Mega Stout

[erik]

Hi All,

Hoping to get some ideas on an idea for a high alcohol stout. I know it might affect the taste, but a buddy is giving me a 60L fermenter, all he asks for for is couple of cartons of high Alc Stout in return.

So this is my thoughts so far. For a 45 - 50 litre batch

3 X 3kg ESB Stout
4kg Dex
1kg Dried Dark Malt Extract
1kg Lactose
1kg Brown Sugar
600g Dark Malt - steeped

Super High Gravity Yeast WLP099 X 2

Is this stupid or what? Any thoughts appreciated.

Cheers

[Trizza]

All I can recommend is to possibly cut back on the Dext and replace with more malt, as one of my high alcoholic brews hasn't got much body from lack of malt and really suffers because of that. Remember, for the malt that you do add, you're going to want to add in more bittering hops to counteract the extra sweetness from adding the malt.

The Brewcraft SG estimator reckons that it's going to start out at 1119(50L Volume), which is probably the numbers I'd want to be looking at if making this brew. I'd swap the 4kg of Dext for 5-6kg of Liquid Malt Extract, and then add bittering hops to balance.

Looks like an incredible brew tho...

Trizza.

[velophile]

Hi erik

I'd look to build a good stout recipe in 'standard' batch size, then scale it up.

I'd drop the lactose & make it all malt. If you are going to steep any specialty grain then go the whole hog & use some choc, roast, black & maybe a little crystal.

Have a search for Russian Imperial Stout recipes.

[heathen]

hi, i am in awe of your drinking ability , one pint of that would put me down, seriously though, this is one i do in the 50 litre keg
3 cans beermakers stout, (any good can will do)
3 1kg cans morgans wheat malt
1.5 kgs ddme
500 gms chocolate grain steeped 20 mins
600 gms roast barley grain steeped with the chocolate
45 gms goldings hops
500gms lactose
3 satchets of safale yeast
make up to 50 litres
5 pints used to have me asleep on the couch by 8 30, but it was smooth as silk and creamy.
regards, heathen

[erik]

Cheers All,

I'll substitute some with more malt, add some hops & increase the range of grains. Off to the HBS on Sat. Will let you know how I go.
I'm intending on ageing this for several months. I suppose I also wanted to experiment with the capabilities of the WLP099 - my first liquid yeast.

e

[erik]

oops substitute dex with malt...

[Chris]

Yeah, I would say malt over dex, and a fairly high hopping rate.

[wildschwein]

Speaking of mega stouts check out this sucker I am thinking about doing soon. Predicted alc content is 3.7% due to the high levels of unfermentables:

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Coopers Stout Enhanced
Brewer: Brewlord
Style: Sweet Stout
TYPE: Kit + Steep + Extract
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Size: Small
Estimated OG: 1.037 SG
Estimated Color: 33.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 51.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 40 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
0.50 kg Dark Dry Malt Extract (17.5 SRM) Dry Extract 14.1 %
1.70 kg Coopers Stout (65.9 SRM) Extract 47.9 %
0.05 kg Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 7.0 %
0.25 kg Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 7.0 %
0.20 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 5.6 %
0.10 kg Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.8 %
0.05 kg Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.4 %
30.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (40 min) Hops 13.9 IBU
0.25 kg Corn Syrup (1.0 SRM) Sugar 7.0 %
0.25 kg Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 7.0 %
18.93 L London, England (hard) Water
1 Pkgs Cooper Ale (Coopers #-) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: None
Total Grain Weight: 4.54 kg
----------------------------


Notes:
------
Steep roasted barley, crystal, chocolate and black malts in 1.5L of 66C water for 1 hour. Strain and sparge with 500mls of hot water into brew kettle. Add oats, corn syrup, lactose and bring to the boil. Add hops and boil for 40 minutes. Careful, as the oats could make it thick and prone to burning. Remove the kettle from the heat add dark malt and then dissolve over the heat, about 5 minutes. Strain into fermenter. Add Coopers Stout kit contents and dissolve (clean out with 250mls of boiling water). Top up with water to 23L. Pitch yeast in the low 20s. Ferment out at 18-20C.

[erik]

Hey All,

Just put this down. I've got my fingers crossed. Final Volume 44L

500g Crystal
500g Choc malt
400g Dark Malk
200g Amber Malt
All Steeped 30 minutes

100g Fuggles - 90minutes
2kg DDME
1KG Dried Wheat MAlt Extract - it was in the cabinet
1kg Dark Brown Sugar
3.75kg Dextrose - had to make this high alc - and running out of cash
0.5 Corn Syrup
300g Golden Syrup
25ml Liqorice Extract


3 X 3kg Cans ESB Extra Special Stout

Once it coiols down I'll throw in a couple of WLP099 Super Heavy Gravity Liquid yeast.

Intending on giving 1/2 to a buddy for Xmas - the rest ageing for a year or so. of course I'll have to try a couple at xmas.

Any thoughts
e

[Trizza]

f---. thats really going to do your head in!

OG: 1152

but that said, looks to be fairly well balanced.

oh well, give it a go...

Trizza

[erik]

O the woes of the home brewer.
12 hours after pitching 2 WLP099 - Super High Gravity yeast - I've seen no sign of fermentation. I hope I haven't made my most expensive HB mistake so far.

Does the Liquid yeast take longer to start. This fermenter has been sitting at approx 23 degrees since I pitched the yeast.

Any suggestions????

[Trough Lolly]

Erik,
Did you make a starter or did you pitch the yeast straight into the brew?

Cheers,
TL

[erik]

Straight in. I know I should of made a starter - Have I killed the yeast?

[Trough Lolly]

This yeast works best if you introduce it to a normal gravity wort that is well aerated and then work it up to the main game - ie, pitched when actively fermenting. You have probably shocked the yeast and it will take at least 16 hours for the yeast to move through an adaptive phase. Apart from temperature variance, spare a thought for the solution that the yeast was originally in and compare that to the sugar content of the wort that you pitched the yeast into!
I doubt you've killed it, but it will take time for the yeast to adjust and progress into the attenuative / fermenting phase. I would also drop the temperature down towards 20C if you can otherwise you may have an excessively estery beer...

Let us know how it goes in another 24 hours from now.

Cheers,
TL

[erik]

Cheers TL
Will let you know how things go. I suppose I should have thought about gradual changes.

e

[erik]

TL

All is well - two inch krausen - held at 20 degrees C. no activity in airlock - but neither has the Bock right next to it. The new house is pretty cold though.

I should know to 'just relax and have a homebrew'

Cheers for your advise - been to HBS to get some malt to make some starter next time.

e

[Trough Lolly]

Good to see!
The old "Relax etc" mantra is fine when you've been brewing for 10+ years!

It'll be interesting to see how this one turns out. You have a $hitload of dex in this brew. Apart from adding dryness to the final beer, the yeast will have some fun processing all the non maltose sugars before doing the rest of the malt based sugars. Expect a pretty long fermentation time...

Cheers,
TL

[erik]

TL
So does the yeast eat the simple sugars ie dex before the more complex, the malts?

[Trough Lolly]

G'day erik,
I wrote the following blurb on a lagering thread...

There are a number of reasons why lagering will have a positive effect on the final product - several of them have already been mentioned. We need to also bear in mind the properties of the wort that's being fermented and it's impact on the yeast strain in use.
//Enter beer geek mode\\
Wort has a number of sugars present (including fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, maltotriose and some others that skip my memory right now - too many APA's!!) and each of those sugars have a different rate of uptake by the yeast you innoculate into the wort to do the attenuation / fermenting. Do you recall reading in brewing books statements that effectively suggested that yeast are lazy and convert the easy sugars first and then go for the more difficult / dextrinous ones later? Well that's sort of right but more correctly the basic monosaccharides such as sucrose are "passively" consumed by the yeast cells - How? Well, the simple sugars are hydrolised outside the yeast cells and the hydrolised product then passes through the yeast cell walls. As for the more complex sugars such as maltose and maltotriose, they require energy in order for the yeast cells to consume these sugars since they freely pass through the yeast cell membrane and so the cell has to use energy to do the job of hydrolising these sugars.
Ale and Lager strains have different rates of uptake in relation to these sugars. It's also worth noting that the ability of brewers yeast to consume maltose and maltotriose is retarded when you have relatively high levels of sucrose in the wort. The genes that work on the maltose and maltotriose sugars are effectively retarded until the sucrose levels are substantially reduced - but I'm no geneticist so I'll leave that topic for others to discuss in detail!! Suffice it to say that you should avoid tipping buckets of table sugar in your wort in order to increase gravity - use malt instead!
//Beer Geek mode ends\\

Pitching a good sized and healthy lager yeast starter is obviously a good idea and in many cases the lager yeast will do the job at a relatively rapid clip. That doesn't mean that lagering is not necessary, it just means that the work that you would normally expect to occur during an extended lagering phase, has already occurred!

The thread source is...here...

Cheers,
TL

[erik]

Hey All,

Thought I'd let you know how this puppy is progressing.
After an OG of 1152 we are down to 1075 after 8 days. So my software indicates something like 10.3%. The last couple of days it seems to have slowed to about 5 points a day. Smells awesome - even the missus likes it.

Cheers