Imperial Stout - please give me your thoughts

This is my second imperial stout, I am going for REALLY, REALLY, dark...REALLY, REALLY, bitter and REALLY, REALLY, Strong.....I want some tar like flavors and sensations, plum, raisin, roast, burnt.......

22.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 78.57 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
1.00 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 3.57 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3.57 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 3.57 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 3.57 %
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.50 %] (90 min) Hops 28.6 IBU
2.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.50 %] (60 min) Hops 53.4 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [4.80 %] (30 min) Hops 13.6 IBU
2.00 oz Centennial [10.80 %] (0 min) Hops -



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.116 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.029 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 11.46 %
Bitterness: 95.5 IBU
Calories: 551 cal/pint
Est Color: 53.6 SRM
Yeast Nutrient at 10 minutes (no irish moss for this beer)
pacman yeast 1 gallon starter
pitch at 60, ferment in 62 ambient.
Aerate at pitching
Aerate again during propogation phase but before high krausen

I had a few more thoughts, possible mollases or licorice root.....i want to add an odd ingredient to set it apart but can't make up my mind.

Any input is always appreciated.

I like your recipe, its similar to an RIS that I made. A few ideas:

Your RIS might not have enough hops for REALLY bitter. I find that for high gravity beers, 90 - 100 ibu's makes balanced beer, so over shooting that by however much your willing will get you into the really bitter zone IMO.

What about the roasted barley?

and lastly, a no sparge will probably give you a helluva dark, opaque stout you can practically chew.

I hope your mash tun is huge!
Cheers!

I'd ditch the flame out hops and use roasted barley instead of black patent. Black patent tends to taste ashy / acrid / harsh to me. I think the flameout hops would either get lost or clash with everything else going on. I'd still use irish moss because I feel that the proteins it drops out contributes to the long term stability of the beer. I'd combine the 90 and 60 additions as they are essentially doing the same thing. Also, with that much crystal, you might consider mashing low (149-150) to ensure you get reasonable attenuation. A thick RIS is great, and cloyingly sweet one... not so much.

To piggyback off both cjpaul and wonderbread...

The ibu's may be a tough nut to crack. Most collective wisdom says that over a certain level (around 110 ibu I think) the bittering gain is imperceptible in a beer. With that in mind, it is tough (if not impossible) to get a really hoppy character out of an RIS.

While I also prefer roast barley to black patent for an RIS, the BP may be your best bet for an additional "bittering" quality. Although it does come along with harsh and acrid taste at high levels. Not bad if you like that, just not my cup of tea.

I, too, would ditch the late hop additions. The hop aroma will be pretty much lost in this beer with all the roasty, toasty, malt character going on. And while you could dry hop if you needed a hop aroma, you would need an absolute metric ton of hops to do so and make a difference. This style is absolutely malt driven, and while hops are absolutely needed to pull it off, big hop aroma may very well clash. Just my two cents.

Good luck.

I REALLY, appreciate your help with this. My last imperial stout was very good, but thin. 1.093OG/1.016FG (thanks Pacman at 70 degrees).

Here is my latest rendition, taking all of your input into account



22.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 77.19 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 7.02 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3.51 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 3.51 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 3.51 %
1.00 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 3.51 %
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.75 %
2.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.50 %] (90 min) Hops 70.6 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [4.80 %] (30 min) Hops 13.4 IBU



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.117 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.029 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 11.62 %
Bitterness: 84.0 IBU
Est Color: 55.3 SRM

I am going to mash overnight in two mash tuns, splitting the batch between two 40 quart tuns, a very thin mash at 2.0 gallons per pound and start at 150 degrees and use the combined first runnings for this brew. I will then use the second runnings for a smaller stout, I am assuming I could boil them down for 6 gallons of 1.040 or so...who knows.