need to transfer mine off the lees this week and take a new reading too. How long have you all been leaving this in secondary? I was thinking 6 weeks +/-....

Mike.

 

[smokinghole]

If I had enough fermenters I'd leave mine for 6ish weeks. However I have two better bottles, and a bucket. I'm working on more but the wife keeps me down.

 

[2-0turbo]

I'm at 3.5 weeks now and its not done. I'm kind of stuck right now because I don't have an empty fermenter to even transfer into. I'm waiting on a DFH 60-minute clone to finish (now at 2.5 weeks and still bubbling) before I have an empty fermenter.

The more I'm thinking about this beer now, at probably over 12% alcohol, does anyone think I'll be able to bottle condition this? I have no keg equipment, so I always use bottles. I'm kind of wondering if the yeast will be viable enough to make any carbonation with this thing. The good thing is that I'm willing to be patient and let it take 3-4 months if needed, but I'm not sure if that will be enough.

Any thoughts from those of you who bottle condition high ABV beers?

 

[smokinghole]

I'm bottle conditioning mine right now. I just threw one in the fridge to see how it's doing. It's been a month since bottling so I'm not real confident that it has much if any carbonation but I'll let you know.

 

[smokinghole]

Damn that was quick and I'm surprised it's carbed this nicely. It's good but has a serious alcohol flavor right now. It should be great by christmas.

 

[2-0turbo]

Smokinghole, what sugar did you prime with? How many volumes did you carb to? Based on what you see above, is it right? Too much? Too little?

 

[smokinghole]

I, for some reason did not write it down. I believe I used corn sugar and primed to 2.4 or 2.5 volumes. I would drop it down a tad since I was on the high end and it seems a little too much. Also the pic shows a fairly bad pour into a fresh glass. I used WLP099 for additional fermentation. My wlp001 stalled out and with the wlp099 I ended up at 1.023.

 

[2-0turbo]

I was at 1.026 last week using Wyeast 1272, so I'm sure I'm below that now. So, I don't think mine stalled out. I haven't thought yet about adding more yeast during bottling. That is kind of my unknown at this point. But, if I'm below 1.026 (I'll know in a few weeks when I check it again), my attenuation has been very good. I'm just not sure how many yeast I still have alive in a 12% brew to make more CO2 for carbonation.

 

[smokinghole]

My guess is that you'll be fine with that yeast. I do believe it has a high alcohol content. I've never used it but I think that's the wyeast comparable yeast to wlp001, right? If you're worried you can always grab a packet of champagne yeast for bottling if you're worried.

 

[2-0turbo]

I posted my brew session and current status to my blog. It includes some more write-up and pictures.

 

[Apendecto]

I brewed 5 gallons of this bad boy on May 25.

I split it into two 5 gallon Better Bottles and half of a 1 gallon jug. The jug was diluted with water, just to see what a Dark Night of the Soul Stout Jr. would taste like.

May 26 was spent cleaning up brown blow off from my floor and ceiling.

 

[smokinghole]

I'll be making a batch again in the fall months. The first time I made it with extract but this time it'll be all grain.

Did your blow off clog?