Old Rasputin Clone

Old Rasputin is a Russian Imperial Stout brewed by North Coast Brewing Company in Fort Bragg, California. Old Rasputin has been my favorite Russian Imperial Stout for many years now. It is a very clean American style version of the style with restrained roasted flavor, aggressive bitterness, backed up by a full body malt background. This beer weighs in at a hefty 9% alcohol, which has become more and more normal in the modern brewing atmosphere. The amazing thing about this beer is that North Coast is said to have this beer brewed and shipped in less than three weeks.

This brew was done more for a friend than for me. I have long loved this beer and was glad when he mentioned that he wanted to brew clone of this beer. A quick internet search brings up many recipes said to give you a beer just like it, so I chose a recipe put up by BYO and work from there. Being my friend and new brewing partner's first time brewing, I decided to go easy on him with using dried yeast. This will also be my first time using dried yeast. Before I began brewing I knew that I wanted the whole package when it came to the brewing process, so I never used dried yeast, opting for the more involved method of growing up a pitch of liquid yeast. This will be a new endeavor for the both of us and a fun one to write about.

Recipe Specifics

Batch Size: 2.5 gallons (2 gallons into fermenter)
Total Grain: 7.75 lbs
Anticipated OG: 1.090
Anticipated SRM: 35
Anticipated IBU: 85-90
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85% Fly Sparge
Wort Boil: 90 min

Grain

6.5 lbs English Pale malt
6 oz Crystal 10L
6 oz Crystal 120L
3 oz Brown Malt
3 oz Chocolate Malt
2 oz Roasted Barley

Hops

1 oz Cascade 60 min
.5 oz Pearle  30 min
1 oz Centennial 2 min

Yeast

Safale-05 11.5 g (sprinkled into oxygenated wort)

1/16/2014 - Brewed. Efficiency was a little high but nothing to worry about. Gravity reading after chilled came in at 1.092-1.094.

1/23/2014- Fermentation still continues furiously. Moved to warming pad to keep fermentation going as my basement is very cold. Will keep on pad for 5 days after fermentation seems to stop allowing for the yeast to stay active and clean up after itself before a chill drop the yeast before kegging.

2/1/2014 -Transfered to fermenter the refrigerator to cold crash before kegging.