On last Friday, Mr C (who can be often found lurking in the background of SSG’s Wake Up it’s Tuesday) and SSG herself came over. The girls amused themselves watching DVDs – we made far more use of our time and produced a stonking Imperial Russian Stout, based on adm’s “Crazy Ivan“. So this one got the name “Mad Boris”.
The recipe is as follows (loosely adapted, but reduced to allow it to actually fit in the mashtun still leaving room for some water…):
6kg Maris Otter
375g Amber Malt
375g Light Crystal (60L)
375g Chocolate
375g Wheat Malt
375g Roast Barley
200g Dark Brown SugarHops (90min boil):
100g East Kent Goldings (5.7%)
20g Target (9%)Yeast:
2x Safale 04
We sparged for 32L and then boiled up without topup and after run off (and a fair bit of loss to the hops!) we had almost exactly 4 gallons in the fermenter at 1090. (and “as black as a night with no moon” 
) I was tempted to dilute down to 1080-85, but in the end decided to just let it get on with it and pitched as was.
On Sunday morning, the yeast had overflowed in the fridge, and was leaking all over the kitchen floor. And so, into the bath it went and chucked a load more foam everywhere while the yeast got on with it. At last – calm enough to get the airlock on and not foam through – farting every second or so.
Now only four days after pitching, it looks like we’re done. A quick refractometer check and it looks like it’s down at 1023, but I need to recheck with the hydro in a day or two’s time. The airlock is still gluging occassionally. I’ll let it sit for a good week or two anyhow, and may go to secondary for this (though given the long maturation time, I’m sure it’ll be fine straight into the bottle).
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hahha farting everywhere. hope the house is Ok. Was a great night, I LOVE prime suspect. and lemon meringue pie. yum. and MrC loves beer. good combo.
Still farting. Once per minute or two rather than once per second. First tiny quality control sample indicated this is going to be a stormer. Kitchen floor still slightly sticky…
methyl orange aquired!
Legend! Owe you a gallon of beer or so
Interesting, think I will give it a go myself, but fancy adding a vanilla pod or two to the brew somewhere along the way. Just a quick question though, the grains that you list, are they whole or crushed?
Excellent work!
Thanks
Simon
The grains are all bought pre-crushed – they need to be for the mash (or it won’t work
. I don’t do anything fancy like crushing my own – it’s a lot like hard work (though essential if you want to try roasting your own – like for the Durden Park recipes). Good luck with it – it smells fantastic, though I’m a good month or two away from the first samples…!
What was the final gravity that you let it go to? I’ve just done it and got exactly 1.090
Thanks
Simon
It got down to 1022 with two packets of S04. The ferment was pretty vigourous after a day or two and I gave it about 2 weeks to finish up before bottling it all up. Watch out for foam blowing it’s way out of the FV! It landed up all over the kitchen floor before I whacked it into the bathtub…
Thanks for the heads up! I will keep an eye on it. I did one last week that was the most vigorous that I’d ever seen. Came home from work to find one cat watching it ooze all over, the other cat playing with the froth and the the other scared and hiding!
I might try bottling this one too, same idea with a keg, prime bottle and sit somewhere warm for a few days and then somewhere cool for a month or two.
[...] Last weekend was the CBA National Homebrewing Festival in Sutton – I went last year and entered four beers this year. I took along a best bitter, an ordinary bitter, my BBX Porter and my year old Mad Boris. [...]