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

el_caro said:

Another stupid question?

When you say
"Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): Bulk age for 6-8 months @ 60"

I assume that aging in the bottle for a few months would tick this box? Could I just bottle straight from the primary after 30 days or does it need to go to secondary for a period before bottling. If it needs to be racked to secondary, what would be a minimum time before bottling and does it need a cold crash?

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Bulk aging does give a better result. I also found that beers that bulk age are ready sooner in the bottle that strong beer bottled to early.

I have done the comparaison on the same batch and bottle some early than other after another 4 months. There was a noticeable difference between the two. The one bulked age was much better when compared to the one that was bottled early. The one in the bottle did improve though but it took much longer.

Speaking of bulk aging... here's how my 1-year-old RIS (this recipe) did at a local comp. I bulk aged in keg, and dispensed. Unfortunately I like my RIS nearly flat, so that's where it lost points (and did not place). It did make it to mini-BOS.

#12 of 12 in flight
This beer advanced to mini-BOS round
Final Assigned Score 38.5

Judge #1 (Certified)
Aroma: 10/12
Sweet dark fruit, warm alcohol some roast notes, light esterds, toasty aroma.

Appearance: 2/3
No head, chocolate black, good clarity

Flavor: 16/20
Dark fruit, slight oxidation notes, low hop flavor, light esters, moderate roast

Mouthfeel: 3/5
Very thick and heavy, no carbonation, some alcohol warmth, mild roast astringency.

Overall: 7/10
I really like the flavors in this beer but the carbonation is way to low.

38/50

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Judge #2 (Apprentice)
Aroma: 9/12
Complex nust of dark fruits, chocolate and roasted grains
very balanced and not poweful

Appearance: 2/3
black
no head

Flavor: 16/20
port like quality leads off
tastes like unsweetened coffee w/ bitter chocolate
lack of carbonation makes it taste fat & sweet

Mouthfeel: 4/5
very low carbonation
medium body
heat is noticeable but not out of place

Overall impression: 8/10
unfortunately this beer lacks the necessary carbonation to bring together all the otherwise pleasant components

39/50

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I also submitted this to NHC (Atlanta, GA).

jglazer said:

Eric19312 - The bottom half of my kitchen fridge holds kegs that I serve out of. Temps are in the mid 30s.

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Heres an idea:
https://www.cool-brewing.com

drop in a frozen 2-liter bottle every other day and probably keep it plenty cool even in 85 degree apt...

I did not have my glasses on and grabbed a pack of Wyeast (no Whitelabs available here) thinking it was 1968 ( the equivalent for WLP002) but got Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast by mistake.

Already smacked it before I read the label with my glasses on.

Do you think I could get away with this one or should I put this one in the bank and get some Wyeast 1968 ??

I went with Wyeast 1098 and so far it is aging quite well (its been aging for 1 1/2 months). Based on the Wyeast website, I think you'll be ok with either strain. 1098 is rated for higher ABV anyways by 1%.

This yeast allows malt and hop character to dominate the profile. It ferments dry and crisp, producing well-balanced beers with a clean and neutral finish. Ferments well down to 64°F (18°C).

Thanks Brewrifle

Well I brewed this one (BIAB) and crapped out on the OG due to low efficiency. Only got 1.081. I pitched 7 days ago using Wyeast 1098 and it has stopped at 1.021 and has not moved for 3 days.
OPs original recipe calls for 30 days in primary. Could I rack it to secondary now given it seems to have finished primary fermentation?

I would leave it in primary for the full 30 days. The yeast could be cleaning up still.

I plan on brewing this recipe this weekend and using Abbey II yeast cake from a Rochefort 8 clone I made. I'm hoping for big things.

malweth said:

I also submitted this to NHC (Atlanta, GA).

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My results (including score sheets) from NHC are here:
http://whitewoodbrewery.us/2013/05/07/national-homebrew-competition-round-1-results/

I scored a 34...

brucedelta said:

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.

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Just an update on this brew. I brewed in Early Sept 2012. Left it on Laphroig soaked oak chips for about 5 weeks, and moved it to a secondary after. In Feb I put it into a keg, but still though it had a sharp flavor and a strong astringent note to it. My OG was 1.092 and my FG was 1.02 for about 10.8% ABV

I tasted it again last night for the first time in months and the beer is excellent. I am a BJCP judge and if the sample I tasted last night were to land in front of me at the competition I am judging tomorrow, there is no doubt I would give it a very high 30's score and in the right mode I am thinking it could go over 40.

It has everything one would want in a RIS, a thick chewy body with distinct roast/coffee/chocolate character. A nice malt backbone with supporting bitterness, just right in my mind, but some judges may ding it a bit for not being bitter enough. The specialty ingredient is Laphroig and it can clearly be tasted in the flavor and noted in the aroma. In addition it has the wood aged barrel character complexity. So overall I am very happy with this beer.

With the temperatures warming to summer levels I am not sure how much I will want to drink this style over the next few months, but I probably will bottle it soon. I am thinking I will have some wonderful holiday gifts here.

Bottom line is if you brewed this beer, I encourage you to wait. I was disappointed in dec/jan time frame as it was hot, boozy, and astringent. That has all calmed do and I can not wait to enter it in the next big competition in my area.

I did a second runnings of a pumpkin stout with this, and I am thinking of trying the brew again. This time I am thinking Gran Marinier could be the play, and if I do it now I could have the pairing ready for holiday gifts.

Thanks for the update, brucedelta. Glad it all came together in the end with a little time.

Great looking recipe, thanks Marubozo for sharing!


I had a tiny bit of an issue with my primary fermentation that was slightly more vigorous than I expected.

Going to have to try this again with a bigger blow off tube.

(The pic is from day two of primary)

Wow and that was WITH temperature control? haha awesome.

I started using fermcap in my boils and primary and its put my mind at ease, not sure if you are against additives but if not you should look into it

jglazer said:

Wow and that was WITH temperature control? haha awesome.

I started using fermcap in my boils and primary and its put my mind at ease, not sure if you are against additives but if not you should look into it

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I'll check fermcap out. Thanks.

This brew has been sitting in the secondary with some cold brewed coffee for a while now. It was brewed in January 2013. And I want to bottle it this week. My questions are;

How much priming sugar for this style?

Will it have enough active yeast in it to carbonate properly?

Thanks for the help!!

6 gallons in the primary, did BIAB and was a little low on OG and bumped it up with extract, it's a big bag!
I did parigyle(sp) a porter, time to hurry up and wait.

I have to admit that I haven't read all 20 plus pages yet so maybe this has been asked already. Which dry yeast would be recommemded for this brew?
Also the question above - how much CO2 should be in the beer?
Thanks!

Shenanigans said:

I have to admit that I haven't read all 20 plus pages yet so maybe this has been asked already. Which dry yeast would be recommemded for this brew?
Also the question above - how much CO2 should be in the beer?
Thanks!

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S-04 is your best bet. However, S-05 would probably be fantastic as well.

Personally,I love S-05 for this.

Haputanlas said:

S-04 is your best bet. However, S-05 would probably be fantastic as well.

Personally,I love S-05 for this.

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Thanks for the reply. I have both here so I'll use whicever one takes my fancy on the day

However I've only been brewing with S-05 recently so maybe it's time to go back to S-04 for this one.

Please clarify...I noticed the two hops listed are 60 min and 30 min. (4.00 oz Challenger [7.20 %] (60 min) Hops...2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.80 %] (30 min) Hops). Are these both part of the 60 minute total boil time??? (ie. Challenger initially, then Goldings added the last 30 minutes?) Or are these dry hopped later???
Sorry, may be a dumb question, but I'm kind of a novice at this.

3DBewry said:

Please clarify...I noticed the two hops listed are 60 min and 30 min. (4.00 oz Challenger [7.20 %] (60 min) Hops...2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.80 %] (30 min) Hops). Are these both part of the 60 minute total boil time??? (ie. Challenger initially, then Goldings added the last 30 minutes?) Or are these dry hopped later???
Sorry, may be a dumb question, but I'm kind of a novice at this.

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Both part of the same 60 min boil time -- Challenger at 60 and EKG at 30. No dry hopping.

I want to make this into a full-boil partial mash.

Beersmith has converted this into the following recipe.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 5.43 Imp gal
Post Boil Volume: 4.98 Imp gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 4.16 Imp gal
Bottling Volume: 3.83 Imp gal
Estimated OG: 1.103 SG
Estimated Color: 49.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 86.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 104.7 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3 lbs 12.3 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 22.2 %
1 lbs 7.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.5 %
15.3 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.6 %
11.5 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.2 %
7.1 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5 2.6 %
4.00 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 68.7 IBUs
2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 30.0 Hop 8 17.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [35.49 Yeast 9 -
9 lbs 10.2 oz Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 6 56.8 %


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 16 lbs 15.4 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 7.93 Imp qt of water at 162. 151.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 3 steps (0.63Imp gal, 1.88Imp gal, 1.88Imp gal) of 168.0 F water


How long should I boil the LME for?

Has anyone done much with adjusting their water chemistry when brewing this? I was going to brew this soon, but I'm starting to drown in the water chemistry opinion pool...

I've got fairly soft water out of the tap, and was figuring I'd just follow the primer suggestion of 1 tsp calcium chloride dihydrate. This recipe doesn't seem to call for a crazy amount of highly roasted grains, so maybe I'm overthinking it in the first place.

Alkalinity as CaCO3 = 36.1 mg/L
Calcium as CaCO3 = 44.6 mg/L
Hardness as CaCO3 = 51.7 mg/L Lachat (don't know what Lachat is)
pH = 7.97
Chloride = 0 ? (The chart is blank so I'm assuming that means 0)
Sulfate = 0 ? (Same as chloride)
Calcium by AA = 19.0 mg/L (Don't know what the "by AA" means)
Magnesium = 1.9 mg/L
Sodium = 3.1 mg/L

HuskerBrewer said:

Has anyone done much with adjusting their water chemistry when brewing this? I was going to brew this soon, but I'm starting to drown in the water chemistry opinion pool... I've got fairly soft water out of the tap, and was figuring I'd just follow the primer suggestion of 1 tsp calcium chloride dihydrate. This recipe doesn't seem to call for a crazy amount of highly roasted grains, so maybe I'm overthinking it in the first place. Alkalinity as CaCO3 = 36.1 mg/L Calcium as CaCO3 = 44.6 mg/L Hardness as CaCO3 = 51.7 mg/L Lachat (don't know what Lachat is) pH = 7.97 Chloride = 0 ? (The chart is blank so I'm assuming that means 0) Sulfate = 0 ? (Same as chloride) Calcium by AA = 19.0 mg/L (Don't know what the "by AA" means) Magnesium = 1.9 mg/L Sodium = 3.1 mg/L

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You should use a tool to really understand where your water is and how adding to it changes it.

So I finally popped the secondary holding this RIS since July (brewed in June) and kegged it last night. I was shocked at the final gravity though. When I brewed in June, I had an OG of 1.097. I transferred to a secondary in late July and it had a gravity of 1.020. Then yesterday when I kegged it dropped down to 1.014. That's ~85% attenuation for this yeast. I was thinking the 1.020 was as low as it was going to go (I made sure to pitch a large starter and oxygenated the beer with an O2 stone). The final product is delicious but it might be a tad dry.

Anybody else have this experience with this yeast?

Not sure what the deal is with my Beersmith, but it's calculating IBU's at 116.3 using the same amounts, times, %AA, boil volume and efficiency.
It's calculating the IBU on the 4oz. of challenger alone at 88.8 IBU's.
It's using the Tinseth formula and I haven't changed any utilization numbers anyplace.

Been scratching my head on this one for an hour now!

krazydave said:

Not sure what the deal is with my Beersmith, but it's calculating IBU's at 116.3 using the same amounts, times, %AA, boil volume and efficiency.
It's calculating the IBU on the 4oz. of challenger alone at 88.8 IBU's.
It's using the Tinseth formula and I haven't changed any utilization numbers anyplace.

Been scratching my head on this one for an hour now!

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I would guess the original recipe as posted was using the Rager formula rather than Tinseth. Change it in your software and see if the results match up better.

Robert

flemming said:

I would guess the original recipe as posted was using the Rager formula rather than Tinseth. Change it in your software and see if the results match up better.

Robert

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Appreciate the help!
Rager is actually worse though, it's estimating IBU's at 149.8

krazydave said:

Appreciate the help!
Rager is actually worse though, it's estimating IBU's at 149.8

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Ugh, I should have known that. That's what I get for posting after traveling 10 hours with a toddler

Robert

I brewed this about 8 weeks ago, kegged it 3 weeks ago.

I'm letting it condition in the keg, but I had alittle taste, this is a fantastic imperial stout. It's going to be really really difficult to wait 5 more months, but I'm going to wait it out!

Anyone venture to try Wyeast 1450 on this? It seems like an exceptional match.

I'm at a little over 3 months on this, please stop posting on this thread so I don't think about it. I can't wait!
Cheers

Question about making a partigyle from this...think it would be a bad idea to reuse the leftover hops from the main RIS in the partigyle? I was thinking of using a separate hop bag for each addition so I can remove them and put them in the partigyle at the same times.

I can see many things wrong with this but I was hoping someone has tried this and has some experienced feedback? I will probably try either way and report back my findings. A truly free additional beer is what I am trying for here (minus the water and yeast of course).

I just did that this past weekend (different RIS recipe). I had a flameout/whirlpool addition which I then used as my bittering in a 1.054 sweet stout as the second beer (added lactose to the latter runnings). Based on the addition size (41 grams Bramling Cross and 44 grams Pacific Gem) it would have been a massive over bittering. However I tasted throughout the boil and was prepared to remove them (always use hop sacks) if it got too bitter. I ended up leaving them in the full time. I didn't use any late hops in the sweet stout. It'll be in the fermenter until Christmas, so I can't tell you the end result.

Just bottled a 5 gal. batch I made last June. It tasted so good I didn't throw out the leavings in the sample jar - the beer tastes amazing when completely flat! ABV at 8.9%. Can't wait for this to carb up and bottle age!

Made this recipe over the weekend. I added 3 extra pounds of 2-row to the base recipe because my efficiency always sucks and I still came in short at 1.081. Not too mad about it, I am confident it will still turn out amazing. Fermenting right now at 62 with S04. One of the reasons it came in so low I think, is because I got a lot more volume after sparging than the calculator said I would. I need to adjust my absorption rate because I was not supposed to get close to 8 gallons preboil but I did :/

I made a partigyle as well. I batch sparged the main RIS with 6 gallons into the mash and 5 into the sparge. Then I threw 5 more gallons into the mash for a third time, let that sit at ~170 for 15 minutes then drained it into another kettle, boiled it down from about 4 gallons to ~2 gallons, reused all the hops (put them in 2 separate bags) in the partigyle. It came out at 1.052 and is also fermenting at 62 with S04.

Brb in about 6 months.

chefrex said:

i'm at a little over 3 months on this, please stop posting on this thread so i don't think about it. I can't wait!
cheers

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lol!

ChefRex said:

I'm at a little over 3 months on this, please stop posting on this thread so I don't think about it. I can't wait!
Cheers

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It's worth it man, trust me!

I'm going to start another batch in the next week or so. It's a special beer so I'm not going to let it get sucked down like some of my beers. But in order to keep some on hand I think there needs to be a carboy in the fermentation chamber all the time.

I just transfered mine to the secondary. Like many of the other have said, it was good enough to drink warm and flat right out of the bucket. I can't wait to see how it ages! I'll have to stash away some bombers and crack them out over next winter.