Feedback on First Imp. Chocolate Stout

Hello everyone and thanks for reading,

I am a new to putting together my own recipe and apologize for any obvious mistakes...that said please take a look at my recipe and let me know your thoughts. It is BIG I know but bigger is better right? Perhaps not, but bigger beers are better to me....My concerns are as follows:

Proper Hop usage
Should I add more yeast at some point due to high ABV
Do I need something to "Lighten" it


Ok, here it is:
Grains/Malts:

Amber Malt Extract Syrup #9.5
American Black Patent #1
Chocolate Malt #1.5
Coffee Malt #1.5
Light Roasted Barley #1
Caramel Malt 80 #1

Hops:
Fuggles (at 30 mins) 2oz
N. Brewer (at 30 mins) 1.5oz
Glacier (at 50 mins) 1oz

Yeast:
Wyears Irish Ale Yeast
Bottling:
¾ cup Brown Sugar

Procedure:
Steep grains at 155 (F) for 35 Minutes
Add Amber Malt Extract Syrup, Chocolate & Coffee Malt, Caramel Malt
Bring to boil for 60 Minutes

Add Fuggles and Northern Brewer at 30 min boil mark
Add Glacier at 50 min boil mark

I want to get a Chocolate stout without using actual Chocolate, through the use of Malts/Grains. I will use this recipe as a base and tweak off of it with different ingredients...any help would be appreciated

This is a pretty good-sized beer for an extract batch! My wallet couldn't handle anything over 1.050 before I started brewing in a bag.

First, a couple points of procedure:

Most people time their hops additions from the start of the boil, e.g. "@60m" for a bittering hop, or "@5m" for an aroma hop.
You're listing it the opposite way, which isn't necessarily wrong, but it does make things mildly confusing for a moment or two.

I'm a little confused by your pre-boil steps. Are you steeping the patent and barley, then removing them and tossing the coffee (brown), chocolate and caramel malts into the boil? If so, I would definitely advise you to steep all the grains pre-boil.


Here's a few suggestions on the recipe-

You have a ton of dark roasted grains in there. Personally, I would cut the Patent and the Roasted Barley to 0.5lb or less so the roasty taste doesn't overpower the coffee that you're looking for.

As a general rule of thumb, darker extracts are less fermentable. You're starting with a OG of around 1.090, so you're going to want pretty good attenuation. I would probably base this beer on pale extract, and let the grains do their flavoring work- but then, I'm a big fan of knowing what exactly goes into my beer.

Your hops schedule seems wacky. Why no bittering hops addition? You're at the very low end of bitterness for a big stout anyway- move that northern brewer back to 60 minutes in the boil. I'd bump the amount to 2 oz as well, but that's a personal preference for clean bitterness in stouts. Your Fuggles seem confused. They're great in stouts, as are EK Goldings, but you're not getting much of either flavor or bitterness putting them in at 30 minutes. I'd move them up to 20 minutes in the boil. If you like hop aroma in your imperial stout, you could split it- 1oz at 20, 1 oz at 5.



All my own opinion, of course. Feel free to disregard. Do post back here and let us know how it went!

Thanks very much...all very helpful...especially the hopping..i knew it was a bit off..
Ya, my instructions are a bit confusing..i would steep all grains pre-Boil

Also like the cut down on the dark roasted grains...

Any thoughts on the yeast...will it be adequate for this big a brew?

The yeast should be fine. 90 is big, but not too big. Just make sure you aerate well, and if it starts pooping out at a hydro reading that you don't like, rouse it by rocking the carboy a bit.

I must admit, dwarven, that your's was one of the most complete analysis of a recepie I've ever seen. :rockin:

Agreed...thanks again for your help...means a lot to a beginner!!! Lots of Karma for you!!!
Brewing the recipe on the 12 so i will post some updates....

UPDATE:
Well we brewed the Choc. RIS this past Sunday following dwarven's suggestions as to the ingredient modifications. The process went very well and WOW checked it on Monday and had to insert a blow off tube due to extreme activity in the airlock. AWESOME, we got a beast in there!! OG was exactly 1.090....I think this one will be in the primary for some time!!! Thanks again for all your help...