Christmas brew already? Bad Santa

[sven945]

I've got a bit obsessed with this recipe, and thought it might be a good one for my first stout. I've seen a few old threads on other forums that suggest that it benefits from a long time bottle conditioning (a few people saying that the strong flavours overpower everything and that it's not as good as it could be, then posting again a few months later saying they retract everything and wished they'd not opened so many bottles so soon because it had turned amazing over time.

Here's the ingredients

12 lbs. (5.4 kg) Canadian Pils malt
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) Munich malt
0.50 lb. (0.45 kg) Carahell® malt (19 °L)
0.50 lb. (0.45 kg) CaraMunich® malt (30–40 °L)
1.0 oz. (28 g) black patent malt
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) light dried malt extract
13 fl. oz. (384 mL) maple syrup
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) dried cherries
12 AAU US Northern Brewer hops (60 mins) (1 oz./28 g of 12% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1084 (Irish ale) yeast
1 vanilla bean (split)
3 cinnamon sticks (3 inches, broken into pieces)

There's a few obvious errors in the conversions from imperial to metric, but can anyone suggest alternatives for the Carahell and Caramunich? My local shop sells Carahell but only in 500g bags (presumably vacuum packed) which would mean most of the pack going to waste. They sell something called Caramunch which at least from the name could be similar to Caramunich?! I don't know... (Also I'm assuming a general lager malt would work in lieu of the Canadian Pils? Any particular logic as to why it uses a lager malt rather than an ale malt?).

 

[strange-steve]

That's a pretty hefty beer, I'd say a good 6 months aging would be needed, just in time for Crimbo.

A word of warning, make sure you have plenty of headspace in your fv and a blowoff tube because this will blow the lid off!

As for the carahell and caramunich, they are simply brand names for Weyerman crystal malts. The carahell could be swapped for a very light crystal such as carapils, the caramunich for crystal 30-40.

Not sure why a pils malt instead of ale malt. Any pils/lager malt would be fine though I'd say there wouldn't be a massive difference if you used your standard pale ale malt.

 

[sven945]

Thanks for the warning about headspace. My FV is 15l. I was considering trying for 13l, but I'll stick to the usual 11! And thanks for the help with the different malts. As for the base malt, I don't have a stock of anything so I'll stick to the lager malt that the recipe suggests.

 

[chuffer]

Am I being daft or is that recipe for 19 litres? If so aren't you going to need a new FV?

 

[sven945]

Am I being daft or is that recipe for 19 litres? If so aren't you going to need a new FV?

I'll scale it all down for my equipment, this was just cut and pasted from the original. Thanks for checking though. It's the sort of obvious mistake I'd make!

 

[strange-steve]

I brewed a big stout, similar gravity, same yeast, 16 litres in a 22 litre fv and it was pouring out the top the following day! There was so much overflow it swamped my heater and destroyed it. Never seen such a vigorous fermentation.

 

[sven945]

Thanks for the warnings! Could I perhaps reduce the effects by cooling the wort to, say, 15°C before pitching or would that cause other problems?