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Very nice. I was curious how the cinnamon in the boil would work for you. My experience with my pumpkin ale has been a very pronounced flavor from a relatively small amount of cinnamon. How much cocoa nibs are you using?

I did add light DME at the very beginning of the boil to get the pre-boil gravity up. I guess I assumed that was pretty much the same as having a lot of simple sugars from a lower-temp mash before doing a long boil but maybe it just radically upped the fermentability of the wort. I'll try to...

That is very interesting, thanks for sharing. So if your wort is almost all simple sugars, what prevents your yeast from attenuating like crazy like mine did? 1.041 still seems like a pretty high FG. Apologies if this is a dumb question.

I'm curious where your FG ended up with that mash temp. I suspect I mashed a bit under the recommended 156 in the Perennial recipe and my FG came in super low. How did it work out for you?

Just an update on how my beer turned out (the recipe I used is at the beginning of the thread). It's been bottle conditioning for about 7 weeks now and I'm very pleased with the results, all things considered. It has a big chocolate nose, followed by cinnamon. I let it warm up a bit before...

I'm late to this but I think Abraxas definitely has some lactose, not sure if it's an entire pound but that's probably a good place to start. I'm pretty positive there's also some maltodextrin in there. Based on Wymore's comments in the video I'd suspect that the actual Abraxas recipe may have a...

Ah ok, thanks. I didn't realize Carafa II and chocolate malt were so analagous. The original Fantastic Voyage recipe had just 1 lb of black malt rather than the 1 lb 3.2 oz I used. Perhaps a next step would be to go back to 1 lb of black malt and substitute some portion of the 1 lb 10 oz of...

That's interesting. The Fantastic Voyage homebrew recipe has quite a bit of Carafa II and no chocolate malt or roasted barley. I guess that would be the place to start.

I never said I nailed it. I'm guessing Abraxas is in the ballpark of the 1.048 FG of Fantastic Voyage. But the oats and maltodextrin in the recipe definitely left the beer I bottled with a thicker mouthfeel, despite the lower FG. I think I may have mashed a little low and the addition of DME...

Update: I bottled it this morning. Yielded about 4.3 gallons, which gave me 44 12 oz bottles. I used corn sugar to prime for a target of 2.3 volumes of carbonation (on Wymore's recommendation in the video course). I've never seen such a large yeast cake at the bottom of my fermenter, so it was...

I have not, just a couple Abraxas variants and Intentionally Indulgent. They're not easy to find in Minneapolis. I'm definitely down for a trade if there's anything from Minnesota you want!

Yeah I'm a little worried that all that booze might throw it out of balance. My sample definitely tasted a little hot, but it will have plenty of time to mellow over the summer. I also made a quick vodka tincture (just what it needs, more booze) with the cassia and anchos over a couple days, and...

I just added my first round of adjuncts (cacao, vanilla, cassia chips and ancho chilies). When I peeked inside it definitely looked like there had been a vigorous fermentation, lots of gunk around the sides and stuck to the thermowell. Gravity fell all the way from 1.118 to 1.020. That's nearly...

Done. Have at it kids. Look forward to working on this problem with you.

I received a request from @InspectorJon in a different thread to post what I'm doing in this forum to see if we can put our minds together and come up with a decent Abraxas clone. Basically I brewed a slightly modified version of Perennial's Fantastic Voyage recipe that Perennial owner Phil...

I'll post an update in about 5 weeks or so. He also recommended bagging it up with other adjuncts, if you have any. I'm going to be using cassia bark chips this time so it'll be a bit easier. In the video course he recommends 5-7 days for extraction.

That's about right, at least for a big stout. I had a bad experience with way too much cinnamon in my first attempt at a Mexican chocolate stout so I'm going to be super cautious this time. But Abraxas is a perfect balance IMHO so I'm looking forward to trying this out.

Welp, nobody responded but in case anyone with the same question finds this post in the future, I reached out to Perennial for some guidance. The owner, Phil Wymore (who appeared in an excellent video course on brewing imperial stouts that you can find in the link in the original post), got back...

I've got a big, roasty imperial stout in my fermenter at the moment. I used Perennial's Fantastic Voyage recipe (minus the coconut) and the OG is 1.118. I want to go for more of an Abraxas flavor. I intend to add most of a bottle of Cholaca liquid cacao, 2 oz of dried ancho chilies and some...

You're right, I wasn't sure if it was relevant to the question. It's the recipe for Perennial's Fantastic Voyage from Craft Beer & Brewing, but I want to use different adjuncts. I'm looking for a 1.120 OG and an FG around 1.045. The pre-boil gravity should be approaching 1.090. If I don't hit...