How's this Russian imperial stout?

15 lbs maris otter
2 lbs crystal 80l
1lb flaked oats
12 oz chocolate malt
8 oz roasted barley
4 oz special b

60 min 1.5 oz northern brewer
20 min .5 oz golding, east Kent
5 min .5 golding, east kent
5 min .5 oz northern brewer

Scottish ale yeast

Shooting to mash at 150 for 1 hour and ferment at 70

I don't brew stouts much and have never used Scottish ale yeast. Wanted to try something different. Open to suggestions

I think you're light on the roasted barley at only 2.5%. I would bump that up to a lb and drop the C-80 to 1 lb. I've not used that yeast either, no help there. Do you have the expected specs on this?

NicoleBrewer said:

15 lbs maris otter
2 lbs crystal 80l
1lb flaked oats
12 oz chocolate malt
8 oz roasted barley
4 oz special b

60 min 1.5 oz northern brewer
20 min .5 oz golding, east Kent
5 min .5 golding, east kent
5 min .5 oz northern brewer

Scottish ale yeast

Shooting to mash at 150 for 1 hour and ferment at 70

I don't brew stouts much and have never used Scottish ale yeast. Wanted to try something different. Open to suggestions

Click to expand...

way too much crystal. If it were me, I would drop that a lot, or completely, up the roast (I like 1 - 1.5 lb in 5 gallons), and add some black malt, too...maybe 8-12 oz. Not sure those late hop additions are going to do much for you, either. The other thing I would do is swap out some of the Maris Otter for Munich.

I second reducing the crystal.

And the Scottish ale yeast is a known low attenuator, so you might finish with a pretty high FG even if you do reduce/eliminate the crystal.

For big beers, I like to do a mash at 148 for at least 90 minutes and use a yeast that really attenuates well like the chico yeast.

Thanks everyone. I don't typically make stouts so this is fairly new territory for me

Scottish ale yeast is going to create a rather neutral flavor profile. I think RiS usually have some flavorful english yeast components.

Yeah, I'd be using S-04 or Notty. Whatever the liquid equivalents of English ale yeasts are if you use liquid.

I just recently brewed my first all-grain RIS, and I ended up with this:

11 lbs Maris Otter
4 lbs Vienna Malt
1 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Flaked Oats
1 lb Chocolate Rye Malt
1 lb Carafa II
0.5 lb Black Patent
0.5 lb Crystal 80

for my grain bill. It's currently sitting in it's secondary with me (im)patiently waiting. I used White Labs WLP007 (Dry English Ale Yeast) with a 70-80% attenuation, and 65-70 fermentation temp. It seemed like a good match.

I'm getting too little bitterness by punching the hops into Brewers' Friend (~38IBU). I'd aim at 80+ IBU for RIS. 3oz Northern Brewer @ 60m, and 2oz EKG @20m give you just under 80IBU and will balance it out more. As above, I'd drop the crystal, up the roast barley (up the chocolate malt too!). If you can get hold of Brown malt, replace the 2lb of crystal for brown malt. Tasty stuff.