Questions about a RIS Extract

What do you guys think? Should I add/subtract anything? Is there something that I should do to the process? I'm going to brew this on Mar. 4th, 2008, so any advice you could give before then would be great. I'm making my yeast starter tomorrow so it can sit for at least 24 hours. I'm not sure what the expected gravity is. Thank you in advance for your advice.

2 gal. Water
6.6 lbs Mutons Amber extract
6.6 lbs Mutons Dark extract
1 lb Crystal malt (60 LB), Toasted
1/2 lb chocolet malt
1/4 lb Black patent malt
1 lb roasted malt
WL Dry English yeast starter
1 oz Pheonix hops (10%) (bittering)
1 1/2 oz Willimette hops (4.8%) (bittering)
1 1/2 oz Willimette hops (4.8%) (flavoring)
1 oz Willimette hops (4.8%) (aromatic)

6 oz. Semi-Sweet Bakers Chocolet
6 cups Coffee

First come the malts in one gal. of water as the pot, as per a partial mash or steep? Sparge with one gal. boiling water. bring to a boil

At boiling add bittering hops, 6.6 lbs Amber extract.

30 mins boil, add flavoring, 6.6 lbs dark extact, bakers chocolet.

50 mins boil, add aromatic and coffee.

60 mins cool wort (it's winter here so I'm going to cover it and put it outside for a minute), add water to 5 gallon mark.

Don't add the coffee to the boil, it will give it an undesirable bitterness. Best thing to do is steep the coffee in the fridge for a couple days, then filter and add to secondary. Just putting the wort outside will take a loooong time to cool, I suggest you use an ice water bath. Also, 1 lb. is a lot of roasted malt, you might want to scale back a bit, it will have to condition for a long time with 1 lb.

okay...Thank you

what do you think about 1/2 lb of roasted?

coffee to the secondary eh? Okay.

1/2 lb roasted barley sounds a little better.

1 lb of Crystal 60 seems a bit much since you're likely to wind up with a high FG with 13+ lbs of extract. Also, why are you toasting the Crystal 60? It's already slightly roasted, and there are darker crystal grains available if that's what you're after.

Don't bother making a starter with dry yeast. Rehydrate it in CLEAN, room temperature water 15 minutes before pitching. Dry yeast is VERY viable straight out of the packet if you rehydrate it. Rehydrating the yeast in water helps you get a better cell count than if you were to sprinkle it directly into the wort, since dry yeast cells are somewhat vulnerable as they "wake up."

Yuri_Rage said:

Don't bother making a starter with dry yeast. Rehydrate it in CLEAN, room temperature water 15 minutes before pitching. Dry yeast is VERY viable straight out of the packet if you rehydrate it. Rehydrating the yeast in water helps you get a better cell count than if you were to sprinkle it directly into the wort, since dry yeast cells are somewhat vulnerable as they "wake up."

Click to expand...

It's actually White Labs liquid yeast. The name of the liquid yeast is "Dry English Ale." Its a liquid yeast used for Imperial Stouts. I also have a vial of White Labs "Super High Gravity" yeast. Which do you think would be better? I have a yeast White Labs yeast chart and according to that both work, but the Dry English is actually the best possible yeast for a RIS.

Ooooooooh, ok. Yes, indeed, make a starter! Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'd go with the Dry English Ale yeast over the High Gravity stuff.

2 gal. Water
6.6 lbs Mutons Amber extract
6.6 lbs Mutons Dark extract
1 lb Crystal malt (60 LB)
1/2 lb chocolet malt
1/4 lb Black patent malt
1/2 lb roasted malt
WL Dry English yeast starter
1 oz Pheonix hops (10%) (bittering)
1/2 oz Willimette hops (4.8%) (bittering)
1 1/2 oz Willimette hops (4.8%) (flavoring)
1 oz Willimette hops (4.8%) (aromatic)

8 oz. Semi-Sweet Bakers Chocolet

Brewed Yesterday. I added the 6.6 lbs of dark at 10 minutes left to boil. Chocolet was melted and added at beginning of the boil. I'm going to add a couple pots of Brazilian Espresso made in an Italian coffee maker to the secondary.

The O.G. came out at 1.100!

It's happily bubbleing away as we speak! I can't wait for this batch. The wort smelled SO good!

I'm thinking I'll bottle this in 22 oz. bottles. It'll come out to 24-22 oz. bottles and 9-12 oz. bottles, the 22's are going away for a very long time. I'll taste it with the 12 ouncers.

Racking it this Tuesday (03/11/08) with the coffee. We'll see what the gravity has hit then. It bubbled for a good 5 days. The airlock came to a rest Sunday.

Nice OG

Keep us posted that sounded interesting and extremely malty.

Don't rack to secondary until your FG has been established. You don't want fermenting in your secondary.

I don't think this is right. I may have to re-pitch, but I wanted to talk to you guys first. I racked to the secondary on top of some coffee and before I racked it the gravity was 1.040. I just checked the Gravity again and it is 1.036. My expected final gravity is between 1.029 and 1.019. Should I re-pitch? is this a case of a stuck ferment or is it a case of there are too many unfermentables in the recipe that it throws the F.G. off by .007 points? I drank the gravity test liquid and it tastes fairly hot with a lot of coffee coming through. There was none of the Chocolet flavor in the sample. After a minute I burped and there was a strong hop taste in the burp, but not so much in the drinking. Thanks for any advice you may have. I'll retest the gravity in a few days.

P.S. If I have to re-pitch should I do so with the same yeast? I do have some super high gravity yeast I could use as well or would this throw off the flavor?

You sadi you checked teh gravoty before trasnferring and it was 1.040. How many times (days) did you get this consecutive reading befor transferring. If just one you should not have trasnferred. The next reading of 1.036 shows it is still fermenting. Doesn't look stuck to me. Relax and check the gravity again tomorrow. ( or today if you posted yesterday). In the future wait until you hit your FG and it is constant for 2-3 days before racking.

I'd have to recheck to see if what you are using is the same yeast as what I used, but the yeast I used for my Scotch ale was a high flocculating yeast. I kind of move my bucket a bit, not enough to splash but enough to get the yeast back into suspension.

well I'll let it set one more week and re-check the gravity. I think I'm going to bottle this with a cup of molassas to cut the coffee flavor a bit. The chocolet got drown I think.

I bet the chocolate will come out after sitting in the bottles for a few weeks/months. I am having a lot of hops flavors starting to come out after 5th week that weren't there even on week 4

I agree it is a green RIS, but still. I think bottleing it with molassas would bring out some really interesting flavors. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bottling this on Tuesday with a cup of Molasses. I'm using 22 oz. bottles and I'll let this one set for a few months before trying it, seems like it'll take that long to get the carbonation up. I take that back, I'll try one before at like 2 weeks, because the wait is killing me.

Okay, so I bottled this, but I couldn't get the 22 oz. bottles. I had to make due with 48 12 oz. I boiled a Cup of mollasses with three cups of water. I also added three teaspoons of cocoa powder to the mollasses, just to give it a little chocolet kicker. The F.G. of this brew was 1.036 and It's going to be killer. I tasted the dregs fromt he bottling bucket and it was already increadible. This will be a very complex beer. I can't wait to taste the first one. I'm going to crack the first one at two weeks, to check carb. I think that with the high F.G. and the thickness of the mollasses this is going to take quite some time to carbonate. Has anyone ever bottled with mollasses? If so how long did it take to condition your bottles? Thank you for the help everyone and I'll let you know how everything tastes come time.