Pimp my recipe ( imperial Stout).

[Deebee]

Hi all.

After what appears to be a very successful stout brew day a couple of weeks ago i have decided that the last brew of the year 8 november or december) will be an imperial stout.

Seeing as my storage space is limited i have taken a starting point in the stout i made last time, changed the hops around a little and changed the brew length.

I wonder if this would be a possibility for a brew and would appreciate the help.


Here are my thoughts 75% efficiency and a short 12 litre brew length.

4000 pale
600 Flaked barley
250 carafa III
200 roasted barley
50 gram chocolate malt

Hops at start of boil

target 12,4% giving me 59 IBU

My thoughts would be something like WLP 540 as yeast or maybe nottingham. I can't find the attenuation on the 540

Beersmith tells me that this will give me 1098 OG and with nottingham it will give me a n FG of 1023 so 9.9%

I will need to order the yeat etc from somewhere out of town/out of the country and would like to have this all sorted and planned soon, so.

PIMP MY RECIPE PLEASE



WLP540

[196osh]

A belgian yeast for a RIS? Should work. Will taste distinctly belgiany.

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp540.html

Attenuation: 74-82%

So it would be good for the attenuation.

If I were you I would do a bigger brew length. With testing bottles and how long it will take to age out its worth doing more imo.

The recpie looks good mabye add some sort of Crystal or Amber malts? Both infact I would.

[Deebee]

A belgian yeast for a RIS? Should work. Will taste distinctly belgiany.

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp540.html

Attenuation: 74-82%

So it would be good for the attenuation.

If I were you I would do a bigger brew length. With testing bottles and how long it will take to age out its worth doing more imo.

The recpie looks good mabye add some sort of Crystal or Amber malts? Both infact I would.

Edit here on the recipe

3500 pale
250 crystal
250 Amber malt
250 wheat malt
600 Flaked barley
250 carafa III
200 roasted barley
50 gram chocolate malt

Hops
30 g target 60 mins
20 g Northdown last 15

Am still struggling with ideas for a decent yeast. Would like body but also something that is not ging to be a stopped fermet candidate.

thanks again

[196osh]

The Belgian one would work just fine. If you pitch a big starter or preferably brew 10L of a belgian pale and use the yeast cake. Even if you get high 70% attenuation you will be laughing.

Just dont let it get too hot and it will add some nice notes, and complexity to the beer.

[Deebee]

Was thinking of making a 3 litre starter... well 1.5 til it has fermented out, then decant and replenish with 1.5 more.
Too much? thinking of fermenting at say 20?

Are there any other yeasts that would be ok? irish ale maybe? ( although i think that struggles with the High ABv beers.

[leedsbrew]

Wlp007 dry english ale worked well for my version of brookly black chocolate stout. I'll be using it again in my next RIS

[196osh]

Yeast growth is a product of the volume the yeast have to grown in so you would not get any more significant growth in the 1.5L if you added 1.5L of fresh wort, you need to add a volume > than 1.5L for the yeast count to rise.

Any yeast that attenuates quite well would be fine I would bet. WLP-001/US05, WLP007 is used in all of stone brewings normal ales I think and they are high abv.

If you were to ferment it with a good sized starter of the WLP540 I think it would turn out fine.

[Deebee]

Then i may indeed need to make the starter in my FV. Then decant and pitch the brew straight onto the yeast cake.

I only have access to a 2 litre glass otherwise- It would also make aeration easy, take off the lid and beat the hell out of it with a sterilized paint mixer!

It also means that i would definately know it was all totally clean, as i would not need to reclean the internals of the FV Right?

[196osh]

Not sure I would take the lid off mate. I would just shake it if you were using a FV, not opening it as much as you could.

I would also clean the inside of the FV with a cloth (fresh) which is moist not dripping with a no rinse saniser to be sure.

[Deebee]

A bit of extra reading suggests that WLP 001 is a good choice. high alcohol tolerance and if i increase the batch to 15 litrres i have sample bottles too I'd use 2 vials each made into a 1.5 litre starter, that should ( hopefully) tackle something of around the 10% mark.

[196osh]

Sounds good the two Vials would be more than enough. Hope it goes well.

[Deebee]

i guess there is a risk ov overpitching too... maybe split one vial between 2x1.5 litre starters?

[196osh]

Over pitching is hard to do man. Your going to get nowhere near over pitching. If you dumped it on to a whole yeast cake then you might be over pitching but in a 1.098 beer. Dont worry.

I would only pitch the slurry though. Not the starter wort.

[Aleman]

If you are going to use a whitelabs yeast your starter needs to be about 20L at the final volume, then decant the spent wort off and pitch onto the yeast cake. My RIS was pitched with 3 or 4 packets of Nottingham. Re pitching onto a yeast cake is a good idea for these big beers or you are in the danger on under pitching.

I'd up the bittering hops if I were you or you will end up some what unbalanced after the beer has matured

[196osh]

If you are going to use a whitelabs yeast your starter needs to be about 20L at the final volume, then decant the spent wort off and pitch onto the yeast cake. My RIS was pitched with 3 or 4 packets of Nottingham. Re pitching onto a yeast cake is a good idea for these big beers or you are in the danger on under pitching.

His brew length is only 12L. He is going to do 2 vials in a 1.5L starter, according to Mr Malty it should be fine which s normally slightly over does pitching rates imo that should be enough.