Imperial Stout Russian Imperial Stout (2011 HBT Competition Category Winner)

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Update.. checked in 12 hour later and it was chugging along, so either its the yeast working or we got crazy ammounts of contamination lol =)
 
Brewed this up about 6 weeks ago, and ran a parti-gyle off the grist. The RIS tasted excellent when transfered to secondary last week, like the best expresso I've ever had, but beer. Can't wait for the winter when I'll be drinking this. I'm going to add some bourbon-soaked oak chips about a month or two before bottling.

The parti-gyle has also proven to be a very good beer! I ran off a full 5 gallon batch, which required about 1.5 lbs. of DME to get up to about 1.045 OG. Then I used all Willamette in the boil and also dry hopped with 1 oz. of Willamette. The result is a very light and dry black ale with good toasted notes and a subtle earthy/floral hop aroma. I wouldn't quite call it a stout, and even calling it a dry porter might be a stretch. Had I hopped it more agressively, it would have made a good Black IPA or with the proper lager treatment, even a decent Schwarzbier. Either way, it's a very summer friendly dark beer, so the timing works out nicely.
 
I can't wait! I'm brewing 10 gallons of this today. Going to be a nice Christmas brew I hope.
 
Brewed this at the beginning of January, a little bit left in the keg and man has it aged well. Keeps getting better and better. Will do a new batch shortly so i have some for the winter.
 
Question about brewing IRS:
What grain to h2o ratio is everyone using. 1.00 qt (h2o) to 1 lb or 1.25 qt (h2o) to 1 lb of grain.

I have read that "big beers" need a thicker mash. Also i looked at midwest and NB to see their RIS ratio (they use 1.00 qt to 1 lb of grain).

Cheers,
 
Conway said:
Question about brewing IRS:
What grain to h2o ratio is everyone using. 1.00 qt (h2o) to 1 lb or 1.25 qt (h2o) to 1 lb of grain.

I have read that "big beers" need a thicker mash. Also i looked at midwest and NB to see their RIS ratio (they use 1.00 qt to 1 lb of grain).

Cheers,
Click to expand...

When I designed the recipe and subsequent brews, I shot for 1.25 qt per pound. Since that seemed to do well I never bothered to experiment with anything thicker. But going a little thicker probably wouldn't hurt.
 
I brewed this two weeks ago. My efficiency was terrible, only getting about 1.080 in 5.25 gallons. I'm hoping it attenuates pretty well because anything that finishes above 1.020 is generally too sweet for me. I added a little over 2oz of medium toast American oak cubes soaked in 50ml of Absolut Vanilla. I'll post results when I keg it in a couple weeks.
 
Just tapped my well aged keg 3 days ago. WOW! Definitely a sipper. Great range of flavors. Wish already I had started another. Hah! I did, 6 weeks ago. Six months is a long time to age a brew, but this one is so potent, it might last that long. Thanks again for posting this recipe.
Pat
 
I pulled a sample last night to check the gravity. It is at 1.020 down from 1.080. I'm hoping it squeaks out a few more points, but even if it is done I can't wait to get this one kegged. This is the first beer where I sipped and enjoyed the warm, flat gravity sample like it was a finished beer. The flavors are complex and a perfect balance of bitterness, roast and chocolate. The oak I added is going to play very nicely with this beer.
 
I'll second that.

I told my wife the other day that I could drink this beer straight out of the fermenter and love every minute of it.
 
Davst said:
Wow.. brewed this today.. as a BIAB.. just dont.. I'm sure the beer is wonderful.. but the ammounts of trub you get with this as BIAB.. took us 6 hours to brew since we had a hard time getting the temps up cause of the mash being so thick (should have gone for a smaller batch) but alot of trub.. filters kept plugging while transfering it to the primary so that took 1,5 hours to get it clear enough.. heh


Hopefully we dont have any contaminants and it'll turn out good
Click to expand...

Great! ;)

I'm brewing this on Sunday via BIAB. I don't have a valve on my kettle so I'll be syphoning out to primary. Sounds like I'll have to unclog my syphon a few times...wish me luck.
 
Brewed this one up yesterday (the power came back on in time to brew!). Brew day went relatively well, but I'm really getting tired of BIAB'ing these big beers. I hit my volumes but fell a little short on the OG (got 1.090 instead of 1.095). Pitched a nice sized started and aerated it well with some O2. Fermentation was up and running within a few hours and was bubbling away nicely this morning before I left for work.

I've got it in the chest freezer fermenting away at around 64-65 degrees. Hopefully that's low enough (but not too low??) to prevent any fruity esters from ruining my first non-extract RIS.

Fingers crossed!
 
Sadly I do not have a chest freezer or fermentation chamber just yet . I can keep the fermentation (ambient temp, not temp inside bucket) at around 70 or below. With the wait time involved and the fact that I would hate to crack one of these in 6 months and find it overrun by esters etc. Do you think that this beer would suffer significantly without the 65 fermentation given that we are not talking about a short 5-10 fermentation for a beer this big.
I know there are no guarantees but I would hate to tap a keg or open a bottle of this on a cold winter day, and find a bunch of off flavors. thanks :)
 
Well, do note that you'll know well before wintertime if anything went wrong with the fermentation; those flavors will be apparent right away.

With a beer this big, I'd be concerned about an ambient 70F temperature profile. All that fermentation is going to crank out quite a bit of heat, so I would bet it'll be well over 70 inside the beer at the peak of fermentation. Could you rig up a swamp cooler? That should get you down into the right range.

If you can't get the temps down any more than that, I'd consider switching to a less-estery yeast, such as WLP001/US05.
 
I'd definitely recommend what ResumeMan said. If your ambient is only about 70 degrees, there's no doubt that the beer itself will be fermenting well into the 70s, and given the English yeast already gives off some natural esters, you would probably have a lot of odd flavors going on if you went that high of a fermentation.

Putting the bucket in another bucket with water and ice is a good way to keep temps down if you can. And remember, this is really only necessary during the active fermentation stage, so typically after a week you wouldn't need to maintain the cold water bath. But if that simply isn't an option, then a cleaner yeast would certainly help a bit at the higher temps.
 
Thanks guys. Appreciate the responses. I'm picking up either a 7.2 fridgidaire chest freezer, or the kenmore 8.8. I'll just wait until I have it in a couple weeks. Cheers :)
 
Firing this one up tonight to christen my new Blichmann Boilermaker! First RIS too...feels like prom night all over again. Very excited to have this on tap for Christmas!
 
I brewed this bad boy up on Saturday for the holidays. I made a couple of minor adjustments, mainly hop substitutions based on availability. Also my mash tun wasn't big enough to hold all the grain this recipe calls for, so I dropped a couple pounds of pale malt and made it up with DME. My OG was 1.094 and I pitched a big starter of washed WLP002. It is bubbling away; glad I used a blowoff tube...

Will report back after fermentation.
 
rwagner23 said:
Any follow up to this question? Looking to make a Imperial Coffee Stout kind of like Flying Dog's Kujo. Thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

None on that, however, last night I did make a beer float with this great stout. Have been threatening to do that for quite some time. One scoop of good vanilla will do it. Mock me, I know, but try it. I'm a serious beer guy. Kind of makes me feel strange.
Pat
 
cabron99 said:
None on that, however, last night I did make a beer float with this great stout. Have been threatening to do that for quite some time. One scoop of good vanilla will do it. Mock me, I know, but try it. I'm a serious beer guy. Kind of makes me feel strange.
Pat
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I might try it with the next attempt. Picked up the specialty grains and hops just now. I'll try about 15 oz of espresso in this during the secondary.
 
Hey everyone, I brewed this beer today and I must say that it was an incredibly fun brewday. I do have a question. My LHBS did not have Special B, and instead had Weyermann CaraAroma. I went ahead and substituted the special b for the caraaroma. Any idea how that will impact the flavor on this beer?

Also here's an album of the brewday for those of you interested: http://imgur.com/a/ketdE
 
marubozo said:
When I designed the recipe and subsequent brews, I shot for 1.25 qt per pound. Since that seemed to do well I never bothered to experiment with anything thicker. But going a little thicker probably wouldn't hurt.
Click to expand...

You know I've been thinking about this concept for the past week or so. When I brewed this beer this past Friday, I came to the realization that the more grains you have means having less sparge water. I kept to the OP's recipe and used 1.25qt/lb, however do people use 1.00qt/lb for bigger grain bills like this one? Because of my lower efficiency (which is around 67-68%), I ended up using 22 pounds of grain total, which resulted in having 7 gallons of strike water, and only 3.25-3.50 gallons of sparge water. Is it better to have the strike and sparge volumes to be somewhat similar?
 
I had recognized this as a potential problem. From previous high OG beers, I didn't want to have too little sparge water. When I brewed this recipe, i ended up increasing the boiling time to 90 minutes to allow for more sparge water. I think I mashed in at 1.1 qt/lb. That was also to have enough room in my MLT. In the end it worked out great. The beer is aging nicely in the keg. It finished a bit lower than expected at 1.018, but i may have mashed a little lower than prescribed. Tastes great.
 
I just sampled my batch after it had been fermenting for 5 days (it has gone down from 1.100 to 1.040) and WOW was I already impressed. This is going to be a good batch, probably one of my best!
 
I brewed this recipe Saturday - my first ever all grain brew. Talk about diving right in. I bought a used three tier brew sculpture from a local guy, 3 10 gallon stainless kettles each with their own burner. It worked great... but, as a newbie, I quickly learned things I need to do differently next time out and I'm worried about how it's all going to turn out in the long run.

First questionable thing I did: I made a yeast starter the day before the brew (long enough in advance?) and I made it small. I only had 4 oz of DME. I had it in a bomber with brown glass, so I couldn't see it very well - but it did develop a head and an aroma so it worked but to what extent I don't know. I poured my wort in the bottle through a funnel then tried to pour my liquid yeast in the same way - duh - the liquid yeast poured on through but the hard yeast (the cake?) just got stuck and I had to force as much through as I could with a sanitized straw. So I don't know if I didn't get enough yeast in the wort in the first place. Is the hard part dead yeast?

Prior to 24 hours my brew surface had developed a small head and the blowoff this morning was bubbling once every four or five seconds... it's only been 36 hours.

So - it appears to be working.

Can't wait to do it again!
 
Brewed this again on Sat. Hit 1.094 w/ BIAB! I'm going to soak oak cubes and vanilla beans in bourbon, then add to the secondary.
 
EXTROVERT said:
I brewed this recipe Saturday - my first ever all grain brew. Talk about diving right in. I bought a used three tier brew sculpture from a local guy, 3 10 gallon stainless kettles each with their own burner. It worked great... but, as a newbie, I quickly learned things I need to do differently next time out and I'm worried about how it's all going to turn out in the long run.

First questionable thing I did: I made a yeast starter the day before the brew (long enough in advance?) and I made it small. I only had 4 oz of DME. I had it in a bomber with brown glass, so I couldn't see it very well - but it did develop a head and an aroma so it worked but to what extent I don't know. I poured my wort in the bottle through a funnel then tried to pour my liquid yeast in the same way - duh - the liquid yeast poured on through but the hard yeast (the cake?) just got stuck and I had to force as much through as I could with a sanitized straw. So I don't know if I didn't get enough yeast in the wort in the first place. Is the hard part dead yeast?

Prior to 24 hours my brew surface had developed a small head and the blowoff this morning was bubbling once every four or five seconds... it's only been 36 hours.

So - it appears to be working.

Can't wait to do it again!
Click to expand...

Don't worry. Your wort will generally try its best to become beer if you don't do anything adverse to it
 
Detroiter said:
Brewed this on New Years Day, racking it to secondary tonight. I soaked about a cup of oak chips in Knob Creek and I am going to transfer it on top of those.

I will let you know how it tastes in another 2 months.
Click to expand...

Did those who put liquor in like the result?

I have some oak chips that have been soaking in Laphroig single malt scotch for about 60 days now. I have been aiming to use them is a big stout that I am now planing on brewing this weekend. Seems like many people have added various liquors or vanilla beans to this for success, and I am going to try it with some scotch. Wish me luck.

I have 2 adjustments planed, let me know what you think.
1) Use WLP001 - Should be cleaner and allow more of the scotch smoky flavor to come through is my thinking.
2) Use Maris Otter malt since it has a little higher potential and I have been suffering some efficiency problems since starting AG brewing a 4 months ago.

I am going to begin my starter tomorrow and do a 2 stage step up starter for this.
 
Got all the ingredients today to brew this. I am using crystal 120 instead of special b since I have that on hand. This is going to be the beer I drink to celebrate the birth of our second child in around 7 months. So right at its prime from what I read. I am gong to take a second runnings (parti-gyle) to do a brown ale or maybe a porter depending on my efficiency. Can wait to brew this RIS is my favorite style.
 
I just brewed this today and did a parti-gyle from this. I got 1.096 OG for the RIS and a OG of 1.040 for the second running. I added some ground coffee to the second running after it cooled below 100 degrees total steeping time of about 10-15 minutes. Can't wait to taste this. Will report back in 2-3 weeks when I bottle the second running. Will be a while before bottling the RIS.
 
Can someone who's bottle conditioned for carbonation chime in to let us non-keggers know if bottling yeast is needed on this one? I've still got a few months before bottling, but would like to know in advance if I can just add some priming sugar or if I'm going to have to add some yeast too.

Thanks!
 
Update on my brew. I pitched Nottingham in the RIS and S-04 in the small stout and now a little over 24 hours later the S-04 (which took off first) has stopped bubbling but did manage to overflow the airlock. The Nottingham is still going strong a bubble or two every second and it way overflowed the air lock. No pictures sorry but I have never had yeast this vigorous before. Can't wait to try it.
 
Riseabovebb said:
Can someone who's bottle conditioned for carbonation chime in to let us non-keggers know if bottling yeast is needed on this one? I've still got a few months before bottling, but would like to know in advance if I can just add some priming sugar or if I'm going to have to add some yeast too.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I found after the first two batches that adding a little yeast goes a long way in bottling, otherwise it seems this beer is consistently a little less carbonated than I like.
 
I brewed this up a month ago, and planned to age it in a secondary for a few more months. However, I'd like to use the spare carboy for another beer. Is there a significant difference between bulk aging this beer in a secondary versus bottle conditioning for 3-4 months (other than the fact that bulk aging will likely reduce the flavour variability between bottles)?
 
That is what I plan on doing as well. I hear the only real difference is that it ages faster in bulk vs. bottles. Either way a beer that is this big and complex won't be drunk for awhile so I am sure it will age fine no matter what.
 

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