21st September 2008 - Imperial Russian Stout

These were the grandaddies of beers in the early 1800's Barclay Perkins made an absolute fortune shipping them to the Imperial court in St Petersberg, right up until 1822 when a horrendous import tax made it unviable to continue to do so. Barclay Perkins was saved by the massive increase in drinking of London Porter.

9.5Kg Pale Malt 1.0Kg Flaked Barley 1.0Kg Chocolate Malt 0.6Kg Black Malt 0.5Kg Amber Malt 0.5Kg Crystal Malt (55L) 0.6Kg Cane Sugar 100g Goldings Hops (5% Alpha 120 Minutes) 125g Fuggles Hops (5.6% Alpha 120 Minutes) 50g Progress Hops (6.2% Alpha 15 Minutes)	This is a big beer in every sense of the word, with 12.5Kg of grain in only 25L of wort. Aiming for an OG of 1.105 and 101 IBU, this will take some ageing, something like a year in the cask and a further year in bottle!
	The Grain Bill - All 13.7 Kg Of it
	All mixed nicely with 28L of water
	After topping up for the first batch sparge . . . its a bit full in there, and the manifold is ready for recirculation
	Recirculating the wort to get rid of all the chunky bits
	And look at how clear the wort has become - the obligatory footwear pic
	And filling the boiler, even remembered to fit the hop stopper
	The spent grain, occupying somewhat more than 25L
	The bittering hops (125g Fuggles and 100g Goldings)
	Start of the boil, just waiting for the foam to subside
	Goldings hops in
	and The Fuggles
	Oh Look we've made hop soup
	The flavour hops - 50g of Progress
	IC In and recirculating the wort to cool
	Pumping the treacle . . . Wort . . . to the FV
	and with 23+ Liters in the boiler its time to fill Neils Demijohn
	The hops and trub take up the best part of a 1/3 of a keg
	Oh Neils sort of made a mess as well . . . .
	But I think mine is more impressive . . .