Forgive me, Im new to this, but here is the lowdown.
My buddy and I have a Russian Imperial Stout in primary right now. It's been there since September 25. This beer is MASSIVE, which is what we were going for, but there was a miscalculation in the recipe.
This is the 2nd RIS we've done. The first one was fairly huge at an OG of 1.101, but it was all grain. We wanted to go bigger with this one. We shot for an OG of 1.200. We researched a lot beforehand and decided to go with WLP1099 yeast. We brewed an Irish Red as a starter, bottled that and pitched directly on the yeast cake.
Brewing process for this one is all-grain for the most part, but this one had (not looking at the recipe) ~5lb of Pale Malt Extract, 2lb Sugar, 4lb Honey (into primary) to increase fermentability.
Brew day: 8 Gallon, 2 step mash (intended) with steps at 144 (1hr) and 155 (1hr). Mash tun got stuck in the process of moving to the second step and we ended up at 155 for 25-30 minutes before mash out. We did an extended boil down to 5.5 Gallons (Here is where our miscalculation was. We didnt account for the increased boil time. It was an oversight, we knew we needed to.)
Basically, we WAY overshot our already ridiculous OG ending at about 150% (according to beersmith, 1.274).
The wort was added to the primary in 1 Gallon stages with the Honey. Fermentation was slow from the start, but measured gravity readings showed it dropping. We seem to be stuck at 1.120. After going back and modifying the recipe to what actually happened, the current projected ABV is ~20% (And it DEFINITELY smells like it) and final ABV would be a whopping and impossible 38%. This is not what we were going for. We were shooting for around 20%.
My question is this. We were thinking of possibly brewing another tiny stout (somewhere in the sub-1.060 range, with less dark specialty grains) blending for a 10 Gallon secondary and pitching another starter (Champagne?). Forgive me, I don't have the calcs in front of me, but I think this should put the secondary somewhere around these values to start OG of 1.090 and abv ~10%. WLP1099 can handle those conditions no problem, not sure about Champagne. If we can get that going and down to ~1.030 FG it should yield ~18%. This was an expensive brew and we'd hate to lose it, its clean, no off flavors at all, its just more suited to pancakes currently...
Opinions? Ideas? Please help!
Oh, and its getting Oaked w/bourbon afterwards.
My buddy and I have a Russian Imperial Stout in primary right now. It's been there since September 25. This beer is MASSIVE, which is what we were going for, but there was a miscalculation in the recipe.
This is the 2nd RIS we've done. The first one was fairly huge at an OG of 1.101, but it was all grain. We wanted to go bigger with this one. We shot for an OG of 1.200. We researched a lot beforehand and decided to go with WLP1099 yeast. We brewed an Irish Red as a starter, bottled that and pitched directly on the yeast cake.
Brewing process for this one is all-grain for the most part, but this one had (not looking at the recipe) ~5lb of Pale Malt Extract, 2lb Sugar, 4lb Honey (into primary) to increase fermentability.
Brew day: 8 Gallon, 2 step mash (intended) with steps at 144 (1hr) and 155 (1hr). Mash tun got stuck in the process of moving to the second step and we ended up at 155 for 25-30 minutes before mash out. We did an extended boil down to 5.5 Gallons (Here is where our miscalculation was. We didnt account for the increased boil time. It was an oversight, we knew we needed to.)
Basically, we WAY overshot our already ridiculous OG ending at about 150% (according to beersmith, 1.274).
The wort was added to the primary in 1 Gallon stages with the Honey. Fermentation was slow from the start, but measured gravity readings showed it dropping. We seem to be stuck at 1.120. After going back and modifying the recipe to what actually happened, the current projected ABV is ~20% (And it DEFINITELY smells like it) and final ABV would be a whopping and impossible 38%. This is not what we were going for. We were shooting for around 20%.
My question is this. We were thinking of possibly brewing another tiny stout (somewhere in the sub-1.060 range, with less dark specialty grains) blending for a 10 Gallon secondary and pitching another starter (Champagne?). Forgive me, I don't have the calcs in front of me, but I think this should put the secondary somewhere around these values to start OG of 1.090 and abv ~10%. WLP1099 can handle those conditions no problem, not sure about Champagne. If we can get that going and down to ~1.030 FG it should yield ~18%. This was an expensive brew and we'd hate to lose it, its clean, no off flavors at all, its just more suited to pancakes currently...
Opinions? Ideas? Please help!
Oh, and its getting Oaked w/bourbon afterwards.
