high gravity stout ?.?

so i purchased the following ingredients about 2 months ago with the idea of brewing a high gravity stout, probably an imperial


dme traditional dark 3 -3lb bsgs 9 lbs total
about 10 lbs of milled grains
willamette 4.8% pellets 2 pkgs of 1 oz each
warrior pellets 16.7% 2 pkgs of 1oz each
freshhops Fuggle 6.7%
2oz wyeast belg strong 1388

HOWEVER, i may have lost the recipe ,

and i am at a loss as what to do with all these ingredients,

thoughts, suggestions??

describe said 10lbs of milled grains please This will help to figure out how much of what you have.
belgian yeast to make a belgian RIS I am guessing?

I made my first RIS (2nd beer) a few months ago, it needs a long time to be ready.

well as i recalll it was some black roasted, chocolate, and crystal .....as to the percentages and exact amount i am not sure.

mass wise the grains are about the size of a motorcycle helmet perhaps a bit bigger.

you are right on about the russian imperial stout.
i totally figured it would need to age for 6 months and maybe even more but i like seeing how it develops and its nice to have stuff that will last for a loooong time in the cellar.

Is there any 2-row base grain mixed in with that? Because 10lbs of specialty grains is waywayway too much for a single 5 gallon batch.
Speaking of the size of all the grains... Motorcycle Helmet Stout sounds like a great name for the brew!

I have found a name for it, Motorcycle Helmet Stout. (when I figure out how I am going to brew it )

I really don't remember but more likely than not and I wanted it to be a very very very High Gravity beer.

I also remember that I had all the grains milled at the LHB store and we put them in rather large ziplock bag so I could brew it that weekend but life and/or laziness got in the way and it just sat there.

kenstogie said:

so i purchased the following ingredients about 2 months ago with the idea of brewing a high gravity stout, probably an imperial


dme traditional dark 3 -3lb bsgs 9 lbs total
about 10 lbs of milled grains
willamette 4.8% pellets 2 pkgs of 1 oz each
warrior pellets 16.7% 2 pkgs of 1oz each
freshhops Fuggle 6.7%
2oz wyeast belg strong 1388

HOWEVER, i may have lost the recipe ,

Click to expand...

losing the recipe might be a bonus.
9lbs of dme and that much steeping grain is going to give a lot of unfermentables.

3lbs of dark and 6lbs of light/x-light will give you the same colour and be more fermentable in a 5 gallon batch.

kenstogie said:

well as i recalll it was some black roasted, chocolate, and crystal .....as to the percentages and exact amount i am not sure.

Click to expand...

I'd cut that 10lb mix down by a 1/3. you still might need to ad some simple invert sugar late in the ferment to dry it out a bit.

So the bag of grains is not quite helmet sized but pretty close, i'd say about 3/4th the size. Gotcha on the DME Amandabab. Was wondering at what times am I adding the hops during the boil? I would think there must be some general guidelines. Thanks for the help

My 3lbs of crushed rotated barely, choc malt,and black patent was pretty big, so I can imagine 10 lbs is quite large. Are you sure its 10lbs? For my RIS I did 3oz centennial (high aa) at 60 min and 1oz Fuggles at 30 and 15 min I believe. High gravity stout can use a lot of hops because of all the malt to valence it out.

sweed said:

My 3lbs of crushed rotated barely, choc malt,and black patent was pretty big, so I can imagine 10 lbs is quite large. Are you sure its 10lbs? For my RIS I did 3oz centennial (high aa) at 60 min and 1oz Fuggles at 30 and 15 min I believe. High gravity stout can use a lot of hops because of all the malt to valence it out.

Click to expand...

Not sure about the actual weight, just a guesstimationm maybe only 7 lbs. Thanks for the ideas on the hops but I am still a little confused at to approximately when and how much to add the hops during the boil.

Look at the recipes in the data base, search the RIS recipes to see what and how much they use. That how I came up with mine. I'll tweak my next recipe, I think I'll use less specialty grains. I might have fermented too hot also, but I'll see how it turns out in a few months.

sweed said:

Look at the recipes in the data base, search the RIS recipes to see what and how much they use. That how I came up with mine. I'll tweak my next recipe, I think I'll use less specialty grains. I might have fermented too hot also, but I'll see how it turns out in a few months.

Click to expand...

Sweed, great tip and I did just that. Of course none of the hops in the recipes were the same as what I had, which leads me to ask the questions...

Of course it makes a difference when I add my hops in the boil but.. .... ....


**Would it "mess up" my beer significantly if I did them in a different order

**Do you tend to add the higher AA hops first then to the lower ones?

**Are there any general guidlines to adding hops in the boil?? see below

**Do i just add ALL the DME after steeping the grains?

**How long should I steep the grains? (I see about 15 mins in some of the recipes)



I did read these articles (http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/11/11/best-hop-techniques-for-homebrewing/ and https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/when-add-bittering-hops-8415/) but oddly enough has made it the general process more clear and more confusing all in one. It was (from my understanding) broken down to 3 stages....

A- First Wort Hops (start of Lautering),
B- Bittering Hops (added for the bulk of the boil to add bitterness, after first "hot break"),
C- Late Hop Additions (last 5-15 min of boil)

The other thing that was mentioned was "the longer you boil a hop the less aroma you have and the more bitterness it imparts. The less you boil the hops (ie flame out, or dry hops), the more aroma they impart, and the less bitteness they contribute"