Effin Imperial Russian Stout

[Aleman]

Mysterio Asked for this one, which I freely admit is based on Grahams Courage Imperial Russian Stout, but adapted to be all grain . . . Assume a mash efficiency of 68% and this is for a 20L batch at 1.104

7000g Pale Malt
850g Flaked Maize (GW Recipe uses Maltose Syrup)
790g Amber Malt
500g Crystal Malt (105L - Standard Crystal)
500g Chocolate Malt
250g Black Malt

Use a slightly thinner mash for this, say around 3L/Kg but bear in mind you need a mash tun of around 40L
After sparging if the gravity is below 1.080 preboil the wort to bring it up to 1.080 (Measured cold) . . . Then add the hops and boil for 2 hours

85g Goldings (Start Of Boil)
100g Fuggles (Start Of Boil)
35g Fuggles (Last 15 Minutes)

Big Beer so Pitch a large qty of yeast and aerate well ( I pitched onto a yeast cake of a 1.040 pale beer)

Final Gravity can be as high as 1.028-1.030 . . . . Although mine was lower than this . .. but not by much.

Mature in corny for a year, then bottle (Possibly using a champagne yeast), and hide it away for another year . . . . it continues to improve for several years after this.

[mysterio]

Cheers Aleman

Might be worth brewing a dry stout or a bitter with the irish ale yeast first then.

[Buzz]

Jeez, you need the patience of a saint. Or a helluva lot of beers to keep you going whilst you wait Get to my time of life and you might even be dead by the time you get to drink it. (or not, so to speak).

[Aleman]

Might be worth brewing a dry stout or a bitter with the irish ale yeast first then.

I must admit that I am looking at the really nice clean yeast sediment that is forming at the bottom of the FV on my Premium bitter and thinking . . ."Barleywine or Imperial Stout?" . . . .

[pantsmachine]

I have been planning a russian stout for a few weeks, i'll have the recipe and brewday experience up in about 3 weeks. Seems a popular beer at the moment. I really like the fact that i can put it bvy for years and it will keep getting better, going to pass a few bottles to each of the males in my family for them to try in 2010 & 2011. This amy seem like a daft question aleman but why mature in a cornie for a year, are you putting something else in the cornie to pass flavour to the brew or is it a whole mix and mature entire batch thing? Don't know what you guys think but i think this would be an excellent beer type to swap with others who brew the type, talk about a long term look forward!

[adm]

I have been planning a russian stout for a few weeks, i'll have the recipe and brewday experience up in about 3 weeks. Seems a popular beer at the moment. I really like the fact that i can put it bvy for years and it will keep getting better, going to pass a few bottles to each of the males in my family for them to try in 2010 & 2011. This amy seem like a daft question aleman but why mature in a cornie for a year, are you putting something else in the cornie to pass flavour to the brew or is it a whole mix and mature entire batch thing? Don't know what you guys think but i think this would be an excellent beer type to swap with others who brew the type, talk about a long term look forward!

I'm still not sure I can get my head around the "years" bit. I'm doing mine for Christmas. In a corny. There will be none left after New Year.

Mind you - if it works well, I'll probably get another lot on first thing in Jan and let it have the whole year to mature.

[Aleman]

This amy seem like a daft question aleman but why mature in a cornie for a year

Beer matures better in bulk, These big old beers were sealed up in wooden casks for a year before being bottles, and this is simply emulating that . . . Of course we won't get anything like the Bret activity that would have occured in the 1800's, but that may well be a good thing

Don't know what you guys think but i think this would be an excellent beer type to swap with others who brew the type, talk about a long term look forward!

Which is how the Durden Park crowd approached the whole thing. In fact the Northern CBA have started exactly the same sort of thing. They picked one of the recipes (Bass No 1 IIRC) to make, each of them has brewed it and they are intending to have a bottle of each brew every year at the winter meeting until it runs out to see how the beer(s) change over time.

[pantsmachine]

I get home around the 14th/17th Sept and 1 week after that i will be brewing. I expect to bottle around 2 to 3 weeks after brewing to allow beer some time to sit in secondary with some oak chips(decided not to buy an oak barrel yet) and maybe a bit of fruit. I'll stick an offer up on my brewday thread once i am done and dusted/bottled for a swap if anyone fancies it. I am also going to use the WL irish yeast and expect it to be fully knackered post fermentation as i remember the recipe i am doing being about 10% abv according to beersmith when i was playing about with grains/volume on it.

For bottling this time i am thinking about a champagne yeast in a honey/water solution and injecting about 20ml of this solution into each bottle with a syringe before bottling with the stout. Anyone any thoughts on this regarding how much honey to put in to get a 'standard' carbonation level for the beer type. I've never drank a IRS but i'd like to see some carbonation in there to help with the head if nothing else. Thanks and sorry if this is hijacking but assuming the same sort of questions for the same sort of bee
P.S sorry about the American influence creeping in on this one but i think adventurous is the way to go for something this big!