First RIS recipe

Hey guys. Now that it's basically September, I want to start brewing for Christmas. I was thinking about doing an RIS, although I hear they are a bit more complex than your average beer. Just wanted to run this by people to see if it would work and offer it up for critique.


Fermentables:

12 lbs light LME
.75 lbs chocolate grain (steeped)
.5 lbs black barley (steeped)

60 minutes:

1.5 oz Centennial
.5 oz Cascade
.5 oz Willamette

5 minutes:

.5 oz Citra

Secondary:

1-2 oz cocoa nibs
.5 oz orange peel


Feel free to let me know if anything looks like it doesn't make sense.

that will make a good stout, but the orange peel and nibs are a bit out of place. Well the orange more than the nibs. RIS are more complex but that doesnt mean you need weird ingredients, its usually because of the large grain bill required and a good handle on fermentation due to the OG. I do think they seem to have a bit more depth in flavor than a regular stout so I like to add a touch of something like special B to give it a hint of plum/raisin flavor. But whatever you end up using is up to you. Some brown sugar may be good to include since itll be hard to dry that sucker out with all the LME

I wouldnt do the citra at 5min or any flavor hop addition for an RIS. The hops are just there in the background, at least in every one i've tasted. You could get away with a single 60min addition of 1 type of hops and get the same result as you would from your 3 60min additions

I would add more willamette instead of citra, i like the more english-y hops for RIS. Also, I'd add a pound of C-80 to the steep. I like the mouthfeel from that. Then again, I like my RIS to pour like motor oil. Make sure to pitch plenty of yeast, and consider adding more of the same yeast a day or so before bottling if you plan on bottle conditioning.

Or course, in the end, do what you want to, thats what brewing is about (at least to me). Those are just some things I've had luck with when brewing a big RIS (my last two were 14.5%)

If you wanted a big RIS by Christmas, you should have started brewing it around March or April. They need a good, long conditioning time to even be a "young drinker". I have an 8.2% RIS that I just bottled & won't even touch until near the Superbowl next year.

So most of you have mentioned that Citra isn't really appropriate in an RIS, which I kind of figured. My goal with that was to impart some citrusy flavor to it to go with the orange peel for a chocolate orange type taste in the background. Since I've never actually used this hop before, I could easily be barking up the wrong tree. To get better handle on this, what would end up happening taste and aroma-wise if I used it and how would it differ from using more traditional English style hops?

rmiller90 said:

So most of you have mentioned that Citra isn't really appropriate in an RIS, which I kind of figured. My goal with that was to impart some citrusy flavor to it to go with the orange peel for a chocolate orange type taste in the background. Since I've never actually used this hop before, I could easily be barking up the wrong tree. To get better handle on this, what would end up happening taste and aroma-wise if I used it and how would it differ from using more traditional English style hops?

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If you want an orange-like citrus from your hops, use Amarillo over Citra. Citra is a little more tropical, like Mango, Papaya, and the like, from my experience

English hops tend to be more mild in their flavor contribution, and tend lend more herbal/earthy flavors.

I wouldn't bother with 5m additions as all the aroma will fade. 15m might still leave some flavour. I think the mention of sugar above (either some muscovado or some invert) is worth following. Do 12lb of LME dry out well? You can also think about adding Brett after primary has finished.

I would steep a couple more kinds of crystal malt and maybe some biscuit/victory, possibly some aromatic or special B. Your LME probably already has some light crystal or Carapils in it, but it's not very complex, and a RIS is about layers of flavor not just ABV. Your recipe looks like it won't be that complex, just roasty with some chocolate.

For the hops, you'll be aging it long enough that most hop aroma will be gone, so the 5 minute addition won't get you much of anything. Move it up to 30 or 45?

mixing all those 60 min hops won't do anything but add bitterness...no reason to do anything but a clean typical bittering hop in pretty good amounts. most stouts have a lot more hops then people realize, to balance out the sweetness, but don't go TOO crazy. toss away anything after 60. I agree with adding some crystals in there to layer the flavor. The orange peel....eh...I dunno. Maybe make 6 gallons if possible and put 1 gal aside with the orange. It would be a shame (and extremely expensive) to possibly trash a whole batch if it doesn't turn out well.

I wouldn't add much crystal, though. Good ways to increase complexity are different invert sugars, amber malt, brown malt, different roast malts. Brown and amber malt by themselves provide layers of flavour, they are really hard to pin down. Simple sugars are good to keep the body drinkable while crystal will turn it into used deep fat fryer oil.