OFFICIAL Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout Clone

[1Mainebrew]

I did not add any of the port to the beer that had been soaking into the oak- cubes only. I did add some port to the keg directly too but none that was soaking the oak. The result was beautiful.

 

[aarondl]

I'm still confused about the sparging. It sounds like, from the original directions, that I drain about 1/3 of the wort, then start sparging until I have my 6.5 gallons. Is this correct?

Another question: if I want to resparge after I'm finished getting the KtG wort, what hops would people recommend for that batch? Has anyone made a second, smaller beer from their batch?

 

[smagee]

I'm not entirely sure what his original instructions intended, but I sparged it just like any other batch: mash, drain, sparge, etc.

Several of us have done the gyle style of pulling another smaller beer out of the remains. Mine was a failure, but several posts in the previous pages reported better results. Generally it seems safe to try for a dry stout, so if you go that route, I'd use a noble hop (EKG or Fuggles would both be good) for just a single bittering addition. Don't aim to get more than 4 gallons or so out of the second though, or else it'll be too thin to hold up (unless you supplement it with more base malt or extract).

 

[1Mainebrew]

Second batch of Kate in the primary with a Partigyle Schwarzbier in the lager primary!

 

[dougdecinces]

I also took 1 gallon and put it onto cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla, and a couple dried chiles.

Please tell me how this turns out. I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing as you.

 

[Oldsock]

Please tell me how this turns out. I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing as you.

I just bottled it, tasted really nice. I’ve done this once before, with a Breakfast Stout clone and it was once of my favorite flavored stouts.

 

[smagee]

Finally got around to kegging this today only to crack it open and see a (small) lacto infection developing. Not really the best way to finish off a workday, but c'est la vie. I'll just have to let it ride in the keg and see how things develop; gravity has been stable for over a month now and was still static tonight, so it doesn't seem to have had much time to do anything significant. We'll see if it drops in the keg over the next few months.

I bottled a couple and stuck them in isolation just to see if any kerplode so I can tell if the infection's making any progress. Hell, maybe it'll turn out tasty at the end.

 

[dougdecinces]

I am trying to set up my water to brew this beer and have run into a major hurdle. My default pH for this beer is 4.7. I have added enough baking soda to push the upper limits of my sodium content, and I'm still sitting around 4.95 for my pH. How do I fix this?

I also tried calculating for slaked lime, but my calcium values shoot through the roof with little benefit to my pH.

 

[Batinse]

I can't help you on pH levels, but maybe my bump can.

My question is a similar to one posed upthread about the lack of affordable Carafa III on the West Coast of Canada. Has anyone made it without the Carafa? As far as I understand, it just adds colour and no flavour, so I'm thinking about just omitting it--no chocolate/black patent substitute, just outright leaving it off the grain bill. The software tells me I'll still have 35 colour, which, while not black as midnight in a moonless sky, is still pret-ty black.

Thoughts? And any other tasting notes on this ridiculous beer?

 

[Gwitz]

As far as the dark malts go, my trend has been to add them half way through the mash on just about every dark beer that i do. This gives a very smooth chocolate flavor with very little bitterness. I recently did a RIS in this manner, not quite a kate but very much inspired by it. I just brewed it a couple days ago, but the wort tasted absolutely amazing. Another thing i did was use some homemade very dark candi syrup, gave me some more color and an amazing raisin flavor which i think will play very nicely, also it should hopefully dry it a bit, although i dont know how fermentable my syrup is.

 

[smagee]

Carafa will definitely add flavor--a very heavy roast aspect that's hard to substitute. Carafa Special (dehusked) adds mostly color, so that might be mixing you up.

Removing it completely would alter things, although it wouldn't necessarily make for a bad beer. You could give it a shot, although I'd just up the amount of chocolate and black patent to compensate for the loss, myself. I doubt it'd be a huge difference-maker regardless, but it'd be closer than ignoring it wholesale.

As for taste, my batch is conditioning at the moment, and currently has a nice oaky flavor that's a bit strong, with an almost buttery mouthfeel (which I hope subsides with carbonation and time). Still hard to judge for now, but once I open up a spot in the kegerator, I'll have a better idea.

 

[Batinse]

Thanks for the replies--I'm intrigued at the idea of adding dark malts half way through the mash, but unfortunately that's already out of the question. I've got the malt already (sans carafa), and it's all mixed in together.

@smagee The recipe does call for carafa 3 special (dehusked), so am I right about the colour? At any rate, since I've never made the beer before, I'm not sure I'll be "missing" anything, so I'm leaning towards going ahead without it.

The other option is buying a March Pump with one pound of Carafa 3 Special, which will make the $21 shipping fee (flat rate with or without the pump!) more manageable.

 

[smagee]

Hmm... I must have been reading the pm version, which doesn't appear to specify dehusked. You'd privacy be fine to omit it, in that case.

 

[gingerdawg]

I brewed a 2.5 gallon batch of this 3 weeks ago. Interestingly, I grabbed non-Dehusked Carafa III when I was in the grain room at MW. I realized my mistake, and grabbed DH Carafa III. Since it was already bagged, and like 80 cents worth of grain, I just bought both. So, I have a half pound of non-dehusked Carafa III laying around that I could mail to you.

 

[heywolfie1015]

Curious to get people's opinion on a little SNAFU I had. Went to the LHBS and bought two packs of yeast for a starter. I get home and I have a package of 1056...and a package of 1084 (Irish Ale). Now, as far as mess-ups go, accidentally buying 1084 for a stout probably is low on the list, but I'm curious what y'all think about me combining 1056 and 1084 in the same batch? Also curious to hear what people think the 1084 might do to the end beer.

 

[dougdecinces]

I am trying to set up my water to brew this beer and have run into a major hurdle. My default pH for this beer is 4.7. I have added enough baking soda to push the upper limits of my sodium content, and I'm still sitting around 4.95 for my pH. How do I fix this?

I also tried calculating for slaked lime, but my calcium values shoot through the roof with little benefit to my pH.

Anyone?

 

[Batinse]

You'll probably have better luck asking a standalone question in another thread. Not a lot of people check these threads for discussion, and your question is pretty specific. I don't worry about ph levels at all, for example.

 

[heywolfie1015]

So, I'm pretty frustrated. I had absolutely horrendous efficiency yesterday when I brewed this. Came in at 1.074. Oof. I'll report back on how it turns out.

 

[1Mainebrew]

Don't worry my efficiency was in the tubes both times I've made it, but it was still the best beer I've ever tasted (and yes, I have had the real Kate!)

 

[bottlebomber]

So, I'm pretty frustrated. I had absolutely horrendous efficiency yesterday when I brewed this. Came in at 1.074. Oof. I'll report back on how it turns out.

What kind of system do you have? I've found that you need to take a huge preboil off these huge grainbills and do up to a 120 minute boil to get what you need from them...

 

[gingerdawg]

My efficiency kinda sucked too. About 1.089 with a 75 minute boil. Next time I'll bump it up to a 90 minute boil.

 

[heywolfie1015]

What kind of system do you have? I've found that you need to take a huge preboil off these huge grainbills and do up to a 120 minute boil to get what you need from them...

Rectangular Igloo cooler mash tun with a homemade manifold, and I batch sparge. This was my biggest batch ever and definitely my worst efficiency ever. The mash tun had more than enough space, but, for some reason, the brewing gods weren't with me.

 

[Biscostew]

I also had horrible efficiency 51%, added some dme to bring me up to a SG of 1.096, going to rack to secondary tomorrow and get my first taste, very excited after all the rave reviews this recipe has gotten.

 

[heywolfie1015]

For those who had low efficiency, did you batch sparge? The more I read on HBT, the more I think that is the culprit here. I'm now thinking of doing this next time as a hybrid AG-extract batch. Do AG with only 10 lbs. of pale malt (and all those other malts), and then add 6 lbs. of pale LME to the boil.

 

[1Mainebrew]

The reason for low efficiency on big beers when we batch sparge is that we have more strike water, less sparge water (less rinsing). If we sparge more and boil longer I would bet we would get better efficiency.

 

[mountainman13]

Just mashed this one in. Gonna let it sit over night. Smells great already.

 

[RitsiGators]

I second larger boils if you batch sparge. I did a barleywine that i added another couple gallons to my sparge water and I actually got around 9 points better efficiency than i normally do. Ended up with a 1.122 OG....

 

[sheeshomatic]

It's not really about batch sparging or fly sparging. It's about water volumes and solubility.

Think of it this way - You've got a pint glass of warm water (this represents your total water volume - mash+sparge). Take 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and dissolve it in that water. If you work at it, stir it, let it sit, stir some more, you can most or just about all of it in solution. That represents a smallish beer, say 4% abv. Now take another pint glass of warm water and dump a 1/2 cup of brown sugar in it and try to dissolve it.

You'll dissolve a lot more in that second glass just because of the greater volume of sugar, but you will leave far more undissolved brown sugar in the bottom of that pint glass. That's efficiency (or lack thereof). How would you get that extra sugar in solution? You'd add a whole bunch more hot water, that's how. You may or may not remember learning about solubility in elementary school, but at a given temperature, water will only accept a finite amount of dissolved solids. Since we can't really mash or sparge at higher temperatures, we've got a hard ceiling for SG at 170 degres. I'd guess it's somewhere around 1.085 judging by the first runnings coming off most beers.

Fly sparging can get you a couple extra points just by the way of dilution over time, but overall if you are making a BIG beer like a Barleywine or RIS, etc, you need to increase sparge water to give the sugar somewhere to go. This of course, results in a longer boil to get rid of all that excess water.

 

[CidahMastah]

For the guys who tried this on nitro - would you recommend it or just sticking with CO2?

Also, what are people waiting on average to serve? I am trying to decide if I should let this rest for months, or dive into it (brewed mine on 11-13-2011 and just racked it off this weekend).

I didn't get my OG because I dropped my hydrometer, but I think I was super low on efficiency. I used math to figure 80% attenuation and therefore I think OG 1.090 and FG 1.020 (FG was actual, OG was estimated)

One thing I did not have was the dehusked carafa. So I added the some about of dark malt matching the SRM, but only put it into the mash after the first batch sparge. Hopefully that doesn't screw too much up.

 

[gingerdawg]

From the orininal post:
"Put into conditioning for about 5 or 6 months and you'll have an amazing imperial stout."

I'd say this beer needs to sit.
I brewed around the same time as you did, and I have it in secondary, on Port soaked toasted oak cubes, and I don't plan to bottle it for a couple of months. Then a couple of months in the bottle.....