Advice for a Russian Imperial Stout

So to calm my fiddling with my beer while it ferments, I've been researching potential styles and recipes for said styles. Anyhoo, considering A Russian Imperial Stout. I was wondering if I could throw the recipe out there and get suggestions? Am I off the style? I'm looking for an aggressive hop flavor with this brew. It's an extract because Grain recipes frighten this n00b for now.


10-11 lbs of Amber Malt Extract
1/2 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb Black Patent
3oz of Cascade (60)
2oz of Centennial (30)
1-2 oz Amarillo (5)

Wyeast Irish Ale Yeast



Thoughts? Suggestions? Insults?

i would use light malt extract instead of amber, and bump the roasted barley up to .75-1lb and cut the black patent back to .25 pounds.

Posting more about what you want out of your designed recipe is a must or else you are just going to get a bunch of people who will taylor your recipe to fit their tastes.

Gotcha, I was essentially thinking about what I like and don't like about stouts, so I want a real full body with the toasted, almost burnt characteristics of a Russian Imperial with a real nice hop kick.

Does that help?

13.00 lbs. Light DME
1.25 lbs. Roasted Rye
1.00 lbs. Chocolate Malt
1.00 lbs. Crystal 120L
0.75 lbs. Special B Malt
2.00 oz Torrified Wheat

4.00 oz. Columbus Pellet
1.00 oz. Warrior Pellet
WLP001 California Ale Yeast


I have this finishing up in the fermenter right now. It's an extract version of https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/dark-night-soul-russian-imperial-stout-21088/ You're gravity is pretty high and will probably end up over 10% depending on how low you're hoping to take it. I'm hoping to get mine down to 1.020 or a little lower after starting at 1.1308ish. If I get down to my desired level I'll end up at about 15%abv and will bottle condition it until Christmas. The recipe actually called for 5 oz of columbus but I had some warrior left and my LHBS sells hops by 2oz bags. So with them being close in AAs I just used my left over oz of warrior. All hops were in a full 90 min boil.

Mine has been fermenting for 23 days now. It's getting close to my target fg last measured with refrac and corrected for eth I was at 1.032ish. Went down a point from the previous week at 1.04ish. I also did a late DME addition because my OG was a little lower than desired. I threw a pount of dark DME boiled into the sanitized secondary and poured the primary in there. It brought me up to 1.1308 which was right about where I wanted to be. I used the WLP001 for the high alcohol tolerance and attenuation.

I just brewed this one. It tasted fantastic. I did sub Magnum for Millennium.

Have you ever had Great Divide's Yeti? It's considered a hoppy RIS. There's recipes for it here if you want to see how that looks.