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OFFICIAL Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout Clone

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Well I went down to the basement tonight to put some labels on an buffalo sweat clone tonight, and heard what I thought was the sound of glass falling softly to the ground....low and behold it was, had 2 bottle bombs in my KtG in the last week or so I guess, the beer and boxes were all dry.

I guess this turd decided to drop a few more points in the bottles after sitting at FG for 2 months in secondary.

Not happy, going to try and sanitize all the bottles, and open in a bottling bucket and rebottle. I'll probably oxidize the hell out of them in the process but short of dumping I don't know what else to do. I don't think that they are infected since they taste great.

Any one ever done this with a batch? I doubt I can crack them without massive spewage of beer/foam

Save your beer, don't open them. Take a look at the link and pasteurize the bottles.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/
 
I like the additions for color and base malt. Personally I'd half the oats and wheat but try it your way first. It will boost the body and head, not to mention upping the OG but .005-007 points minimum (from the 2 row).


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After looking at some other oatmeal stout recipes I will probably take your advice and cut the quantities in half for the oats and wheat. If I raise the 2 row to 3 lbs. and am able to get conversion from those I should be able to get about .010 - .012 additional points. I would rather have a little more and have to add more water than a little less and have to add DME.
More beer is always better. :ban:
I must say after a little over two years of brewing, this brew is making me nervous. I'm a perfectionist by nature and I have spent months planning this brew. I'm mostly concerned about KTG but now adding the partigyle has added another level of excitement to the day. Oh well, barring any emergencies this will be taking place this Saturday morning.
 
what was FG and what yeast did you use? I've had a double batch aging since august, 5 gal in a secondary, 5 in a big 40L primary bucket. both went aprox 1100->1024ish with a huge US05 starter/slurry repitch. Planning on aging 60 bottles indefinitely and would hate to have bombs occur.

Never done the whole rebottling thing myself but would be super paranoid about oxidizing it all, especially while repouring into a bottling bucket. I guess if you purged it with co2, but even then...


My OG was 1.100. Pitch a pretty solid starter of 1450. 2L, Decant, then stepped up again to 2L.

My FG was 1.025

Brewed it 7/5 or so.

Bottled 9/4
 
I partigyled this recipe and my numbers were 1.049-1.010 with wlp090. It was less SRM for sure, but flavor was awesome at bottling on Sunday!

I added nothing to the grain bill. Came to 5.2% abv and ibu's in the mid 30's.

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I'm interested in doing this also. What was your preboil gravity? I'm not sure how to do all the math, but I figured I should shoot for somewhere around 1.035 to finish at 1.049.


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I don't think I'm going to take the change of pasteurizing.



I've had 2 blow so putting them in 170ish water is only going to increase the pressure and drive more CO2 out of solution further making it worse IMO.



They are gushers when I open them making it almost impossible to drink


I would crack theology to vent the gas and then refasten them. Chill them first to drive more co2 into solution to prevent them from gushing while doing this.


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I would crack theology to vent the gas and then refasten them. Chill them first to drive more co2 into solution to prevent them from gushing while doing this.


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Exactly. Get them almost frozen, crack until they start to foam, then recap. A few options to remidy the crappy situation, but dumping them back into a bottling bucket is a guaranteed way to ruin them.
 
I would crack theology to vent the gas and then refasten them. Chill them first to drive more co2 into solution to prevent them from gushing while doing this.


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Exactly. Get them almost frozen, crack until they start to foam, then recap. A few options to remidy the crappy situation, but dumping them back into a bottling bucket is a guaranteed way to ruin them.



Alright guys I'll try it this weekend my kegerator will do -20 so maybe 20 degrees or so since its 10 abv


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I've seen a great deal of information on ageing with oak cubes ranging from a couple weeks to a year. I'm brewing this on Saturday which gives a little time to get this figured out, but I would like to soak the cubes for the length of time in primary.
I want to bulk age in secondary on medium toast French oak cubes. I will have a split 5.5 gallon batch with 1 ounce of cubes soaked in bourbon and 1 ounce soaked in Tawney Port.
Once the beer has been aged I plan to bottle, wax and condition for 6 months minimum. So how long should this sit on the oak?
 
There are many ways to do it, but if it's fresh toasted oak cubes, just a couple weeks from my experience, but maybe longer if it's only an ounce. Over oaking in will ruin a beer.. trust me it sucks!
 
Alright guys I'll try it this weekend my kegerator will do -20 so maybe 20 degrees or so since its 10 abv


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Someone suggested to me in another thread, which I've since shared in a couple others, is to open them all the way, cover them with sanitized foil, and let all of the CO2 out and then re-prime. If yours still gush like crazy even after cooling them way down, that process might not work, but I caught mine early since I knew I had overprimed, and they are in the process of re-carbing now. This method takes the guesswork out of lightly opening them and re-capping, since you'll never know what you've ended up with until you're ready to drink them. You might still have gushers or it might have gone too far the other way and ended up with undercarbed bottles.
 
I've seen a great deal of information on ageing with oak cubes ranging from a couple weeks to a year. I'm brewing this on Saturday which gives a little time to get this figured out, but I would like to soak the cubes for the length of time in primary.
I want to bulk age in secondary on medium toast French oak cubes. I will have a split 5.5 gallon batch with 1 ounce of cubes soaked in bourbon and 1 ounce soaked in Tawney Port.
Once the beer has been aged I plan to bottle, wax and condition for 6 months minimum. So how long should this sit on the oak?

That's about what I did, soaked 1 medium french oak spiral in tawny port for the length of my primary. Just added the spiral to the secondary. I drank the port. Damn tasty.

I used 1 mason jar worth of port for 2 spirals (made 10 gallons), that information may help with your ratios.
 
That's about what I did, soaked 1 medium french oak spiral in tawny port for the length of my primary. Just added the spiral to the secondary. I drank the port. Damn tasty.

I used 1 mason jar worth of port for 2 spirals (made 10 gallons), that information may help with your ratios.

So how long did you bulk age on the oak? By taste, set amount of time or what?
 
So how long did you bulk age on the oak? By taste, set amount of time or what?

About 5 months. Honestly, I just tossed the oak into the bottom of the carboy, didn't have a way to remove it. May be dumb luck, but I was happy with it. I read through the whole thread beforehand, it seemed that most people let it sit in there the whole time as well. Finished product has more oak than port, but neither is overpowering. Without knowing it is there, you probably wouldn't think about the port at all. The oak is a nice note underneath.
 
I'm interested in doing this also. What was your preboil gravity? I'm not sure how to do all the math, but I figured I should shoot for somewhere around 1.035 to finish at 1.049.

I never measure preboil gravity but I did finish at 1.049 exactly. I've thought about doing it but always talk myself out of it lol! I actually need to start so I can more accurately know what I need to add (DME/ sugar/ etc) to get to the proper OG.

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If using an 8" French oak medium toast spiral soaked in port, how long would you soak in a 2.5 gallon batch?



Primary: Maibock, Helles (first partigyle batch), Oatmeal Brown Ale
Secondary:
On tap: Orange Belgian IPA, Turbo IIPA, Mojave Red, Black Magic Stout
Bottled: Dwarven Gold Ale, La Fin Du Mond clone, Hefeweizen
 
FWIW, I used oak chips, toasted them myself, and soaked in port for several weeks (I used a prolonged secondary). I then added the port only. It turned out pretty well. I don't have access to cubes (oddly) or spirals at my LHBS and don't order online a lot because they have everything else I need. I would do this again if I needed to but I think the oak chip toasting is crucial.


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Someone suggested to me in another thread, which I've since shared in a couple others, is to open them all the way, cover them with sanitized foil, and let all of the CO2 out and then re-prime. If yours still gush like crazy even after cooling them way down, that process might not work, but I caught mine early since I knew I had overprimed, and they are in the process of re-carbing now. This method takes the guesswork out of lightly opening them and re-capping, since you'll never know what you've ended up with until you're ready to drink them. You might still have gushers or it might have gone too far the other way and ended up with undercarbed bottles.


Ended up opening them and pouring them gently into a bkting bucket. Rebottled them, hard telling if they'll they'll recarb. Took a Gravity reading and they've dropped 10 points to 1.015 wtf?


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After looking at some other oatmeal stout recipes I will probably take your advice and cut the quantities in half for the oats and wheat. If I raise the 2 row to 3 lbs. and am able to get conversion from those I should be able to get about .010 - .012 additional points. I would rather have a little more and have to add more water than a little less and have to add DME.
More beer is always better. :ban:
I must say after a little over two years of brewing, this brew is making me nervous. I'm a perfectionist by nature and I have spent months planning this brew. I'm mostly concerned about KTG but now adding the partigyle has added another level of excitement to the day. Oh well, barring any emergencies this will be taking place this Saturday morning.

OMG, what a day! KTG brewed with an OG of 26* Plato. (1.110 OG) and ended up with 5.75 gallon to the fermenter. I'm amazed! I went through the original recipe posting and tweaked the grain bill and hop schedule to match perfectly on the percentages and the ibu's
Added the balance of the specialties and hops I had purchased plus 2 oz. Williamette, 2lbs of 2-row, .5lbs flaked wheat, .5 lbs Breiss Black Prinz and a lb of flaked oats to the original grains. Partigyled a 1.057 OG 5.75 gallon Oatmeal stout and mashed @ 153*f and maintained 5.4PH.
All in all a great day. Two beers now in the fermenter.
1 oz. of medium toast French oak in port and 1 oz. in bourbon waiting for secondary. Plan to split between 2 - 3 gallon carboys for bulk ageing after a 21day primary.
2nd runnings should be a 21 day primary and bottle for a nice 5 to 5.5% ABV oatmeal stout.
 
OMG, what a day! KTG brewed with an OG of 26* Plato. (1.110 OG) and ended up with 5.75 gallon to the fermenter. I'm amazed! I went through the original recipe posting and tweaked the grain bill and hop schedule to match perfectly on the percentages and the ibu's

Added the balance of the specialties and hops I had purchased plus 2 oz. Williamette, 2lbs of 2-row, .5lbs flaked wheat, .5 lbs Breiss Black Prinz and a lb of flaked oats to the original grains. Partigyled a 1.057 OG 5.75 gallon Oatmeal stout and mashed @ 153*f and maintained 5.4PH.

All in all a great day. Two beers now in the fermenter.

1 oz. of medium toast French oak in port and 1 oz. in bourbon waiting for secondary. Plan to split between 2 - 3 gallon carboys for bulk ageing after a 21day primary.

2nd runnings should be a 21 day primary and bottle for a nice 5 to 5.5% ABV oatmeal stout.


Sounds great! Looks like you hit all of your OG's a bit on the high side but I like that because I like to go big or go home.


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Sounds great! Looks like you hit all of your OG's a bit on the high side but I like that because I like to go big or go home.


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I thought about that too, but while I formulated and researched this recipe I found that the 26* Plato and 1.104 SG didn't match. 1.104 is approx. 24.75* Plato and 26* Plato is 1.110. So I planned the batch based on the Plato description in the original description from OP.
Really hoping this turns out good. Already at high krausen and picking up steam. Sitting in ferm chamber @ 62*F.
 
Well the second runnings came out great. Bottled this past Saturday and the green beer tasted awesome. Ended up with 58 bottles at 5%.
 
Just bottled this! I have 46 bottles of a marvelous, caramel and roasty flavored brew. Hit my FG spot on at 1.018, down from 1.092 OG. Settled at 10.4% abv but the alcohol zing is very mild on the end. Now it's going to age til April when I'll crack one open on my anniversary (4/28). I'm very excited!
 
Freaking love it, just brewed this yesterday. Got just over 9 gal into the fermenter, so that 8 gal can go into my oak barrel, my barrel is pretty clean ( no whiskey left) so I think I'll throw a bottle if port in there for a week or two before the beer. Then 4-5 months in the barrel, then another 6 months in SS, and loving it next Christmas !



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I would dump the port first, as a full fifth is way too much for 8 gallons. Why are you putting it in stainless steel after the barrel?
 
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, dump ( and drink) the port.
I thought I would age in barrel while it's cool in my basement, then by summer rack to keg and age in a fridge for a while longer.


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Rocking 12.5 gallons of this Tuesday. Had some lautering issues the last time.
I'm usually around 75%, dropped my recipe to 65%. We will see how all the changes work. Going manifold instead of the braid in my 120qt cooler. Looking forward to this brew day.
 
Just racked this onto the oak. Added bourbon soaked oak and port soaked oak to 2 co2 flushed 3 gallon carboys. Racked 2.5 gallons to Port and 2.75 gallons to bourbon. FG was 1.026. Primary for 5 weeks. The hydrometer sample tasted really good. I expected it to be hot from the amount of alcohol but it wasn't. This should be a great beer.
 
I got my grain bill, hops and yeast today for a 5 gallon batch. Doing a 1.5 L starter on a stir plate with two packs of 1056. After primary, I plan on splitting the batch into two, three gallon better bottles. One will get an oak spiral soaked in port, the other oak chips soaked in bourbon. Look forward to this batch.

My concerns going in...

Step mash or no? With 11 malts I want to make sure I get full conversion.

I think I will do a mash out.

Blow off tube for sure.

Basement is about 64 degrees, going to put into a water bath and then use an aquarium heater to raise the temp up to about 70 after the first few days of fermentation.
 
So, for the ones that are bottle conditioning this. How are you priming? Rehydrated yeast? Type and amount? and to what volume (2.2)? Results?
 
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