Lets Make The Abyss

[poptarts]

I want to clone "The Abyss" from Deschutes.
Ive looked around and no one appears to have the recipe down and those who have tried to brew it in the past never respond to threads. So I want to brew it and hope at least a few of you on here do to so we can have our own special reserve of the stuff.
Like all deschutes brews, they offer some starting help on their site.
http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/brew/the-abyss
===========================
SPECIFICS

Recipe type: All grain
Batch size: 5 U.S. gallons
Original gravity: 1.100
Final gravity: 1.018
Boil time: 90 minutes
Fermentation temp: 65° F
Yeast type: English Ale

MALT

Roasted Barley
Black barley
Chocolate
De-Bitter Black Malt
Pale
Wheat

HOPS

Millennium
Northern Brewer
Nugget
Styrian

EXTRA

Molasses
Brewers Licorice
Cherry Bark
Vanilla Beans
========================

So based on that information I attempted to create a recipe as a place to start and before I brew it up I was hoping that some of you had input or any suggestions to offer. Here is the recipe that I came up with.

Type: All Grain Date: 11/30/2013 (Hopefully)
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal Brewer: Sam
Boil Size: 8.82 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
End of Boil Volume 5.82 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage


Ingredients
Amt
16 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 68.8 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.5 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Wheat (1.7 SRM) Grain 3 6.5 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.4 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 5 5.4 %
12.0 oz Belgian Debittered Black Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 6 3.2 %
1 lbs Molasses (80.0 SRM) Sugar 7 4.3 %

1.02 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 39.8 IBUs
0.51 oz Millenium [14.25 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 16.8 IBUs
0.51 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 2.0 min Hop 10 1.1 IBUs
0.51 oz Styrian Goldings [5.40 %] - Boil 2.0 min Hop 11 0.7 IBUs

1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) (Starter)

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.100 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.019 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 10.8 %
Bitterness: 58.4 IBUs

I also plan on adding the cherry bark, vanilla and Brewers Licorice during secondary Any input would be great.

 

[mbobhat]

Never had access to it, but would be fun to try. That's a huge beer, I would probably add to a previous yeast cake. Could be fun to do. what type of yeast are you thinking? Oh I see dry english.

Also, I could see boiling this longer than 90 minutes. It can be tough to get that high OG you could just use first runnings and mash 25lb and use seconds to make a smaller beer that would shorten your boil time.

 

[poptarts]

I did just make a 19lb grain bill for a pumpkin beer and was around 69% efficiency so Im assuming with it set to 65% I should be able to pull that off since its a 90min boil and I can sparge with an extra gallon of water.
And Yea im a little worried about the yeast, I don't exactly have a cake of it floating around anywhere, do you think if i just made like a big started and just kept making it bigger over a period of like 2 weeks that would work okay?

 

[mbobhat]

You can brew a smaller batch first, or just use a S!@# ton of dry english yeast. You can add a bunch of yeast with the dry method, as opposed to buying say 4 pkg of liquid yeast. This is imperial/barley wine category, so all yeast calculations go out the window. It is the harsh environment with so much sugar that yeast are not gonna do so well, so you def don't wanna underpitch! It would be hard to overpitch.

The thing is your starter volume most likely won't be big enough to grow a sufficient size unless you use an empty carboy, then you might as well brew a batch of beer.

I will try and talk myself into this...make TWO big ASS beers, first runnings the BIG one, and second runnings a 1.050 stout

 

[poptarts]

Looks like this will need ~370 billion cells to finish and each pack as ~85 give or take on freshness. Calculating out looks like with 2 packs and a 1 gallon starter would be minimum.

 

[poptarts]

Ok so I think the plan is for me to make a 2 gallon or so smash beer out of otter, then just use that cake.

 

[mbobhat]

I have 50 lbs of weyermen pilsner that I got at LHBS grain sale that may do me as a base malt. Would you say this is a really thick stout or more of an american stout with the hop schedule?

 

[poptarts]

I would say its more thick.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/63/34420

 

[poptarts]

This is the beer I decided to make to make a yeast cake for the recipe, basically a smash beer and just uses the leftover hops. so really only need an extra 4 pounds of base. Should be a pretty generic IPA but at almost no extra cost so cant go to wrong. Cant decide if i wanna call it "The Abyssal Portal" or "SMashing Otters".

Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Volume 2.18 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 2.00 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Ingredients

0.40 Items Campten (Mash 0.0 mins) Water Agent 1 -
4 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 100.0 %
0.50 oz Millenium [14.25 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 3 48.0 IBUs
0.40 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 4 -
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 5 9.4 IBUs
0.50 oz Styrian Goldings [5.40 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 6 1.3 IBUs

1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [35.49 ml] Yeast 7 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.3 %
Bitterness: 58.7 IBUs
Est Color: 4.9 SRM

 

[jbsg02]

That seems like a lot of Black Malt too me, but I'm not an expert on Imperial Stout. I did however make a russial imperial stout yesterday and only used 8oz of black malt in a 5 gallon batch. I did the BYO Stone russian imperial stout clone

 

[poptarts]

Yea I guess its fairly large amount but its only 6.5% but maybe thats still too much. There are a couple of stout recipes that ive seen that use more than I have but not many of them so maybe ill tone it down to like 1lb and up wheat to like 2lb? what do you think?

 

[poptarts]

Current recipe after a few tweaks


Brewing Steps: The Abyss
American-Style Imperial Stout
Type: All Grain Date: 2/1/2000
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 8.82 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
Final Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Prepare for Brewing

Total Water Needed: 11.46 gal

Water Prep
1.00 Items Campten (Mash 0.0 mins)

Mash or Steep Grains

16 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 70.7 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Wheat (1.7 SRM) Grain 4 5.4 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.4 %
1 lbs Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.3 %
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.3 %
12.0 oz Belgian Debittered Black Malt (500.0 SRM Grain 7 3.3 %
8.0 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 8 2.2 %

Mash Steps
Mash In Add 7.15 gal of water at 164.8 F 150.0 F 60 min
Drain mash tun, Batch sparge with 1 steps (4.31gal) of 168.0 F water

Boil Wort

Add water to achieve boil volume of 8.82 gal
Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.063 SG

Boil Ingredients
1.00 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 39.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Millenium [14.25 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 10 16.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 11 9.8 IBUs
1 lbs Molasses [Boil for15 min](80.0 SRM) Extract 12 4.3 %
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 13 -
0.50 oz Styrian Goldings [5.40 %] - Boil 2.0 min Hop 14 0.7 IBUs

Estimated Post Boil Vol: 5.82 gal and Est Post Boil Gravity: 1.100 SG

Fermentation Ingredients
1.0 pkg Abyssal Portal Yeast Cake (White Labs #WLP007)(see SMASH Recipie)

Primary Fermentation (14.00 days at 67.0 F ending at 67.0 F)
Secondary Fermentation (28.00 days at 67.0 F ending at 67.0 F)

Secondary Ingredients
1.00 oz Cherry Bark (Secondary 14.0 days)
2.00 oz Brewers Licorice (Secondary 14.0 days)

Dry Hop/Bottling Ingredients
4.00 oz Vinalla Extract (Bottling 0.0 mins) Flavo
Carbonation: Bottle with 3.93 oz Table Sugar
Age beer for 35.00 days at 65.0 F (minimum)

 

[poptarts]

Adjusted it to be .5oz of Brewers Licorice for the last 10 of the boil, and removed it from the secondary. Also debating on doubling the amount of goldings.

 

[nu2brewing]

Did you get around to brewing this? Any thoughts on how it came out?

 

[poptarts]

Jumped to a thread that already existed about this beer. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=108227
In short I my ingredients should be here Monday.