Imperial Stout Team Brew: Big Beer Tips

Rock Hoppers Imperial Stout Team Brew Strategy

11/28/2008

Big Beer Tips

Oxygenate the wort if you have this capability.

Use a yeast nutrient if you can afford.

Let’s try to stay away from the thinning effects of Beano. Final gravities at 1.040 are ok with this one.

Make a yeast starter:  Mrmalty.com recommends the following (try not to fall out of your chair):

• For 12 gallons (10 gallon batch – for 6 gallon inoculations just divide the following in half)
• A whopping 6 vials or packs in a 6 liter starter would typically be required. For this recipe you can simply use 6 – 11gram dry packs (cheap at $1.60 each) and pitch directly without a starter for this one.

Do what you can to keep the first few days of fermentation temperature under control (under 72 degrees F). The digestion of this massive amount of sugar by the yeast will raise the fermentation temperature over 90 degrees F. This high temperature is very stressful to the yeast and will degrade their abilities to finish their long journey to a good final gravity. Either start with a lower wort temperature (maybe 66 degrees F) or keep the fermentor in a cooler place. I’ve seen one of our hoppers actually strap ice packs to the outside of the vessel!

For All-Grainers

Sparge all you can! Big, deep grain beds make it more difficult to rinse out the needed sugars. If you’re fly sparging, run wort into the brew kettle until the wort leaving the mash tun gets to 1.010 (don’t go under 1.010 or we’ll have a tanic, barn-beer). This may require filling your brew kettle to capacity or adding an additional brew kettle on another burner. If you’re batch sparging this will require additional rinse water – approximately 20% more (see Geoff Humphey for more details on batch sparging if needed).

This additional wort will consequently add an additional step to the brew process… Reduction! Before you can get to your typical pre-hop addition volume, you’ll need to boil the excess wort down. This boil-off of water will concentrate the wort and will also cause desirable kettle-caramelization.

Also, unrelated to big beers, we are asking everyone to use a mash water stabilizer. This is critical. Dark roasted grains, such as we’re using, cause the mash to go very acidic and can limit starch conversion… thus less fermentable sugars. I use a Five Star 5.2 stabilizer that can be found at your local brew supply shop – Brew Hut has this! I also have some if anyone wants to take a little in a pinch.