Imperial stout guidance

I am planning on brewing an imperial stout and using bourbon barrel staves for aging. Here is my grain bill any feedback would be nice

16.5 Maris otter
.75 chocolate
.75 roasted barley
.5 carafa 3
.5 honey malt
.5 crystal 80
.5 caramunich
.25 special b

75 min boil

2oz warrior at 60
.5oz Perle at 10
.5oz Perle at 0

Wlp007

I would definitely lose the honey malt, and probably the C80 as well. Imperial stouts usually finish with high enough FG that they have enough residual sweetness without using any crystal malts. I would maybe consider subbing some of your MO for Munich, too, and possibly upping your roasted barley a bit...I usually don't go less than 1.25 lbs in 5 gallons for my imperial stouts. A little (~0.25 lbs) molasses or dark candy sugar is an option as well to add some complexity.

Make sure you pitch enough healthy yeast, too, and oxygenate before pitching and again at ~12 hours.

So I got rid of the honey malt and crystal
Made the roasted barley 1.25 and added in .5 Munich

I like my stouts medium bodied with coffee, raisin and chocolaty (but not like a chocolate stout) flavors if that help

instead of upping the roasted barley maybe throw in .25 oz or so of black patent for some more/different roastiness, might go well with the bourbon/oak notes.

I would maybe lose the Special B and CaraMunich (I love them both) and add some Candi Syrup.

A buddy of mine had some luck using the CSI D-90 in his RIS.

Would your reason to use Candi sugar to dry out the beer cuz other wise it provides 0 flavor

Bottled mine after oaking a couple weeks ago. I upped the special B to something like 1# and used dark home made candy syrup and was thrilled with the balance of roasted and fruit. The candi syrup does dry out the beer some, but the darker stuff absolutely adds stone fruit/raisin flavors.

As already stated, dont worry too much about malt flavor/body as there are tons of residual sugars.

I found that young oak really dries out the perception of a beer, and that it can take up to a year to mellow and add to flavors in a beer instead of covering them up, so plan to store the beer for some time, of course, YMMV.

Coffee flavors: chocolate malt and de-bittered black, or brown malt. Raisin-Toffee: a touch of C-120. I don't know how long you plan on aging your I-S before drinking, but in my experience (a few times actually), when young the chocolate malt will add a chocolate nose w/o significant "chocolate" flavor. Somewhere between 3 and 9 months the chocolate fades and a strong note of coffee comes to the front, wait another 3 or so months and the coffee starts to fade a little and the chocolate flavor, nose, essence, (the REALLY amazing stuff) will compliment chocolate/peanut butter ice cream like you cannot believe!
Personally I really like MO, but I would not want my I-S to lead with biscuit-y sour dough type flavors. Ferment cool and long, and use a HUGE starter for the cleanest possible flavor.

If you can get your hands on them, get some debittered black malt and maybe sub about half your Maris Otter with MCI Stout Malt.

*If* you decide to use candi sugar or something like that, consider adding that as krausen is falling. Keep that in mind when looking at headspace.

Full disclosure, I can't handle RISs. I prefer milk stouts. I have brewed a big ol' RIS before, though, was told by a stout lover that it was pretty good, even.

Lots of healthy yeast and a blowoff tube are recommended. Last RIS I brewed blew the stoppers off.

simcoe26 said:

Would your reason to use Candi sugar to dry out the beer cuz other wise it provides 0 flavor

Click to expand...

clear candi sugar won't, but the darker candi sugars (as suggested above) will