I’m going to brew a big, warming beer for my next batch. Something that will toast your innards with alcohol burn and warm you up.
I am thinking either a Scottish wee heavy of Russian imperial stout.
The only problem is that these types of beers require extensive aging. a RIS would be barely drinkable by Christmas.
I saw on a brewing tv episode that a mead maker used a staggered yeast addition to give his mead a cellared flavor right from the carboy.
Has anyone tried this with beer? I would rather not experiment on a huge expensive beer like a RIS, but will if I don’t hear from anyone… for science!
At the same time I wanted my next batch to be the one I tried the “Brew in a Bag” method. Do the full mash in my boil kettle is appealing. To raise the temperature I just add or adjust flame. After the mash I just lift the bag out, rinse/sparge and start my boil. Plus it will be less clean up without having to rinse my mash tun.
The problem with my next batch being a big beer and my first bib batch is the risk of overflowing my kettle. 15-20 lbs of grain, 7 gallons for the boil plus however much I need to figure in for absorption during the mash… than re adding for sparge. None of my software will do the math for brew in a bag so this is all going to have to be done manually.. yup.. on my fingers.
… Or maybe a Baltic Porter.