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Imperial Stout Brew this Weekend

Post #1 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
I'm planning an imperial stout brew this weekend to the below and attached recipe, it's probably a bit late for feedback on this brew but if anything looks very wrong then please let me know. Not sure where the #VALUE! are coming from in the report, if anyone has any clues then let me know.


[center]BIABacus Pre-Release 1.3T RECIPE REPORT[/center]
[center]BIAB Recipe Designer, Calculator and Scaler.[/center]
[center](Please visit http://www.biabrewer.info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for the latest version.)[/center]
[center]RIS with Coffee - Batch 1[/center]

Recipe Overview

Brewer: Meryvn
Style: RIS
Source Recipe Link:
ABV: 9.6% (assumes any priming sugar used is diluted.)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.099
IBU's (Tinseth): 68.7
Bitterness to Gravity Ratio: 0.69
Colour: 99.5 EBC = 50.5 SRM

Kettle Efficiency (as in EIB and EAW): 68.6 %
Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF): 58.8 %

Note: This is a Pure BIAB (Full Volume Mash)

Times and Temperatures

Mash: 90 mins at 65 C = 149 F
Boil: 90 min
Ferment: 14 days at 20 C = 68 F

Volumes & Gravities
(Note that VAW below is the Volume at Flame-Out (VFO) less shrinkage.)
The, "Clear Brewing Terminology," thread at http://www.biabrewer.info/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Total Water Needed (TWN): 35.04 L = 9.26 G
Volume into Boil (VIB): 28.88 L = 7.63 G @ 1.071
Volume of Ambient Wort (VAW): 20.01 L = 5.29 G @ 1.099
Volume into Fermentor (VIF): 17.15 L = 4.53 G @ 1.099
Volume into Packaging (VIP): 16.52 L = 4.36 G @ 1.025 assuming apparent attenuation of 75 %

The Grain Bill (Also includes extracts, sugars and adjuncts)

Note: If extracts, sugars or adjuncts are not followed by an exclamation mark, go to http://www.biabrewer.info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (needs link)

87.2% Maris Otter Pale (7.4 EBC = 3.8 SRM) 8503 grams = 18.75 pounds
2.6% Roasted Barley (1083.5 EBC = 550 SRM) 250 grams = 0.55 pounds
6.2% CaraAroma (150 EBC = 76.1 SRM) 600 grams = 1.32 pounds
2.1% Chocolate (837 EBC = 424.9 SRM) 200 grams = 0.44 pounds
2.1% Carafa III (1054 EBC = 535 SRM) 200 grams = 0.44 pounds




The Hop Bill (Based on Tinseth Formula)

52.5 IBU Challenger Pellets (9.1%AA) 67.7 grams = 2.387 ounces at 75 mins
16.1 IBU Styrian Goldings Pellets (3.8%AA) 67.7 grams = 2.387 ounces at 30 mins







Mash Steps

Mash Type: Pure BIAB (Full-Volume Mash): Saccharifiaction for 90 mins at 65 C = 149 F

Strike Water Needed (SWN): 35.73 L = 9.44 G 66.6 C = 152 F



#VALUE!

#VALUE!
#VALUE!
#VALUE!

Miscellaneous Ingredients

#VALUE!
#VALUE!





Chilling & Hop Management Methods

Hopsock Used: N

Chilling Method: Chiller (Employed 0 mins after boil end.)

Fermentation & Conditioning

Fermentation: Nottingham for 14 days at 20 C = 68 F

Secondary Used: N
Crash-Chilled: Y

Req. Volumes of CO2: 2




Special Instructions/Notes on this Beer

"Using 0.5 x Whirlfloc tablet at 5 minutes of boil left
Vanilla to be vodka soaked for 9 days and added to primary"




#VALUE!
#VALUE!
#VALUE!
#VALUE!
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Last edited by meryvn on 26 May 2016, 17:18, edited 1 time in total.

Post #2 made 9 years ago
by Brew4me
I don't see anything wrong - remember its your recipe so its hard to comment unless there is something really off which I don't see. Now if you said feel free to taste and let me know that would be a different story ;)

I have found if I split my vanilla bean down the length and peel it open a bit I get better results. You may want to soak the bean first in some whiskey at least over night (before splitting) - sanitizes the bean and what the hey gives you a shot or two while you close up the primary, or you could dump the whiskey in for a little twist.

Pete
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Post #3 made 9 years ago
by BDP
Do you have a 6G fermenter? Even with 4.5G VIF, I would suggest a blowoff tube. The Nottingham yeast is going to have a party on that high OG wort at 20C. Please post pics! :thumbs:

All the best for your brew session!

Cheers

Post #4 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
My fermenter holds about 27L with about an inch headspace, the fermentation overflowing is one of the things I'm worried about.

Was planning on soaking the vanilla pod in whisky or vodka during initial fermentation then dumping in after about 5 days.

It's good to hear nothing looks too off about the recipe, here's hoping it tastes good.

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Post #5 made 9 years ago
by Rick
I'm also curious how this will taste, please do update.

The #value! is probably a divide by zero error. These fields are processed through calculations, so the 0 values you have in section W(and N) just need to be cleared empty. Also, the "125g" and "1 bean" have to be an numerical value only ... simply change those to 125 and 1. Maybe add those details in the ingredient name field.
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Post #7 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
Thanks Rick, I'll keep that in mind for next time. I'm hoping it will have a slight coffee kick and some sweetness from the vanilla, I am hoping to have some patience with this brew and leave to condition for a decent period of time.

BDP: I have two 11g packs of Nottingham, I think I'll probably pitch them
both, rehydrating together in about 200mls of water

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Imperial Stout Brew this Weekend

Post #8 made 9 years ago
by Contrarian
The only thing I would recommend is a 2 or 2.5 hour boil. I have found when making big beers that this helps get closer to the high target gravities by making the initial mash a bit thinner.

That's assuming your kettle can manage the larger mash!

You could also consider making a second beer from the same grain if you have another pot. Just re submerge the grain in another 20 or so litres of water at mash out temp for 10-15 minutes a you should get another smaller stout. You could even use this with one pack of yeast to build up a nice yeast cake for the RIS.

And definitely try to sit on some of it for a while, a year or 3 in the bottle makes a massive difference to flavour!

Post #10 made 9 years ago
by PistolPatch
Just a few quick notes...

The #value errors are being caused by two things:

1. In Section F, under the 'Orig.' column, just type numbers only i.e. 125 and 1. Under 'Ingredient Name', change them to "Coffee Beans (grams)" and "Vanilla Beans".
2. In Section W, get rid of all your zeroes. Unless you are using those fields, leave them blank.

On such a high gravity brew, you only have two choices:

1. Swap some of the grain for some sort of sugar.
2. Increase the evaporation rate.
NOTE: Also get rid of your zeroes in Section N. These are corrections for once the boil and chill are finalised - they can't be predicted so nothing should go in that Section until your boil and chill are completed.

The latter is why Contrarian correctly suggested increasing the boil time. You can further increase the evaporation rate by blowing a fan across the top of the kettle (not into it)...

If you change the boil time in your BIABacus to 150 minutes, you'll also notice that the grain bill you need will drop from 9754 grams to 9118 grams. This is because the longer boil time means you have to start with more water. The more water you wash your grains with, the more sugar you'll get out of them.

High gravity brews are not a beginner style and, even getting your head around the above paragraph, can be a bit too much info to take in. A high gravity brew is one of the very few situations where I would use a refractometer so as to get some sort of idea as to how quickly the gravity is increasing during the boil. I'd also be taking regular volume checks for the first hour of the boil so as to get an idea of how much my evaporation rate was on the actual brew day. That's not easy stuff when you are just starting out :shock:.

...

I like Brew4me's idea on soaking the bean in whiskey :).

...

Also noticed that this is your own recipe. When designing a recipe, in Section D, you would type in a desired IBU on the second line rather than typing in a VAW on the first line. Anyway, the 68.7 IBU's the BIABacus is estimating seem fine.

That's all I can think of :peace:,
PP
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Post #11 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
Cheers for the reply. It wasn't my own recipe I must have missed out the credit cell, it was mainly from greg hughes book but I added the coffee and vanilla.

I did look into increasing the boil time but I as I had bought the grains as a mixed bag in the original recipe weights (before I found biabacus) I had to use this specific amount and didn't want to have to play around too long with working out how much water was needed, and I was getting very close to my pot limit.

I'm finding my evaporation rate is much less than what the default is, my first brew I got 7.3 litres in 90 minutes and this brew was only 6.4 litres though I seem to have hit the right OG.

For future brews I'm gonna design them in biabacus before buying the grains, and change my default boil off rate to match what I've been getting. A refractometer is also on the wish list for the future so I can check gravity easier and quicker.

In hindsight this was probably too complicated a brew for my second attempt, but it seems to have gone well and time will tell if it tastes as good as I hope.

P. S. vanilla is soaking in glenmorangie whisky at the moment, smells amazing!

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Post #12 made 9 years ago
by Lumpy5oh
There are a number of posts on here on the wild inaccuracies of a refractometer. I don't have a chance to find some of them for you at the moment but if you can do a quick search something will come up.
I'm sure this beer will turn out fantastic and we can help ease your way into the next one.
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Post #13 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
Yeah I've seen some stuff about refractometers and their inaccuracies, but as a trending tool I think it will have some merit. Though as I broke my second thermometer during this brew I'm gonna have to splash out on a new one of them first, gonna go for something from a slightly better make than my previous two, and not leave in the mash this time.

Speaking of temperatures my fermenter has managed to creep up to about 26C since pitching, and with no way to cool it just now, short of moving it around from house to garage every day, I think I'm just gonna have to leave it and hope for the best.

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Post #14 made 9 years ago
by BDP
I find that a swamp cooler helps keep the temperature in check, within reason. I place my plastic carboy directly inside a shallow bath of water, and wrap it with a wet towel. For extra cooling, I place frozen cryopacks in the water bath, and recycle them with fresh ones at intervals. This method kept my recent Nottie fermentation at a steady 64F when the ambient temperature was 64F as well. I only had to do that for 3 days until the fermentation slowed.

Have you lost much wort through blowoff? On my first brew I managed to coat the ceiling of my crawlspace with an eruption of beer caused by a blocked blowoff tube. Won't forget that one in a hurry.

Cheers

Post #15 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
Did think about adding some water round about it, but where it is stored at the moment a lot of other things get thrown in the cupboard (wife and kids don't appreciate my beer needing care and attention!) and didn't want to be responsible for soaking everything. It's been on since Saturday now so think i'll leave it and hope for the best, though there is quite a banana smell to the cupboard at the moment! Though banana, coffee and vanilla imperial stout sounds quite good :thumbs:

Have managed to avoid any blow off so far, ended up with about 16 litres in a 27 litre fermenter so had plenty of headroom, going by the side of the fermenter i did end up with about 10 litres of Krausen but think this has started to fall back now.

Post #16 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
Have updated my BIABacus with the losses measured and fermenter volumes. Though i think i'll need to get myself a big jug or something to get an accurate KFL, at the moment i use a steel rule and to measure depth and convert to litres using the BIABacus section U. Though i would like to do some rough calibration on this as sometimes i think the figures are a bit off, though i think i have just talked myself out off it below.

In this instance the estimated VAW was 21.63 litres, and i measured 2.5cm of 'trub' (3.14 litres) and got ~16.8 litres in the fermenter (based on calibration marks on the fermenter made from measuring 2.5 litre amounts of water and marking the outside with a Sharpie) which is a total of 19.94 litres, which is 1.69 litres difference. Assuming my fermenter volume is +/- 0.5 litres then this difference equates to about 1.0 - 1.8 cm difference in 'trub' height. Though the most obvious place for my error is probably in VFO, as i try to measure that at 10 mins left of brew time, before i add the chiller as i don't know how much it will displace and is likely to change depending on how full the kettle is at the time as not all the chiller gets submerged in smaller brews, by measuring headspace and using section V, though trying to get a reading through the steam and working out where the top of my pot is and the top of the wort could introduce an error of about 1 cm.

What i may also start doing is measuring the VAW after removing the chiller and fudging the VFO to give the correct figure.
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Post #17 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
My brew has been fermenting for almost a week now and I took a sample today to see where it's at as it stopped bubbling a few days ago. Down to 1.022 which makes it just slightly over 10%. Unfortunately I can't bottle next weekend so it's gonna have to stay in the fermenter for another couple of weeks, though i have a spare fridge that I think I'll put it in for the last week before bottling.

The taste from the sample was pretty good as well, slight coffee hint, lots of roasty chocolate flavour as well, though not much vanilla coming through but the bean has only been in for a day.

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Post #18 made 9 years ago
by PistolPatch
Hi Mervyn,

I knew I had missed a thread I meant to reply to earlier in the week. Under the pump atm but I'll look over the above properly tomorrow.

Until then, plan to rack to secondary before you go away, using a 'closed' transfer (think I've written something on that in the last few days). This will only do good.

Later,
PP
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Post #19 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
i take it the closed transfer is using a blow off tube to fill the secondary with CO2 from the fermentation of the primary?

If so i think i may be past this point as there doesn't seem to be any active fermentation in the primary just now, now bubbles in the air lock. I wonder if you can siphon CO2, though i guess it would be difficult to know if you have managed it or not.

Since my only secondary is also a 25L bucket then there will be quite a bit of headroom in it with a lot of oxygen, as i suspect i will get about 14L from the primary as there is about 16.5L in it just now with about 2.5L of trub, i've attached a picture below.

As you may be able to see i have it inside a fridge however this brew fridge is not currently in operation as i don't have a heater for it so it is currently off and holding a temperature of about 17C, i may turn it on and lower the temperature to try and drop some more yeast and clear everything up a bit, but want to give the vanilla time to permeate before doing this.

My current plan was to leave in primary until just before bottling (as i'm worried about oxidation in secondary with the low volume), but for the last week i was going to set the fridge to a low temp to try and crash as much yeast out as possible. I guess my main question here is will secondary with the risk of oxidation be better than leaving on the trub for an extra week at a low temperature? And if it is the primary, then what temperature would be best as i will have a controller so will be able to set the fridge to a certain temp?
Image
Last edited by meryvn on 05 Jun 2016, 20:41, edited 1 time in total.

Post #20 made 9 years ago
by PistolPatch
Okay Mervyn, just getting back up to speed now...

Evaporation Rates: Vary from day to day. Try and under-estimate rather than over-estimate as this way you end up with a more concentrated wort that can be adjusted rather than vice-versa. Also consider your climate and boil vigour. I think you already know this but don't boil with your lid on.

General: Yep, you've done well on this. It is a hard brew for a second attempt and everything looks very nice to me - top job!

Refractometer: Good to see you are up to speed on the problems with them.

Volumes: Remember that hot volumes are a PITA to measure and, at best, just offer an indication. Best way to measure end of the day volumes is to make sure your fermenter is calibrated accurately and, for KFL, pour what's left in your kettle into a jug. VFO, is not an easy volume to measure, it is only in the BIABacus to suit a small number of scenarios.

Closed Transfer: Yep, your thoughts on that are correct.

What to Do Now: After reading your above post...

Normally, for bottling, I would recommend a gentle transfer to a secondary and no crash-chilling. In your case/circumstances, I agree that you shouldn't transfer to secondary. I would not crash-chill, just leave things as they are and make sure you do an extremely gentle transfer to your bottling bucket.

I don't think anyone who bottles should crash-chill but I might be wrong on this. Firstly, if you use a secondary there is no need to. Secondly, the temperature shock to the yeast, I believe, from am osmosis of info/knowledge, would cause problems when it comes to bottling. If you cold-crashed, you have taken the yeast on a wild ride - how do you know it is going to stay on the ride to carbonate your bottles?

If anything, on such a gravity beer, I'd let the temp go higher to clean things up while you are away although it is a bit unclear as to whether you can't bottle for one or two weeks?
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Post #21 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
Thanks for the detailed reply, it's good to know I'm on the right track.

For evaporation I think I will change the default in biabacus by lowering slightly as I think it is an over estimate for most of my conditions, which in the north of Scotland is generally quite cold. Both my brews so far have been below the biabacus estimate so I think this is the way to go, I would rather have to add some water to increase volume than boil longer and potentially increase bitterness or miss targets.

That's my thoughts on volumes also, and I'm pretty confident on my fermenter calibration marks, so think I'll trust that and measure the leftover boil trub in a jug.

It's likely to be the 19th June before I can bottle, think I'll leave in the primary at the current temperature until then and rack onto a sugar solution to bottle in my secondary / bottling bucket.

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Post #22 made 9 years ago
by meryvn
So i managed to bottle this on the 17th June after leaving it at 22°C from the 5th June until the 12th June then 4°C until i bottled it. I'm quite interested in how cold crashing will effect the brew.

I managed to get 40 x 330mL bottles out of the fermenter after transferring to my bottling bucket which i'm quite happy with. Also took a sample to confirm FG at 1.022 and it tasted pretty good. I've aimed for about 2 volumes of CO2 for carbonation and the bottles are currently sitting at 19°C in my fermentation cabinet until next week when i'll knock them down to around 8°C for a first tasting.

Again i forgot to fill one plastic bottle to check carbonation over time so will just have to wait and see how it works out.

Still trying to decide over my next brew, i quite fancy a lager / steam beer but not sure if it would be ready in time for drinking over the summer! Other options are an american pale ale (Beaverton Gamma Ray clone), or a scottish heavy 80' Shilling type beer.
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