Imperial Russian Stout

[Lugsy]

Hi guys

For my next brew I'm going to do an IRS, probably my favourite style of beer so far. I'm reckoning that if I get it on this weekend I'll be able to drink some of it by Christmas this year and put the rest away (if possible!) until next year.

I BIAB in a 20 litre pot so I think my maximum grain bill will have to be around 6kg which would give me a pretty stiff mash, this should give me something like 12-15 litres of finished beer depending on strength (I want to end up with something around 1.100 if possible )

A couple of questions then:

1) I'll be needing to do a couple of sparges to get anything like a decent efficiency (I'm getting around 80% when I do 5kg with a sparge) but I'll have to do a long boil to get my OG up. How long a boil can I get away with?

2) I'm planning on pitching the wort onto the slurry of S04 I used in a 1.044 beer I made last weekend, will this be OK?

3) Anyone got any good recipes?

Cheers,

L

[leedsbrew]

this was my version of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

Fermentables
Ingredient Amount % MCU When
UK Pale Ale Malt 5.283 kg 83.4 % 8.0 In Mash/Steeped
UK Wheat Malt 0.374 kg 5.9 % 0.4 In Mash/Steeped
UK Chocolate Malt 0.354 kg 5.6 % 80.5 In Mash/Steeped
UK Roasted Barley 0.166 kg 2.6 % 53.9 In Mash/Steeped
UK Flaked Wheat 0.085 kg 1.3 % 0.1 In Mash/Steeped
UK Black Malt 0.071 kg 1.1 % 19.3 In Mash/Steeped

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
UK Golding 5.5 % 57 g 36.3 Loose Whole Hops 90 Min From End
UK Golding 5.5 % 13 g 3.8 Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
US Cascade 6.0 % 13 g 4.1 Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
US Willamette 4.5 % 11 g 1.1 Loose Whole Hops 5 Min From End
US Cascade 6.0 % 11 g 1.5 Loose Whole Hops 5 Min From End


Yeast
White Labs WLP007-Dry English Ale


that's for 15L and it came out at 8.1% but that's cos I didnt adjust the efficiency in BeerAlchemy. The aim was for 10.1% efficiency was well low at 67.7%.


It is a really good RIS. It was brewed on 02/01/2010 and I still have half a crate of 330ml bottles left.

did a brewday post at the time

HERE
cheers

LB

[Lugsy]

Cheers leedsbrew

Just had a read and that looks pretty good, I can't believe you've still got some left

I can manage pretty much all of that apart from the black malt and the cascade, would unmalted wheat work in place of the flaked wheat?

Cheers,

L

[leedsbrew]

Cheers leedsbrew

Just had a read and that looks pretty good, I can't believe you've still got some left

I can manage pretty much all of that apart from the black malt and the cascade, would unmalted wheat work in place of the flaked wheat?

Cheers,

L

I've been saving it. its not been easy! lol

I don't think you'll miss the black if you up the roasted barley. the flaked wheat was unmalted wheat!

[Lugsy]

Superb

That looks like a good possibility then!

Anyone else?

[WishboneBrewery]

My thoughts on doing another Imperial Stout, having done two before (one tastes good but was kind of my Epic fail! I learned from that and the next one was better and tastes great almost a year old)

1/ Keep your Base malts at a high percentage, 75-80% minimum of pale or lager malt.
2/ Mash for an Extended period if just doing *One* mash, possibly an overnight, but definitely 2 hours.
3/ Boil the foook out of it with a third sparge of the mash before adding any hops to get it to the gravity you want.
4/ Be careful with the amount of dark malts as a strong beer needs less of a percentage of Choc / Roasted / Black to gain the colour you want.
5/ Throw more hops at it than you think, I might double what I used last time.

*You could Mash Twice and Each time do a VERY minimal sparge and just collect the the first Mash run-off (Batch Sparge), then plan to do another brew of a regular Stout or Porter after Boiling the Imperial with the leftover Mashes

I'd have to put some serious thought into my next, maybe have 2 separate Mash beers, one Dark for the Imperial Stout and one of just Pale Malt but combine the first Mash Run-off of each... this might give me the option of making a paler beer from the mash remains.

Food for thought!!

[WishboneBrewery]

Oh... I don't think there is any harm in boosting the ABV with sugars in this style. Like mash for a 6-7% beer and add sugars to take to 8-9% etc It would probably make for an easier drinking beer.

[Lugsy]

Cheers pdtnc

Lots to think about there! I'm leaning towards going for as close as I can get to leedsbrew's recipe for the BBCS. I'm planning on a single mash but I'm not about tonight so I'll have to do a long one (maybe 3 hours) in the morning followed by two sparges and a longer boil than usual to get the OG up, so I'll probably get it in the fermenter about midnight! If I miss my OG though I'll go with a sugar addition to get it up there.

My Willamette's are a bit on the old side (2007 harvest ) but they've been in the freezer since I opened them in March, should I up the quantity to compensate for this?

Looking forward to getting this one on

Cheers,

L

[WishboneBrewery]

you could always knock a percentage off the Alpha of them http://www.wellhopped.co.uk/Product.htm I recently subtracted 30% off my Hop Alphas for some older hops that went into my Imperial Smoked Porter, I'm really glad I did.

Up to you though in the end.

[floydmeddler]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 515158.stm

[Lugsy]

Nice one Floyd! I saw something on the news this morning about it, looks like this is the day for it.

The mash is on and I'm off to the pub for a pint, got three hours to kill somehow

I'll post in Brewdays when I get back.