I am planning to brew this on Saturday - 10 gallon batch to rack to my newly acquired 10G Rum Barrel! The grain bill is a mix of porter and barleywine styles, pulling from various sources. I am not going for a full Imperial Stout mouthfeel but want something with enough body and residual sweetness to handle drying out for a few months in the barrel and stand up to the smokey malt, peppers and other additions in secondary. Also I am shooting for my first 12% beer so efficiency will be key. Note the extra 3# of DME and Cascade Chipotle beer candi as well. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Feedback: Big Dark Ale w/ Spice and Fruit for Rum Barrel Aging
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Spelaeus
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If you want a noticeable chocolate flavor, you *may* want more than 8oz in 10 gallons. But you've got a lot going on and 8oz will give you a background note of cocoa and some nuttiness. If that's what you're going for, you'll likely be in the ballpark. Also, roast those suckers if they don't come pre-roasted.
As to the chipotle peppers, taste them first and make a judgement. Or even make an alcohol extraction and add to taste. I made a Mexican hot chocolate imperial stout (4.5 gal) that had ancho peppers, which generally are milder than chipotles. I had two different bags of them. Added one whole one from one bag at flameout, negligible flavor contribution. The ones from the other bag tasted hotter and I added the flesh of one (de-seeded) in secondary (soaked in bourbon for 1 week along with the cocoa nibs, cinnamon, and vanilla beans) and got significant contribution from it. Nothing overwhelming, but a nice noticeable heat. And it'd be easy to go overboard. I'm also not sure how much the chipotles will bump up your smoke flavor. Anchos are also way bigger than chipotles, so... taste and decide, is the point being made.
As to the chipotle peppers, taste them first and make a judgement. Or even make an alcohol extraction and add to taste. I made a Mexican hot chocolate imperial stout (4.5 gal) that had ancho peppers, which generally are milder than chipotles. I had two different bags of them. Added one whole one from one bag at flameout, negligible flavor contribution. The ones from the other bag tasted hotter and I added the flesh of one (de-seeded) in secondary (soaked in bourbon for 1 week along with the cocoa nibs, cinnamon, and vanilla beans) and got significant contribution from it. Nothing overwhelming, but a nice noticeable heat. And it'd be easy to go overboard. I'm also not sure how much the chipotles will bump up your smoke flavor. Anchos are also way bigger than chipotles, so... taste and decide, is the point being made.
Thanks for all the great input on the flavor additions. I have used these chipotles before and 4 whole dried peppers at 5 minutes added a perfect "smokiness" to a 5 gallon batch. I might even go 10 peppers for the 10 gallon batch but note there is chili powder and cumin also in the "southwest chipotle" candi sugar too. Also I am using 2 pounds of very pungent cherrywood smoked malt. I figured the three of them would harmonize nicely, especially since I am also adding cherries to secondary. I agree with your approach on soaking them all (I will use Rum to match the barrel flavor) but I am having trouble figuring out how to sanitize 6 pounds of cherry meat without making a puree or juice which I don't want. I did that with Raspberries in my Stout and it watered it down a bit and was way too tart.
My wife and I have discussed "soaking" or spraying with a spray bottle all the cherries with either Everclear or Star-SAN. I need to ask how fruit interacts with Star San and whether prolonged contact would be bad.
Oh yes I swapped out the Burton salts with individual minerals to "convert" my Portland soft water to Edinburgh, Scotland water. It has worked like a charm with Antwerp water for my Belgian beers using BeerSmith conversion tool.
My wife and I have discussed "soaking" or spraying with a spray bottle all the cherries with either Everclear or Star-SAN. I need to ask how fruit interacts with Star San and whether prolonged contact would be bad.
Oh yes I swapped out the Burton salts with individual minerals to "convert" my Portland soft water to Edinburgh, Scotland water. It has worked like a charm with Antwerp water for my Belgian beers using BeerSmith conversion tool.
Spelaeus
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The cherries are kind of a tough one... I know a lot of people would suggest just freezing and thawing first and then tossing them in since the alcohol will already be so high. And there really isn't all THAT much that could really manage to take off in 12% abv with 75.8 ibus, especially if the peppers and such are already in. But it'd be a shame to risk infecting that barrel... Certainly spraying them all down with everclear could be some added insurance. Only thing I can think of that might work that doesn't involve pureeing them or heating them is putting the whole cherries in a water bath with some way of keeping them all submerged, and then using campden tablets in that water bath, straining and adding after a day or so? I'm not sure how well it would work, really.
joyceman
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My way of sanitizing cherries is to destem, dunk them in starsan and then freeze them. Then I just rack on the frozen cherries when I secondary.
@Joyceman do you pit them as well or leave them whole?
joyceman
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I left them whole.
I also used a steamer rack to keep them submerged. I has bad luck myy first cherry experience, did a cherry/choc stout & mold developed on the exposed floating cherries in secondary.
I didn't think about that but perhaps I should use my plastic bottling bucket for secondary instead of my carboy? Getting 6 (or 10) pounds of whole cherries into a carboy could be quite difficult. I will check the LHBS today for other options. I think we have settled on destemming, rinsing in Starsan or Everclear spray, then freezing, thawing, crushing and adding.
Thanks guys.
3AM UPDATE:
So we decided to brew this beer late last night for our first "midnight" brew. After all the beer is called "Fat Satan" so it seemed appropriate. This was my first time mashing 34 pounds of grain in my keggle and with BeerSmith calculations, it took my grist right to the top. The strike temp was a touch high (being a colder evening temp) and we started the mash at 156 which dropped over the course of 45 minutes to 153 (my target was 154).
Tasting the mash I immediately noticed a chalky flavor, not sweet as I expected. We did an iodine test which seemed normal so we proceeded with the mash out and sparge. After running 12.8 gallons of wort into my boil kettle, we took a gravity reading and we were 31 points too low! And it still tasted a little strange. Not having enough DME or LME on hand to fix this, we opted to let the keggle sit covered overnight (outside) until we can buy 6 more pounds of dark DME (I had not added any yet when we took that reading.
So after playing around with the Boil Off tool (to see where it would have ended up after 75 min boil) and the Gracity Adjustment tool, we determined that we would need an additional 6 pounds, which I will pickup when the LHBS opens in 7 or so hours.
So completely baffled why my efficiency dropped so damn low, after what felt like a great mash process. I am hoping the chalky flavors go away with the higher concentration of sugars from the DME. It calculated at about 59% but again I had not yet added my 3# of DME.
So we decided to brew this beer late last night for our first "midnight" brew. After all the beer is called "Fat Satan" so it seemed appropriate. This was my first time mashing 34 pounds of grain in my keggle and with BeerSmith calculations, it took my grist right to the top. The strike temp was a touch high (being a colder evening temp) and we started the mash at 156 which dropped over the course of 45 minutes to 153 (my target was 154).
Tasting the mash I immediately noticed a chalky flavor, not sweet as I expected. We did an iodine test which seemed normal so we proceeded with the mash out and sparge. After running 12.8 gallons of wort into my boil kettle, we took a gravity reading and we were 31 points too low! And it still tasted a little strange. Not having enough DME or LME on hand to fix this, we opted to let the keggle sit covered overnight (outside) until we can buy 6 more pounds of dark DME (I had not added any yet when we took that reading.
So after playing around with the Boil Off tool (to see where it would have ended up after 75 min boil) and the Gracity Adjustment tool, we determined that we would need an additional 6 pounds, which I will pickup when the LHBS opens in 7 or so hours.
So completely baffled why my efficiency dropped so damn low, after what felt like a great mash process. I am hoping the chalky flavors go away with the higher concentration of sugars from the DME. It calculated at about 59% but again I had not yet added my 3# of DME.
12PM UPDATE: Well I hit the LHBS this morning, bought 9# of Dark DME and through lots of calculations was able to get my pre-boil gravity up to 1.095 (realizing that BS was factoring another 3 points from my Chipotle Candi Sugar added later). The wort still smells very roasted/burnt and tastes chalky. We are proceeding with the boil and hoping for the best!
Thanks to 10# of Dark DME, we got back to our target OG of 1.112. The wort is sticky and sweet but also still bitter and harsh. I noticed after a sample sits for a while it quickly mellows out so I guess this falls under the RDWHAHB principle. We cooled 10.5 gallons into the fermenters. Also I increase the dried Chipotle peppers to 10 from 4. There are hints of the flavor there but heavily masked by the sugars. Hopefully these will shine through after Primary and will balance well with the 10# of whole mashed cherries, 10 oz of Cocoa Nibs and 4 scraped vanilla beans, all resting in Rum waiting for secondary. The drained off rum will go into the barrel while we wait for secondary to finish.
Oh yeah, to go with this demonic, devil beer theme, we even added each a drop of blood into the boil (my wife's idea). Will let you all know how it progresses.
Oh yeah, to go with this demonic, devil beer theme, we even added each a drop of blood into the boil (my wife's idea). Will let you all know how it progresses.
Update Day 3 - both the Yeast Irish and Scottish Ale yeasts role to the challenge of 1.112 SG wort straight from a single smack pack, no starter. They took a while to gear up for battle and propagate but once they got going, it started blowing off a gallon or so into my bucket. I was planning a second 3G batch with steeped grains and LME on the stovetop for topping the Rum barrel. Otherwise so far so good, and hoping for strong attenuation in Round 1.
