Mississippi Slough

A day late and a dollar short, but here is the promised write up on scaling up my brewery to pump out 15 gallons of Russian Imperial Stout in order to fill a 15 gallon rye whiskey barrel. I purchased the barrel in late October from Missisisippi River Distilling Company for a fairly reasonable $125. These barrels are a step in the production of their "award-winning" Cody Road rye whiskey. While it seems like anyone can get a ribbon nowadays, as someone who does not really drink whisky, I can attest that Cody Road is smooth and delicious. The challenge for me though was to quickly produce 15+ gallons of high gravity beer that would stand up to the barrel. The recipe:

Mississippi Slough (15+ gls)  

49 lbs Maris Otter

4.3 lb German Roasted Barley

3.4 lb UK Pale Chocolate

1.75 lb Flaked Barley

3.4 lb Special B
2.5 lb UK Brown Malt
2.2 lb CaraMunich I

5 oz Magnum FWH (67 IBU)
4 oz EKG 25'' (14 IBU) 
Mash @ 152F

Expected ABV: ~11%

I added 0.5 tsp of chalk and baking soda to each mash 

I have brewed this recipe several times before with great success, but never to this scale. To brew this much, I had to add a new mash tun. I used a 48 qt rectangle cooler fitted with some simple fittings and a 16'' braided stainless filter. 

Despite my best efforts I undershot my target gravity, ending up with ~16 gallons of 1.099 wert. Oh well, this should still produce 15+ gallons of 10+ ABV stout! I chilled the wert with my submersion + counterflow combo and then fermented with a combo of WY1056 and US-05. After just 8 days of primary fermentation, I racked into the barrel for 6 weeks. Tasting notes to follow.