Anyone ever tried something like this?
I was thinking that simply doubling the grain bill may be problematic with the 1lb of dextrose becoming 2… but at 4% its good, at 7% it would be great.
It might work if your are obsessed with strong beers. I know I was when I started and wanted stronger everything.
Then I realized that brewing meant that I drink more and drinking more stronger beer is not always a good thing.
So I actually really enjoy a mild, lower gravity beer for everyday drinking and as a lawnmower beer.
I’ve brewed the Innkeeper a few times and really appreciate it for what it is. I think it’s just right. I too don’t brew many big beers any more. My current interest is brewing interesting, lower alcohol beers.
I do some of each. I brew bigger beers because they tend to be very expensive to buy in the store and sometimes harder to find. I also like how old ales and barley wines change as time goes on.
I’ll be brewing a few lawnmower beers soon.
The merits of session beers aside, I was more curious about whether a simply doubled version of this awesomely-quaffable beauty of malty/hoppy/yeasty balance would work.
I dont see why not. You’ll want to add hops as well as the utilization will be different in higher gravity wort.
Brewing the Innkeeper this weekend. Let me know if you try this and how it turns out.
What makes the innkeeper so good is the fact that it’s light yet malty bitter but smooth. Doubling the recipe may be good but not for the reason the innkeeper is good.
You can definitely do this, but it will become something like an old ale or maybe even an english barleywine depending on the calculated gravity.
One thing to think about if you do it is you want to keep the bittering unit : gravity unit ratio intact. In other words, if The Innkeeper measures 20 IBUs and 1.048 OG, the BU:GU ratio is 20/48 or 0.41.
If you want to take this to become a 1.096 OG beer, you need to take it to (96*0.41), or 39 IBUs. For a beer this big, I would also suggest some simple sugar or treacle to help dry it out and a hella pitch of yeast. It also probably needs to age 6mo-1yr as well before it really takes shape. (yet another benefit of the Innkeeper, it sounds like it can be turned around in about 10 days!)
Right – that was my fear, that it would become more of a triple with a british yeast – which may be good, a little maltier than a belgian version with less yeast character, but still no Innkeeper…
The recipe as-is simply doubled would have 2lb of corn sugar – good point on the aging though… the original may take 10 days to make, but half that to consume.
The recipe as-is simply doubled would have 2lb of corn sugar – good point on the aging though… the original may take 10 days to make, but half that to consume.[/quote]
ooh. yeah, thats a lot of corn sugar. I don’t usually do kits, but this is one I would definitely consider!
If you’re going in this direction, I would use .5-1lb of corn sugar (optional) and .5-1lb of treacle or real dark black strap molasses.
Hey! That’s a great idea! Imperial Innkeeper. If you do it, Im interested in how it turns out. I have innkeeper on hand all the time and might even give the double a try!
:cheers:
If you double the extra dark crystal in the same size batch you’ll end up with a significantly darker beer. Sounds like it’s not gonna be as simple as just doubling the ingredients.
So–I did it, kinda (all you IK purists can stop reading here)
Draining from the Mash Tun right now,
12 lb Rahr 2-Row (I know I know–there’s a blizzard, I can’t get GP, and it won’t be the same)
.5lb Extra Dark Crystal GB
2lb Dextrose
All I have is goldings and Northdown
36 IBU 60 min, 45 min and 5 with Northdown the aroma.
11.4 SRM – looks like a brown ale coming out of the tun.
A big starter of 1469 spinnin’ away.
This may be the beginning of a project with more attempts needed to nail something down, but I’m optimistic, and open to suggestions.
I brewed the Innkeeper last weekend. The prev one I did, I just used the recipe posted on NB and bought local. Turned out great. Well my LBHS went bust, so this batch I bought the kit from NB.
When I was plugging the ingredients into promash it calculated IBU’s of 50(!). My prev batch was 40 IBU’s and I thought it was pretty bitter, but still really good. I couldn’t see a 25% increase in IBU’s being a good think so I scaled it back to make it 40, like the previous batch.
This degree of variation seemed odd. Any thoughts?
Quite complex and bready, with a very dry finish, subtle bitterness, and very smooth, with no alcohol notes at all.
It fermented it in the high 50s for 3 days, then up to 63 for 2 days, then up to 68 for three days to prevent astringency.
Went from 1.065 to 1.010 in 5 weeks, kegged yesterday, this is the very first glass from the keg. With little carbonation this is a very nice beer–complex enough to sip, smooth enough to have more than one.
The thing i’ll change next is to use GP instead of Rahr. I like the floral quality the EKG lend.
