Help with Expedition Stout clone

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

All,

I'm looking to brew a clone of Expedition Stout based on this 2003 recipe from Zymurgy:

Bell's Expedition Stout Clone
Target OG 1.110
Target IBU 100

23 lb. pale 2-row
1.0 lb. flaked barley
1.5 lb. roasted barley
1.0 lb. black patent
1.0 lb crystal 80
0.5 lb. chocolate malt
3.3 lb. amber malt extract

2.5 oz. Centennial hops 10% AA - 45 minutes
1.5 oz. Centennial hops 10% AA - 30 minutes
0.5 oz. Centennial hops 10% AA - end of boil

Single step infusion mash @ 150-152 deg. F.
Collect as much wort as practical - reduce volume to approximately 5.5 gallons by extended boiling. Add extract to the wort at the beginning of the boil.

So, here's what bothers me about the above recipe. First, should I really expect an og of 1.110? With that grainbill, I'd need an efficiency of slightly less than 50% to get that og - that seems pretty low. My usual efficiency is a little over 70% for really big beers. Second, my calculated IBUs are only about 40 and the target is 100. Even if I dial back my efficiency to reach 1.110, the IBUs only go to about 60 (tinseth). Why the big discrepancy?

Anyone out there with experience brewing this particular clone?

Thanks in advance!

 

[FuriousE]

I don't have any of these answers, but I'd love to try my hand at this beer. It is one of the best imperials I've ever tasted, so I'll be watching this thread for updates.

 

[m00ps]

I've found that 90% of published clone recipes are wildly inaccurate. Maybe just scaling straight from commercial to homebrew doesnt work too well.

Here's ym thoughts:
what size batch is this? it looks like a 10gal.
Even if it is 10gal, that is a lot of roasted malts. 1 lb of something like black patent will get you a jet black color. I've only had this beer once but it was nowhere near as roasty as that would make it. Here's what I would try for a 5gal. Targeting OG of 1.10 with 75% efficientcy:

14.5 2row
1.0 flaked barley
1.0 crystal 40-120 any combo you want
0.5 chocolate
0.5 pale chocolate (i love the flavor from pale choc more)
0.5 roasted barley
6oz black patent

for the hops, maybe just cut all those in half. I cant remember how hoppy it was.

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

Thanks, m00ps!

I just couldn't make sense of the recipe. It looked more like a barleywine. I looked it over and it just confused me, and the BJCP style guide was confused by it too. The first thing I did was to dial back the efficiency to match the og. What I probably should have done is to dial back the grain bill.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

I'm going to be brewing this soon. Anybody have direct experience with the posted recipe (first post of this thread)? Your feedback would be much appreciated!

 

[zippyclown]

Brewed this 2 years ago with one big modification and a couple of blunders. However as it ages it's one of the best imperial stouts I've ever tasted and for my taste it's got the real Expedition beat. I can tell you from experience that this recipe is more forgiving than you might think, so use your favorite software to scale this to your setup and just let it fly.

My blunderful brew day... Unfortunately I lost the exact recipe with a computer crash. But from what I remember, there was no way I could handle that much grain in my mash tun, so I replaced more than half of the 2-row with liquid extract added to the boil. Kept all the other ingredients the same, I'm fairly certain. This was a 5 gallon batch BTW. I want to say I took that 23 pounds down to maybe 10-ish and added the extract until I got where I needed to be gravity-wise. I know for sure that my OG was 1.101. I was shooting for lower but my FG was 1.03.

So kinda crazy, but like I said it's been two years and this thing doesn't stop improving. I've had several RIS fans tell me it's the best they've ever had. Would be amazing aged on vanilla, or coffee, or whiskey soaked wood chips. Or all of that monkey business at once. Maybe I'll try that and literally call it Monkey Business.

Good day.

zc

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

zippy,

Wow! Now I'm looking forward to this even more.

I'll be shooting for a 5.5 gallon batch (as the recipe calls for) and borrowing a larger kettle to hold all the grain - I considered using only 13 lbs of 2-Row to save kettle space and replacing with extract. However, the kettle was offered so I'll use that to hold all 23 lbs.

I'm thinking about splitting the batch as it goes into the fermenter - 3.5 gallons in one vessel with nothing additional, 1 gallon with chocolate added, and another 1 gallon with something else added (I just have to figure out what that something else is).

Cheers and thanks!

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

All,

I ended up brewing this today (nearly) as the recipe stands. I got to the end of my boil, when I hit 5.5 gallons, and my sg was 1.149. I ended up diluting with a gallon of distilled water to get down to 1.126. In the end, I got 4.5 gallons in one fermenter and two 1 gallon batches in other fermenters. I intend to add chocolate to the two one gallon batches.

We'll see how this turns out in a few months.

 

[FuriousE]

Excellent!! Let us know how it turns out.

 

[Sleepyemt]

Interested to try this!

 

[dutroske]

I tried this recipe (mostly) as my first all-grain attempt on 1/4/2015. Probably crazy, but it was really what I wanted to shoot for. I got interested in homebrewing in November 2014 after trying some of the imperial stouts and had a desire to brew something similar at home. I like the Bell's Expedition Stout and decided work at 'cloning' it over the next year. My first step was an extract kit (BSG Irish Stout) and the Brewer's Best starter equipment set, just to go thru the steps of extract brewing. That was bottled about a 2 months ago and has turned out good. So, what the heck, time to move on.
I haven't bought the extra equipment for all-grain yet. I knew it would take some extra time to do (understatement), but I decided to make the first batch using what equipment I have on hand. For pots it meant just two 2 gal and 1 5 gal to work with. I have a cooler big enough to hold the grain and water, but I didn't want to modify it, so I picked up a couple of big mesh bags to try to mash in bags in the cooler. Based on the recipe at the top of this thread and tweaked for mostly local availability. I had to heat water in three different pots (kitchen stove, no big equipment yet) and I ended up a bit high to start and had to add water to cool it down. Pre-boil gravity was about 1.061, so I adjusted the Beersmith efficiency to reflect that and ended up adding 2# plain DME to try to hit my post boil OG target of 1.10. I tried to time the boils taking place in 3 different pots to start at the same time, but ended up way off. The two small pots hit boiling 45 minutes before the 5 gallon one. Adding to that, I ended up starting with 7.25 gallons. So, I ended up boiling on the stove top for about 2:45 in the small and 2 in the large pot. When I finally got to about 5 gallons volume I decided I would shut it down and accept whatever OG it was going to be. Beersmith lead me to hitting the 1.110 OG.
A few weeks prior I tried to harvest yeast from the Expedition Stout. That didn't work so well. I know what bacteria look like thru the microscope now. I ended up harvesting the Pacman from a Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout. That worked real well. That is what I ended up pitching into this recipe. I'm just not sure how much I had. The starter volume was 1.75 liters and it was just slowing down the prior night when I put it in the frigde to settle for brew day. I pulled some aside to make another starter in case I didn't pitch enough. Activity in the fermenter was discernible within an hour of pitching. I was a little afraid of under-pitching, so I added a pack of US-05 as well. It blew the air-lock cap by morning. Luckily I was in the room and heard it hissing and spitting and got it to the kitchen in time to take care of it. Put an overflow tube in for a couple of days. Just starting day 14 now and just a bubble a minute in the air-lock. I plan to move it to my basement for a couple of weeks once it appears to slow way down.
It was a fun day. But, I’m definitely going to be scaling up my equipment and getting a burner. Whether it turns out or not, it has been an education.

Dan

 

[durbacher]

@PlinyTheMiddleAged and @dutroske
I know it's been a while, but is there any chance to get a report how your attempts turned out?

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

durbacher,

I had one yesterday - quite tasty!

Obviously, it has been aging for a while and I intend to let it age some time more before I really get into it.

As I stated above, I completely overshot the og. I ended up with an off the scale Imperial. I tried bottling this brew but I couldn't get it to carbonate in the bottle. I ended up having to empty the bottles into a keg, pressure carb, and rebottle. I think the problem was that the ABV was too high. Anyway, it turned out great and it's getting better.

If I brew this again, I'd either scale back on the base malt or the DME. If I recall correctly, I could have hit the target og without much of any DME. But I went ahead with the full addition.

Good luck with your attempt!!!

Pliny

 

[elerten]

as far as yeast goes, harvest from amber ale or maybe Oberon. They use the same yeast on almost all their beers, some notable exceptions are like winter white. Their continuous yeast recycle thing is pretty cool.