planning a massive imperial russian stout

[Biganth]

We plan to brew a huge russian imperia lstout next weekend. Its not something weve tried as yet. So i wana give my recipe a run down for some constructive critisism. Ive gone hugely complex, using ten different malts and cascade and columbus hops for bittering and flavour.

Heres the recipe
Like i said its a new style for us to brew. But we love a big RIS so we must try it out.

23litre batch
OG 1.108 FG 1.034 abv 9.9%
ibu's 67.1 ebc 115.7

Maris otter 8.34kg
Black patent 0.15kg
Carafa1 0.14kg
Crystal(120L) 0.14kg
Chocolate(886.5ebc) 0.58kg
Chocolate(689.5ebc) 0.29kg
Black barley. 0.26kg
Biscuit malt. 0.26kg
Smoked malt. 0.12kg
Flaked oats. 0.3kg

30g columbus 75mins
30g cascade 60mins
25g cascade 20mins
25g cascade 5mins
45g columbus 5mins

Wlp004 irish ale yeast(made up to 2pint starter the day before brewday)

Mash all grain for 60mins @ 69degrees celcius slightly thicker grain to liquor ratio

Fly sparge

Boil for 75mins

3 week ferment at 19degrees.

Im thinking off racking to secondary with addition of cacao nibs too. But not too sure yet.

Any comments/critique/advice will be much appreciated.

Ta!!!

[Mr. Dripping]

I would personally mash lower - 64 degrees and for a minimum of 2 hours.
You want that wort to be as fermentable as possible or the beer will be too sweet......FG of 1034 is far too high IMO. I would be aiming for around 1018.
I would also up the IBU to 90+; there is a lot of malt to cut through.
I prefer traditional English hop varieties and can't say that I've tried a RIS with bolder American hops.
If you've used software to design your recipe; set the efficiency to 65% or you will end up short on gravity.

I think these type of beers are best bulk aged for minimum 6 months and then re-seeded for bottling.

[Biganth]

Hi, thanks for the reply and the advice. I opted for a higher mash temp hoping to acheive a thicker more chewable body to the beer. I figured with the amount of roast flavours and bitterness from.the black malts the risidual sweetness from the high mash temp might help balance it out. Yeah i used beer smith to design the recipe. efficiency is set to 75%. all other brews on our system have worked out pretty bang on with the numbers etc. The gravity and ibu are pretty bang on for the style. Like i said ive never tried a stout before. Im hoping to achieve a great devide yeti type. Or the kernels export brown stout.

[Mr. Dripping]

Re: efficiency.
Your other brews may well have hit the right numbers, but simple fact on high OG beers is your efficiency WILL be lower.
You could re-mash once you have the wort for the RIS and make a small beer as well.

I still say your target FG is too high; I understand that you want to balance the roastiness, but even a 1018 beer is fairly sweet and you will have added sweetness from the high alcohol level.

It's up to you on the bitterness level; a lot of it will drop out during aging.

[jmc]

I agree with others. Hardest part will be getting it to be not too sweet.

I used a Belgian (Duvel) yeast cake from a previous brew, and added some sugars (at secondary) to get a lowish FG in my Belgian Imperial Stout. It was over a month in the FV.

I brewed mine New Year's day 2014. It tasted OK after 6 months but much better at 12 months (Christmas).
It takes a long time for all the roast malts to lose their rough edges.

BTW: I don't think you'll notice your smoked malt. I used about 10% and you there was just a hint of it in tastings.

more info

[Matt12398]

My thoughts are as follows:

- As has been said, mash much lower or you'll just get something undrinkable.
- Lose the late hops. By the time it's drinkable there won't be a lot of aroma.
- Lose the oats. They add body and you're going to get plenty of that already.
- Simplify the grain bill. A lot of those in those quantities won't be noticed.
- I don't think your starter looks big enough. Have you used software to calculate the pitching rate?

Most of all, do you have temperature control for your fermentation? If you don't you'll have something that takes a long time to mature.

At the end of the day though it's your beer. Brew what you want to brew and come back and tell us what it's like.

[Biganth]

Ok i think il take heed on the mash temp advice. Il aim for 66 instead to get a lower FG. Il also up my smoked percentage. I do think a hint of smokiness will taste great so thanks for that JMC. Im going to keep the oats. Im looking for a really deep thick pour. So i dont want anything taken from the grain bill. I want it to be complex as possible. Its my first RIS brew so im not expecting great things. I do agree with the late addition hops since it was mentioned. Taking into account the aging period they arnt going to hold up much i suppose.

[crookedeyeboy]

Starter should be fine, I used WLP004 for my last stout, I pitched the whole vial into some wort 24 hours before and pitched this into the wort on the brew day, came down nicely to 1.018°