Meet Kate the Great

[3rdto1st]

In college my roommates and I would spend 5 hours ouside in the NorthEast cold for this beer. Big, thick, super rare and highly unavailable unless you stand in line or give up your first born. But I figured I would go huge on my first try or going all-grain wasn't worth it. The guys at the brewery are nice enough to give out their percentages, so I feel like this is a pretty solid attempt. Just putting it here so you all can tell me I'm crazy and so that we can post tasting notes and tweaks when its ready.

Boil Size - 6.75 Gal
Boil Time - 75 mins
Batch Size - 5.5 Gal
Primary - 21 days at 68 F
Lager/Condition - 140 days
OG - 1.110
FG - 1.025
IBU - 88.5
SRM - 50.0
ABV - 10.3
CO2 - 2.0

Grain:
18lb 2-row
13.25oz dark wheat
13.25oz special b
13.25oz flaked barley
11.4oz Carafa III
9.5oz Aromatic
7.5oz Roasted Wheat
7.5oz Crystal 40L
3.8oz Chocolate Malt
3.8oz Crystal 120L
3.8oz Black Barley

Hops:
1.25oz Magnum @ 75min
.9oz Styrian Goldings @75min
.9oz Perle @ 75min
6oz Centennial @15min
2.35oz Williamette @1min
2.35oz Styrian Goldings @1min
1.35oz Glacier @1min

Whirlfloc @ 5min

Mash @ 149 for 60min, batch sparge to collect 6.75gal, boil for 75min, hopefully collect ~5.5gal. Ferment with 2L starter of WLP001

[dhempy]

Good luck with that monster ...

Dan

[brahn]

If this is your first all grain brew, then you have no idea what your efficiency is going to be and the OG is a WAG at best. What did you plug in for your efficiency? On a beer this big, I know for me it would be around 60%, maybe lower. If you've got room in your kettle and you can sparge more and boil longer you can improve your efficiency.

Assuming you do hit your OG, you're underpitching by a LOT. Mrmalty says you should have a 4.1L starter assuming you're using a stir plate. If you're not using a stir plate you would need 11L of starter, you might as well just brew a smaller beer and pitch that yeast.

21 days in primary seems like a pretty good guess if you pitch enough yeast, but don't be surprised if it takes a little longer. Just let the yeast tell you when it's done.

I think this is a pretty good resource for brewing bigger beers, at least it lets you in on some of the challenges. http://beerdujour.com/Howtobrewabigbeer.htm

[3rdto1st]

Yea, I assumed a low eff, i used 60% , and i will sparge and boil longer if need be.

I could have been more specific, but i used 3 vials to start my starter on sunday and will step up two more times, and i hope to have 2L of thick slurry volume, not overall volume.

21 days was a number thrown out by the brewer, I will not be rushing this beer at all, and do not expect to be tasting it till the holiday time.

Thanks for the link, i'll have to check that out.

[StarRaptor]

Rundown on my KtG Clone. I think I targeted 60 but got even less. It's a pretty tough beer to do and I maxed out my tun and needed to boost with some extract to get closer.

Imperial Stout
Type: All Grain Date: 12/29/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Brewer: Scott Bennett
Asst Brewer:
Boil Size: 7.65 gal
Boil Time: 75 min
Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
End of Boil Volume 6.24 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 55.00 %

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.104 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.096 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.019
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 11.4 %
Bitterness: 75.7 IBUs
Est Color: 54.7 SRM

Ingredients

Malt
14.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.90 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)
0.90 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)
0.90 lb Wheat Malt, Dark (9.0 SRM)
0.80 lb Carafa III (525.0 SRM)
0.70 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)
0.60 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
0.60 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
0.30 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)
0.30 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)
0.30 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
3.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)

Hops
1.10 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - First Wort 75.0 min
0.70 oz Northdown [8.50 %] - First Wort 75.0 min
0.70 oz Perle [8.00 %] - First Wort 75.0 min
0.25 oz Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min
1.30 oz Northdown [8.50 %] - Aroma Steep 3.0 min
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Aroma Steep 3.0 min
1.00 oz Perle [8.00 %] - Aroma Steep 3.0 min

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 23.28 lb
Sparge Water: 4.55 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F

Mash Steps
Mash In Add 6.33 gal of water at 159.1 F 148.0 F 75 min
Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.33gal, 4.23gal) of 168.0 F water

More info on my site at --> http://snbbrewing.blogspot.com/2012/01/33.html

[3rdto1st]

Nice, didn't know you did one, will be sure to read through your post. How was the blowoff situation with your ferment?

[bwarbiany]

I could have been more specific, but i used 3 vials to start my starter on sunday and will step up two more times, and i hope to have 2L of thick slurry volume, not overall volume.

3 vials of WLP001 to start your starter? Plus a bunch of DME to get your starter going?

Hell, you could have bought 3 packs of US-05 for about the cost of 1 vial (or maybe just a tad higher), skipped the starter, and still know you're overpitching... You could probably get away with two packs on this beer.

[3rdto1st]

Well, if im going to give the honest truth, the vials were a tad old. I had bought them for other purposes that never ended up happening. The viability according to MrMalty equals about 1.5 fresh vials. I know I could have been more value conscious, but such is life, I'll build a nice huge starter and there is pretty much no way I can overpitch with this brew.

[brahn]

I'm still a bit curious about the yeast propagation you're doing. 2L of thick slurry should be plenty, but how are you getting to this stage? Decanting and adding fresh wort to a 2L flask won't result in much growth after the first step. Even with effectively 1.5 vials of yeast you shouldn't need more than one step to get the yeast you need provided you're using a large enough volume of wort.

[StarRaptor]

Nice, didn't know you did one, will be sure to read through your post. How was the blowoff situation with your ferment?

As with almost all my beers done with a healthy starter it was a solid blow off. I actually had to turn my fermenting cube done a couple of degrees from normal the fermentation was so active.

I did a step up starter a few days in advance with pretty fresh WLP001

[3rdto1st]

I'm not sure how I feel about how this brew turned out, and I would appreciate some advice. When I brewed, I forgot that I wouldnt have LME to help give me more volume, so I collected too little from my mash. This made my post boil even smaller (4.5gal?), and forgetting to use a hop bag or the false bottom in my kettle, there was a ton of trub, and looking at it, I will probably get all of 3gal out of it.

I am supposed to soak some oak cubes in port and then rack it on top of them, but I'm not sure I want to. I dont think it will be a bad beer, but I'm not sure I want to waste the oak and port on such a small batch that I am unsure about. I think I'll throw it in to secondary, wait another month, and then carb it, see what's wrong and give the recipe another try, learning from my previous mistakes.

Just want to let you all know the status of this beer, cheers

[Greywolf]

learning from my previous mistakes.

That is the whole reason for trying new things. The only way it would be a loss or a waste is if you fail to learn from what you have done.

[StarRaptor]

How does it taste?

I'd go ahead and complete your plan with the port oak cubes.

[brahn]

How does it taste?

I'd go ahead and complete your plan with the port oak cubes.

+1

[bwarbiany]

What was your OG? What's your current gravity reading? Did you hit somewhere in the realm of your intended numbers for both?

If so, I say toss in the port-soaked oak and let it go. If you were somewhere in the realm of your desired numbers, you might end up short on volume, but you should be in the right area taste-wise.

Now, if you were *way* off on your gravity, then I might -- but not necessarily -- agree that you should save the oak. (At that point it depends on whether you think the changed recipe will benefit from oak). But if you're close, a bit of an undershoot on volume is no reason to deviate from your original plan.