Great Divide Brewing Company: Old Ruffian clone

(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.096  FG = 1.026
IBU = 90  SRM = 11  ABV = 10.2%

Ingredients

19 lbs. (8.6 kg) American 2-row pale malt
0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) crystal malt (75 °L)
0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) Victory® malt
0.25 lb. (0.11 kg) flaked wheat
36 AAU Chinook hops (60 min.) (3 oz./85 g at 12% alpha acids)
16 AAU Amarillo® hops (30 min.) (2 oz./57 g at 8% alpha acids)
24 AAU Amarillo® hops (5 min.) (3 oz./85 g at 8% alpha acids)
White Labs WLP051 (California V Ale) or Wyeast 1272 (American II Ale) yeast (5 quarts/~5 L yeast starter)
2/3 cup (133 g) dextrose (if priming)

Step by Step

This is a very big beer. See below for two options for generating your wort. In all cases, use a single infusion mash (or steep) at 154 °F (68 °C), held for 45–60 minutes. Add hops as indicated in the ingredient list.

Pitch the yeast from your yeast starter, aerate very well and hold fermentation temperature at 66 °F (19 °C). Keg or bottle the beer when fermentation is complete and beer has fallen clear.

Alternatively, you could try bourbon barrel aging this beer as Great Divide does, or by adding toasted oak cubes or staves that have been soaked in bourbon. Be sure to taste samples regularly to observe the level of bourbon and oak flavors over time in the beer so they do not overwhelm the nuances of your Old Ruffian clone.

Long boil option: Mash grains listed in ingredient list with 28 quarts (26 L) of mash liquor. After mash, recirculate wort until clear. Collect wort until the specific gravity of the final runnings falls below 1.010. (This may be up to 12 gallons (45 L), depending on a number of variables.) Keep your sparge water heated such that your grain bed temperature creeps up to 168 °F (76 °C) near the end of wort collection. Boil wort to reduce volume to 6 gallons (23 L). Add first dose of hops and boil them for an hour, aiming for 5 gallons (19 L) of post-boil wort.

First wort option: Add enough pale malt to your mash tun so that you can run off 6 gallons (23 L) of first wort without adding sparge water. For this you will need between 26.75 lbs. to 32.5 lbs. (12-15 kg) of pale malt (in addition to the specialty malts and flaked wheat), depending on how much water your grains normally absorb. You will need roughly 9–10 gallons (34–38 L) of mash liquor (and 12–14 gallons/45–53 L of mash tun space to hold it all). Your 6 gallons (23 L) of pre-boil wort should have a specific gravity of 1.085–1.090. Boil for one hour to reduce wort to a volume of 5 gallons (19 L). Note: You can (and should) sparge the grain bed to collect wort for a second beer.]

Partial mash option:  Substitute 17 lbs. (7.7 kg) of the 2-row pale malt in the all-grain recipe with 9 lbs. (4.1 kg) of extra light dried malt extract. Steep the crushed 2-row and specialty grains in 1 gallon (4 L) water at 154 °F (68 °C) for 60 minutes. Remove the grain bag and place in a colander. Slowly rinse the grains with 1 gallon (4 L) hot water. Top off the kettle to 6 gallons (23 L) and stir in the dried malt extract while off of heat. Be sure all the extract is dissolved, then bring the wort to a boil. Follow the remaining all-grain instructions.