I don’t mind looking dumb, so I’ll let you know what a horrible success/failure it turned out to be.
I’ve got the first round in the fermentor now. I had a yeast cake left over from a Dubbel, so I’m using that instead of trying to build up a regular starter. It’s a blend of Ardennes (3522) and T-58. Avery has tweaked their recipe since I started thinking about this, so their OG is lower now.
Depending on my actual volume and gravity of stage two, I’ll adjust the volume and gravity in stage 3 to target 30L with a cumulative gravity of 1.135. I’ll be splitting that in half to age it. I had a version called “meph addict” at the Avery tap room years ago where they dumped a pound of coffee into a keg of Mephistopheles, so I’ll age 1/2 on oak, and 1/2 on oak with coffee beans.
Here’s my basic plan:
Stage 1 (completed)
Size: 11L
OG: 1.073
2kg Floor-malted pils
400g Aromatic
400g Special B
200g Carafa II
200g Black Barley
50g Magnum (10%) @ -60min
1tbsp yeast energizer
Stage 2:
Size: 17L
OG: 1.105
7kg F-M pils
500g Black barley
400g Carafa II
100g Magnum (10%) @-60min
1tbsp yeast energizer
Add yeast cake from tripel that’s currently fermenting
Stage 3:
Size: TBD
OG: TBD
50% Turbinado
50% Dextrose
Stage 2 made it into the fermentation chamber. It’s split into two buckets, and I dumped another yeast cake of Ardennes into them.
Recipe I ended up with:
9kg FMPils,
670g roasted barley
230g Carafa II
100g Magnum -90min
Stage 2 OG/volume: 1.117 / 16.75L
Total from stage 1 plus new yeast cake: 1.019 / 13.25
Updated gravity: 1.070 / 30L
I’m at 1.093 cumulative gravity at this point. Once it’s made it through this stage, I’ll be adding sugar for 8L @ 1.200 to bring the batch gravity up to 1.116.
What is your fermentation temperature? I’ve been thinking about making a port-like beer similar to Sam Adam’s Utopias using a similar method of stepping up the gravity. I don’t want to add any spirits (as in “Radical Brewing”) to get a high ABV though, so I’m very curious as to how the method works. good luck!
Freezer is set to 56*. Johnson controller cycles down -4* from setpoint. In the real deal Mephistopheles they use 3787 (or equivalent) and pitch fresh yeast every day until it hits terminal gravity. I don’t wanna deal with that, so I’m stepping it up to be as nice to the yeast as I can.
Sorry I missed this thread the first time around. Maybe it’s too late, but this may still be helpful: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=65941
Thanks for keeping us posted. How did you manage with your efficiency on this wort addition? Did you sparge at all?
I just did my first high-gravity brew a couple of weeks ago and I was surprised to see that I was right in my usual efficiency ballpark even though my mash was on the thicker side (for BIAB at least - 1.82 qt/lb). I don’t have a refractometer, so I don’t know my preboil gravity, but after my usual 90-minute boil I got a 1.110 wort.
I seem to hear “well, I don’t know how well BIAB would work for a high-gravity beer” a lot, but it didn’t seem to really affect my efficiency. I don’t have my system 100% dialed in yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but I won’t hesitate to brew barleyines/IIPAs/Quads/etc with my current setup going forward.
I’m not exactly sure what the efficiency was, because it was an unevenly split partigyle. I don’t think it was great, but it wasn’t awful either. I think the mash efficiency was about 85%. I collected 23.5L of 1.085 wort, and boiled for about 120min to get to 16.75L of 1.117 wort. I also collected about 17L of 1.037 wort for a different beer. I sparged twice for the first beer, one more time for the last one. I could’ve sparged again to get some more gravity, but I didn’t need it.
One of the nice things about brewing this beer in stages is that I don’t really have to stress about hitting my gravity at any point, since I can make up the difference with the next addition.
Wow Sean, we have much different definitions of “stupid high gravity.” Anything over 1.100 is stupid high to me. 1.214 is pretty crazy.
Step three is in the fermentor. Kraeusen was still high but gravity was down to 1.025 when I added step three. Didn’t take into account how large the volume of sugar would be, so I ended up with 9.75L @ 1.170 instead of 8L @ 1.200. Cumulative gravity was 1.112, so not too far off my target. Lowered the ferm temp to 54* when I added the sugar.
The base beer was surprisingly clean. Definitely warm alcohol, but fusels were very low. Bitterness and roasted character were too high, but we’ll see how it ends up after the sugar additions.
I didn’t have enough turbinado on hand, so I subbed a portion of brown sugar.
Step 3:
8L of water
718g turbinado
894g brown sugar
891g fructose
1391g cane
456g dextrose
Very interesting. Thank you for updating this, I’ve been following it for a bit and may try something of the sort in the near future.
Thanks!
Checked the gravity today. It was 1.008! That puts the ABV at ~13.9%. The kraesen had dropped, so I think it’s done. There’s still some aging I want to do with it, but I think I succeeded in making it pretty balanced and drinkable. Alcohol isn’t crazy. Very warm, but smooth. Nice rummy character. Not quite as dark as I wanted it to be, and not as “stout-like” as I remember Avery’s being. It’s roasty, and it’s black in the glass, but it’s red-to-amber around the edges. The roasty gives way to the rummy really quickly. Next time I’ll up the black/roasted barley, and not use the carafa. I think the carafa was too subtle.
I’ll be adding American oak to both, and coffee beans (grounds?) to one. Any recommendations for how much coffee to add?
FWIW Avery changed the stats for Meph on their website again, so I’m not really sure what recipe they’re using these days. The last one I had was about 15% ABV, IIRC, so mine is a bit lighter alcohol than I was shooting for.
My BDS came in around 12%, and that was scary strong, at least for me. Served it for my 40th birthday party and people loved it, but I kept warning them about the power. I should have heeded my own advice.
As for adding coffee, the last time I did it I simply brewed espresso and added it to taste. Lots of different approaches, though, such as cold brewed, dry beaning, etc.
My liver is probably happy I didn’t hit my target. Meph is an over-the-top, thick, huge stout. What I made is more to my taste, and much more “drinkable” but not really a good clone of the commercial version. I probably used too much simple sugar. Next time, maybe closer to 10% of the grist, and turbinado only. Hopefully the oaking and coffee will add some texture/structure to complement the flavors.
It’s hard to tell for sure before it’s carbonated, but the flavors are solid. I think the hop bitterness is appropriate. I was looking for aggressive roasty stout and rummy flavors. I think it’s more balanced toward rummy than roasty. I wanted a thicker mouthfeel, but the oak may help that.
Overall, it was a very clean ferment with no excessive fusels. The hydro sample was deceptively smooth, and it’s only a month old. I’d say that the way I did the incremental feedings, with low ferm temps, can be used to keep stress on yeast low, minimize off-flavors, and induce high attenuation in a stressful environment. From 1.112 to 1.008 is nearly 93% apparent attenuation, which was beyond what I was expecting.