Dogfish Head 120 Min IPA Clone

[Jsmith82]

Tomorrow will be the halfway point, so about 6.5lbs of sugar after tomorrow. I would rather have a lower alcohol content and not be too sweet. I am just wondering if the original is fermented down that low or not. I would like it to be as close as possible to the original.

Go Smuth Go! Now is the time to babysit.. If you can manage your gravity around the 25 to 30 range, I think you're improving the taste.. 120 is great but soooooo sweet and syrupy.

I will be feeling your pain soon, called the shop today, the white labs super gravity I had to special order arrives wednesday which is starter day, brew day is saturday... Woohoo?

 

[smuth10]

I tested the gravity this morning before adding sugar and it is at 1.040. Higher than I would like. I added another 1\2tsp of yeast nutrient to the sugar addition and gave the beer a swirl to get some of the yeast off of the bottom. Today is day 9 of the sugar additions and I think I am going to slow down now. I would really like it to finish under 1.030 and if I keep adding sugar past day 10 or 11 I think it will be too sweet.

 

[smuth10]

I stopped adding sugar after day 11 because the gravity seemed to continue creeping up a little each day. It is at 1.042 today, but still bubbling every 20-30 seconds. I will be happy if it finishes under 1.030. It smells great when I open the bucket, so I am hopeful it will turn out well. I figured the ABV to be around 17-18%, which is just fine with me. Now, if I could only find some of the real DFH 120 around me to compare mine with. The store I usually buy it at hasn't had it since December of 2009.

 

[scottland]

Sounds awesome. Let us know where your FG finishes.

 

[smuth10]

It is at 1.036 and still bubbling every 30 seconds or so. Smells awesome...

 

[smuth10]

I just transferred to the secondary and the SG is at 1.028. It smells fantastic and the color looks great. I tasted a small sample and it is pretty sweet up front, then the hops hits you a little, and then the alcohol slams you in the face. I am going to leave it in the secondary for 2 months and then bottle most of it. I may keg a gallon or two just to compare the flavors. Hopefully a couple of months in the secondary will bring it down a few more points and mellow it out a bit.

 

[Thundercougarfalconbird]

Though I won't be making this in the NEAR future, I would like to one day.
this section of the recipe confuses me
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
15 min Acid Rest Add 46.20 qt of water at 99.6 F 95.0 F
15 min Protein Rest Decoct 13.04 qt of mash and boil it 122.0 F
15 min Gluten Rest Decoct 8.16 qt of mash and boil it 135.0 F
60 min Beta Sacrification Decoct 10.28 qt of mash and boil it 149.0 F
15 min Mashout Decoct 14.35 qt of mash and boil it 165.0 F

Could someone explain how to go about doing all of this? Like a step by step would be great.

 

[smuth10]

Though I won't be making this in the NEAR future, I would like to one day.
this section of the recipe confuses me
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
15 min Acid Rest Add 46.20 qt of water at 99.6 F 95.0 F
15 min Protein Rest Decoct 13.04 qt of mash and boil it 122.0 F
15 min Gluten Rest Decoct 8.16 qt of mash and boil it 135.0 F
60 min Beta Sacrification Decoct 10.28 qt of mash and boil it 149.0 F
15 min Mashout Decoct 14.35 qt of mash and boil it 165.0 F

Could someone explain how to go about doing all of this? Like a step by step would be great.

You take out part of the mash each time, boil it for 10 minutes, and then add it back to the mash. This brings the temperature of the mash up. That is why you see the different temps next to each step. If you are not familiar with decoction or what each temperature range does to the mash, I would definitely suggest reading John Palmer website. Here is a link:

John Palmer

 

[Thundercougarfalconbird]

Gotcha, and finally, I've never had this beer but love the 60min IPA, is it normally carbed?(If not I suppose the 90min clone is the beer for me)

 

[vicratlhead51]

Cool thread, I love this beer so I think I may try it sometime. Its so expensive especially when you get a little ways away from the east coast. It'd be pretty cool to have a couple cases on hand in the basement . I think I'd actually look forward to the extra work involved. It'd give me something brewing related to do on those off days between batches.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

Smuth10, pm me your name and address and I will send you 2 of mine. I brewed DFH 120 twice with the fist ending at aprox 16% and the most recent 21.7%.

I am on my way out but will post up more on my experience and issues later.

 

[smuth10]

vicratlhead51 - I think it was about $85 from Adventures in HB, but I am local to them. If it is work you are looking for than this is the beer for you. Just make sure you don't have any plans for a month or so.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

Here is my post from my 1st batch.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/my-first-attempt-dogfish-head-120-pics-151971/

The reasons that my first was only a 16% vs. the 21.7% is due to my equipment limitations at the time. I did have a 15gallon fermenter but only a 7.5 or so gallon kettle, a turkey fryer burner and a hand mill. Do to my small pot size I had to do a second boil in the aluminum fryer pot in my kitchen while also doing a full 7.5 gallon boil outside. It was fun running back and forth between the kitchen and garage every three minutes to add the hops! I was able to get the wort on the stove to boil but not very hard so I could not reduce it as much as I wanted. That along with the subpar crush from my old hand mill gave me a SG of about 1.081 not very efficient.

For the second batch I had my Blichmann 20gallon kettle a Barley Crusher mill and a 15 gallon keggle. With this new equipment went over my target of 1.100. I also pushed the sugar additions for this one. On the first batch since I didn’t get all the sugar from the grain that I wanted to I didn’t want to stall the yeast out by trying to make up for the points with more sugar so I didn’t adjust. For both beers I really just let the beer tell me what it could take. Once I didn’t get an immediate reaction when adding a sugar addition I stopped. For the 2nd batch I added 1LB more sugar after I hit the point where reaction was slowed and I wanted to stop but decided to just add the additional pound because like Charlie Sheen and the Honey Badger I just don’t give a f—k! It did start back up but very slowly and if I had to do it over I would have not added that last addition or just ½ a pound possibly. To me my second batch is sweeter at first than the 1st but after a few sips it mellows out faster and then you get that nice warm fuzzy feeling inside from the high alcohol content. It’s actually very drinkable after a few small sips.

Other differences between the two is I ordered bulk hops for the first batch and used what leftovers I had that were now about a year old along with some new hops for whatever I was short on. I would say that I lost some of the hop bite on the second due to the age of the hops. Not a huge difference especially since the difference in the sweetness and alcohol also had an effect on the beer but it is noticeable hop difference to me. Next batch will be new hops though. I still find it funny that all the people I have sent this to or tasted it at my house like the 21.7% over the first. Hell I even had bud drinkers downing this stuff like it was water. I do warn them that this beer is a one and done but no one believes me about the % until they slam down a pint or two and then need to call someone to pick them up to go home

Everything else I followed per the recipe, I added oxygen for 4 days. I split my sugar additions to three times daily once in the morning then after work and finally before bed adding the hops in the morning addition. I added some yeast energizer a few times with the sugar additions when things started to slow. I also for the 1st batch started with 2 larger daily additions but found that smaller more frequent additions seems to stress the beer less so I switched to 3x per day about ½ way in. Also with more frequent additions I had less issues with my dump getting clogged up and unclogging it was a pain in the ass.

I know lots of people fear brewing this beer and hell yea it is a difficult and time consuming beer but the end product to me makes it well worth it. I can’t believe that I went through over 15 gallons of this in the past year in a half!

 

[smuth10]

15 gallons! Very nice. I would love to upgrade to a 20 gallon Blichmann system with a conical fermentor, but I will have to live with my 10gal HERMS setup for now. I am convinced I am going to need a pole barn for all of my stuff pretty soon.

We should setup a group brew for this beer some time and swap beers. Maybe we could even narrow in on the recipe a little better that way. Just a thought.

 

[Jsmith82]

Alright Smuth, I racked it to secondary on Saturday and I cannot say this loud enough, HOLY **** was that the worst siphon ever!!! It took so long and clogged so many times...

A little backstory for those who didn't know, a buddy and I went for a 2 gallon (ended being 2.15 gallon) batch of this just to have some fun and get a little mad scientist beer under the belt... Yes, I know it is a very small amount in the end for all the effort and believe me now that I have been through it we're doing 5+ gallons next time minimum, but I didn't feel comfortable at the time going all in on this beast, that's a beefy cash investment to screw up and take a loss.

Clocked gravity in on the transfer at 1.029 from 1.175, fermentation through the month was at a constant 69-71 degrees, therefore we have the ABV calculated right about 19.5 (we managed the gravity a little lower then recommended, I love 120 but my big drawback was the syrupy texture while drinking).

Directly before the transfer:

One of the many times my siphon clogged:

The aftermath:

Almost walked with 2 full gallons worth:

Once all is said and done, if you guys would be okay with me getting in on the bottle swap, I would love to do so.

 

[smuth10]

JSmith82 - I had the same problem. Took forever to get it in the secondary, but it has settled nicely now. It smelled really good and tasted pretty good as well. The alcohol was pretty strong obviously, but it should mellow out over time. Here is a pic of mine after a couple of weeks in the secondary.

I am going to keg mine and bottle it from there in another month or so. ThatGuyRyan just sent me a couple of his 120's and when I am done with mine I will send one out to both of you guys. Maybe we can change the recipe up a little if needed.

 

[Oldsock]

I had the same problem on my first batch of DIPA. Now for really hoppy beers I strain my wort coming out of the boil to get as much of the vegetal hop matter out of solution as I can before the wort goes into the fermenter. For the dry hops I put them in bags with marbles to weight them down. That way I can rack without hops clogging my auto-siphon. It is really important to keep oxygen out of hoppy beers, so the “smoother” your racking is the better your beer will be.

 

[smuth10]

That should help, but I think the problem with this beer is that you have to dry hop every day for 28 days. Not very practical to use bags in this situation. I would be curious to see how DFH does this with their 120 min

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

So are you guys all doing this bad boy in buckets? Man brewing this in a conical was hard enough I wouldn’t want to try it in a bucket!

Edit: I purchased my conical just for this beer and it was a wise move. I had zero issues with racking it using my mid port.

 

[smuth10]

I will be happy to take a conical off of your hands if it is getting in your way.

 

[Jsmith82]

TGR - I did mine in a bucket for... well 2 reasons, I didn't have a carboy at the time and because I did such a small amount (Even sneaking by using 2 1gal jugs corked with c02 locks for secondary) I figured it would just be easiest. And I'm a wuss, was afraid to go big.. haha

Both you guys please feel free to PM me your address information and I will send a bottle out to each in late May when I bottle, Smuth I will PM you with my info as well.

 

[Jsmith82]

And another 2 weeks go by....

Mine is starting to clarify, we were debating opening the single 12oz bottle this Saturday just to get a glimpse.. haha, I should post a pic of it, the bottom is filthy.

How's about yours? Rocket fuel scent? Clearing out?

 

[smuth10]

Mine is pretty clear now and it seems to be a little darker than the real thing. I haven't tasted it yet and I am planning on bottling the middle of May. I will post back and let you know how it is. I am sure it is going to need a lot of aging before it is drinkable at all.

 

[Jsmith82]

seems to be a little darker than the real thing

Same here, VERY dark amber colored. Guessing it will mellow and look a tad lighter once it's poured into a glass to enjoy.

 

[Navy_Brewer]

Ok, I am thinking of trying something to get a similar beer without all the effort. Not sure it will work though. I am set up for 5 gal BIAB batches in an electric 44 qt pot. Batch size will be 3.5 gallons to get a 3 gallon kegs worth in the end. I will then bottle from that.

So I plan to start by making the base beer. 12 lbs of 2 row and 1/2 lb amber give me 3.5 gallons of a 1.095 or so beer. Hopping will be 12 additions every ten minutes for 120 min. Ferment with 1056 and try to get it to about 1.030 - 1.035. Not trying for the best attenuation but shooting for slightly higher than the desired final gravity. Once there add 2 bottles of Bacardi 150 to boost alcohol from 9% ABV to 17-18%. Dilution of the gravity should take it to right around 1.30 and the volume should now be about 4 gallons in fermenter and I will start the dry hop process. Probably add hops every few days rather than every day.

Since the main purpose of the sugar is to boost alcohol content, why not let Bacardi handle the difficult part of fermentation. Getting 1056 to attenuate 1.095 to 1.035 should be relatively easy (in fact if it goes too low, may have to add sugar at the end to reach desired gravity). Will it be exact, maybe not. But it should be good.

 

[Oldsock]

I would go with a more neutral spirit (vodka). If it is too dry I would go with malto-dextrin, table/corn sugar will make for a sugary sweet tasting beer. Good luck.

 

[smuth10]

Should be bottling mine this weekend. I think I am going to take ThatGuyRyan's advice and just keg it and then bottle. I think it is going to be next to impossible to get this to carb with corn sugar. I will report back on the flavor.

 

[Jsmith82]

I was planning on bottling the 21st or 22nd, but don't have any way of carbing other than dextrose... The current plan is 1.5oz Dex / 1cup water boiled for the batch (looks like we're ending with a little under 2 gallons), hopefully I'll get something out of it, of course I still plan on letting it sit until Fall so time may help too.

 

[smuth10]

I kegged this on Sunday and just tried it for the first time. It is much better than I anticipated. It is strong, but has a bite from the hops and you can really taste the floral notes from being dry hopped. It finishes sweet with a pretty good hit of alcohol at the end. It has been a while since I've had a DFH 120, but this is pretty damn close from what I remember. If I had to change anything I would up the bittering hops somewhat to offset the extra sweetness. Other than that it just needs to age and I think it is going to be a fantastic beer.

I'm am going to wait another week until is is fully carbed and I will probably bottle half of it for aging. It was a lot of work making this beer, but definitely worth it.

 

[scottland]

I'm thinking about brewing this later this year. Let me know what you think of your final product.