I read this from the following NB board post:
“When you are racking your beer from the primary fermentor to the secondary, is the time that you should be collecting the yeast. It’s easy to do it. Just sanitize a quart jar and lid, sanitize the neck of the primary fermentor, and pour from the fermentor into the jar. [Some people wipe the fermentor lid with alcohol and flame it to sanitize.] Loosely cap the jar so that if you have some continued fermentation, the glass jar will not explode! Clean out the primary fermentor and pour the quart of yeast solution back in. You can then pour a fresh batch of wort directly into the fermentor. This is the easiest method of reusing yeast.
If your next batch of wort won’t be ready for up to a week, you can store the glass jar of yeast in your refrigerator and reuse as is.”
I’ve been wanting to brew this beer ever since I got my eyes on the Northern Brewer catalog. Here is there description:
“Imperial stouts were first brewed in England for export to the royal courts of the Russian Tsars. The Tsars are gone but the beer remains, the “War and Peace” of stouts. This kit yields a pitch black beer with tan head, resounding with burnt, bitter chocolate character, hops, and syrupy malt. A viscous, chewy body finishing with lots of roast grain and a warming alcohol note. A nice companion on a cold winter night or accompanying chocolate dessert. Recommended: 2-stage fermentation and yeast starter.”
Imperial Stout
Extract kit from Northern Homebrewer, Milwaukee, WI
Target OG: 1.086
Malt 1: 6 lbs. Dark Malt LME
Malt 2: 6 lbs. Dark Malt LME
Grain 1: .5 lb Simpsons Roasted Barley
Grain 2: .5 lb Simpsons Black Malt
Grain 3: .5 lb Simpsons Chocolate
Hop 1: 2 oz Galena – alpha 13.0% (60 min)
Yeast: #1728 Scottish Ale Yeast w/ decanted starter using stir plate (55°-70°F)
Boiling Schedule:
Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes. Bring to a boil. Sparge grains with 1/2 gallon of boiled water. Remove water from heat and mix LME @ 60 minutes. Bring water back to a boil and add Hop 1 @ 60 minutes.
Notes:
Suggested 292 billion cells for a 2 L starter. Transfer to secondary fermenter after about 14 days or begin taking daily hydrometer readings – when hydrometer readings are the same on consecutive days, primary fermentation is complete. Proceed to secondary fermentation for 2 months. Bottle with .75 cups of corn sugar. Bottle condition for up to 1 month. My OG was 1.081.
My IPA was finished conditioning on November 17th. I gotta say I’m happy with how it turned out. A good beer.
Looks a bit more amber than I thought but I’ve read that extract kits tend to do that more often. It isn’t too dense, which I think was a good thing I think for an IPA. It was a little cloudy but that is from not racking to a secondary.
The smell is primarily hoppy. Very slight smell of malt.
Drinks pretty easy and has just the right amount of hop flavor I expected. I drink it with the yeast and pour it full to mix it up. First sip is floral and slightly bitter. Not sweet but that also could have been skewed by the Biere de Garde I drank prior, which was very sweet. It is more on the dryer side but not as carbonated as I’d like.
The aftertaste is mildly bitter, asking me to have another sip.
I think this may be slightly too bitter for people that enjoy their factory beers. It is slightly less bitter than a Sierra Nevada IPA, more along the lines of a Lakefront Brewery IPA.
I tend to make my homebrews for me, rather than the people I share them with so, when I do another IPA it will most likely be a double of some sort. Overall, I’m happy it turned out and will enjoy during the remainder of the football season.
Checked out the Milwaukee Grand Opening and was surprised how busy it was. Store was really clean and organized. Everything was on sale so I picked up an Imperial Stout extract kit, some One Step, Iodophor, priming sugar and some US-05.
They had free brats and beer while putting on some demos.
I found this video they produced with time lapsed video on a primary fermentation. Kind of cool to see the wort lighten in color as the yeast replicates and remains in suspension. Interesting that the sludge at the bottom shortens as time goes by. I’d guess it would have increased. Maybe if it was allowed to set a while after fermentation was over.
