Saturday was the last time we'll make a beer in Colorado (but who knows, we may be back someday!) We made a Russian Imperial Stout, the same recipe for Cooper's beer we brewed last year. Based off what we have brewed so far, I am thinking this is taking the place of our previous "Christmas" spiced beer as we havent brewed that yet, and dont have any plans for any more high gravity "Winter Seasonals." So for the winter we'll have our First Snow, the Imperial Stout, and then in January we'll start drinking our Anniversary Barleywine.
We made a 10 gallon batch this time with our neighbor, who will be taking 5 gallons of it for himself. Since the grain bill is so large, over 20lbs for 4 gallons, we had to mash in separate coolers and then drain into the kettle. Going with the same theme of the year, this brew's gravity will be a bit less than the previous version, and will hopefully end at about 9.25%. The grist contained 1 lb of crystal 120, and 0.75 lbs of black patent, chocolate malt, and 0.63 lbs of roasted barley; all of which contributed to the dark brown/coffee colored mash you see above. The mash (and even the milled grain) smelled very good and left a nice smell in the garage throughout the day of chocolate, dark malts, and hints of coffee.
Because of the timing of the move, we wont be able to put raspberries on this batch. We will let it ferment for 4 weeks and then it will be in secondary for about 3.5 weeks before we have to bottle it a day or two before we leave. Normally, I would have liked to have it secondary for about 6-8 weeks, and then get a week of raspberries, but with the move, we dont have the time for that. Although there is a small chance that I will decide to not bottle and pack the beer in secondary on the moving truck and bring it to Raleigh to finish there. With the cross-country transport, I'm not too concerned about the sloshing around, as it will be sealed very tightly, probably with duct tape, I am more concerned about the temperatures. June is hot, and sitting in the back of a un-airconditioned truck may not be the best thing for the beer....maybe we'll store it in the Rogue as we drive. I dont have to make a decision yet, but I'm sure we'll decide in a few weeks what the plan for the RIS will be.
On another note, we have also dry hopped/kegged the brown ale and double pale ale. Before we started kegging, we would let the yeast ferment for about 2 weeks, then add our dry hops to the bucket for 10-14 days before bottling, and then waiting 2 weeks to drink the beer. Now that we have the kegs, we are going to speed things up a bit. After about 2 weeks of fermentation, we cold crash the beer to drop everything out, and then we transfer the beer to the keg.
We then take some nylon leggings and add our dry hops and put that into the keg. The keg is then left for a week to dry hop at room temperature. We do this at room temperature because if we did it all in the fridge, the cold temperatures would make the process very very slow. By doing most of the dry hopping at room temp, we allow the hop aromas to come out, and then by keeping the hops in the keg while in the fridge it will slowly build up as well as last a lot longer.
The brown ale was put in the fridge on Saturday morning, and based off a few samples, it will likely be fully carbonated by the following Friday. The beer does taste very good though, nice and malty, although I'm not getting as much of the hop aroma as I thought I would with an ounce of hops. Still a very good beer though, and we are excited to try the double pale ale this weekend too. The picture above is the Double Pale ale connected to the 5 lb CO2 tank while it dry hops. If you look at the left side of the top of the keg you can see a small white piece of teflon tape which we use to essentially hang the bag of hops from. Because we dont want the dip tube to become clogged with the hop bag, we susped the bag a bit off the bottom with the teflon tape (which looks and feels like a linen-type material).
#TeamDietrich
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