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Gettin' started on that holiday brew.

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Our third holiday brew is a strong dark braggot in the style of a Russian Imperial Stout. With cherry juice, and lots of honey.

Quite predicatably, I'm going to call this batch Xenia and Patrick's Third Holiday Brew.

BeerXML for this recipe, generated by BrewTarget.

Ingredients in this batch

  • A starter, begun on 8 July:
    • 2 cups Pilsner DME, boiled in ½ gal. tap water for 20 minutes.
    • 2 packets US-05 rehydrated in ½ cup tap water at 98℉.
  • 20.00 lb. Simpsons Golden Promise malt (2.5°L).
  • 2 lb., 4.5 oz. British black malt (485°L).
  • 3 lb., 8.6 oz. British brown malt (65°L).
  • 3 lb. Kirkland clover honey, caramelized.
  • 11.5 oz. Kirkland clover honey.
  • 15.3 oz. Bennett's cactus honey.
  • 4.00 oz. Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus hops (15.5% A.A.) at 75 min.
  • 1¼ tsp. Irish moss at 20 min.
  • Sugar addition of 8 August 2019:
  • Sugar addition of 9 August 2019:
    • First of today's additions, exactly one gallon, gravity 1.175:
      • 2 quarts Kroger Simple Truth black cherry juice.
      • 0.5 quarts Kroger Simple Truth tart cherry juice.
      • 4 lb. Christmas berry honey.
    • Second of today's additions, exactly nine cups, gravity 1.164:
      • 1.5 quarts Kroger Simple Truth tart cherry juice.
      • 2 lb. raspberry honey.
  • Wine yeast starter, begun 10 September 2019, added to this batch, batch 161, and batch 175 on 13 September 2019:
    • 1 lb. cactus honey from Bennett's Honey Farm.
    • ½ tsp. Fermaid K.
    • 1 packet Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast, rehydrated in ¼ cup tap water at 104℉.
    • tap water to ½ gallon.
  • 1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup tap water at 102℉.
  • Wine yeast starter, begun 15 December 2019, added on 17? December 2019:
    • 1 qt. tap water, boiled ten minutes with Pilsen dried malt extract;
    • ¼ Wyeast beer nutrient;
    • 1 pint existing beer from the current bucket;
    • 1 packet (5g) Lalvin EC-1118 dried champagne yeast, rehydrated 20 minutes in ½ c. tap water at 100℉.
  • Blending, on 29 March 2020, racking this batch and another into two buckets:
    • 3⅓ gal. batch 194.
    • 2 oz. Hungarian oak cubes, unwashed (1 oz. in each bucket).
  • At bottling, 25 June 2020, with small differences between the two buckets:
    • Batch 174A (green caps):
      • 1 packet Lalvin K1V-1116 wine yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup untreated tap water at 100℉.
      • 1 cup Georgia wildflower honey from Georgia Honey Farm.
      • 2 shots Maker's Mark bourbon.
    • Batch 174B (red caps):
      • 1 packet Lalvin K1V-1116 wine yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup untreated tap water at 100℉.
      • 1 cup Georgia wildflower honey from Georgia Honey Farm.
      • 2 shots Willett Kentucky pot still bourbon.

Procedure

Caramelized three pounds of clover honey on high for 150 minutes. Single-infusion mash of all grains in a grain bag in the ten-gallon brewpot at 154℉ for sixty minutes; temperature fell to 152℉ during mash.

Harvested a little under five gallons of wort. Boiled in two pots, containing about three gallons and about a gallon and a half, for 75 minutes; split hop addition at approximately a 2-to-1 ratio. Cooled using wort chiller, then moved into brewing bucket.

Dumped non-caramelized honey into Crock-Pot and mixed it with existing honey to pull it out, then poured honey into a carboy with water and shook, shook, shook to mix, then added to wort. Added more water to Crock-Pot, to rinse it, then collected this dilute honey-water and added it to the wort, too. Aerated beer with a wire whisk. Yeast starter had mostly flocculated already, so I poured off the fermented ale and pitched the yeast slurry, then popped on lid and airlock.

Brew day: 12 July 2019
Predicted original gravity: 1.163
Measured original gravity: 1.117 (But we're using an as-if O.G. of 1.107, as of post-batch-blending, here because of many further changes)
Estimated IBUs: 89
Predicted final gravity 1.041 (but that's not taking any of the final sugar or other additions into account)
Predicted ABV: 19.9%
Bottling day : 25 June 2020
Final gravity: 1.033
Estimated ABV: 11%

Yield:

  • Batch 174A (green caps):
    • 22 x 22 oz. beer bottles; and
    • 5 x 500mL beer bottles; and
    • 1 x 650mL beer bottle; and
    • 3 x 12 fl. oz. beer bottles.
  • Batch 174B (red caps):
    • 22 x 22 fl. oz. beer bottles; and
    • 1 x 1 qt. beer bottle; and
    • 4 x 12 fl. oz. beer bottles.

Total yield: Aprox. 1190 fl. oz., or about 9.3 gallons.

Observations

  • 2019-08-08: Added six pounds of honey to the fermenting brew.
  • 2019-09-08: Added one gallon of cherry juice and six pounds of honey.
  • 2019-09-10: Began a wine yeast starter for this and two other batches.
  • 2019-09-13: Pitched approximately one-third of wine-yeast starter into bucket.
  • 2019-12-15: SG is still 1.062. Made a new starter: one quarter of tap water boiled with DME, one cup of existing beer to help the yeast acclimate, yeast nutrient, and a packet of rehydrated yeast. Added to growler and allowed to ferment; started producing carbon dioxide almost immediately.
  • 2019-12-17: High krausen passed late last night, and the yeast has had eighteen hours to help prepare for being transferred. Poured entire starter into fermentation bucket.
  • 2019-12-26: Visible carbon dioxide exiting the bucket has been minimal, but I opened the bucket lid to inspect the brew. There are new yeast rafts on top and some sluggish carbox production; it smells like it's fermenting again. Did not measure gravity. Leaving to ferment slowly.
  • 2020-03-29: Blended entire batch with 3⅓ gal. batch 194, racking that batch into two new sanitized buckets, then batch 174 on top of it. Each bucket is 3⅓ gal. original holiday RIS, 1⅔ gal. rescue stout. Added oak cubes to each bucket. Mix is good! Basically just what I wanted the original braggot to be, in fact.
  • 2020-06-25: Bottled, yielding 9.3 gallons of 11% braggot.