Russian Imperial Stout suggestions

I'm thinking of attempting my first all-grain. I've done many extract + speciality grain kits, but thought it was time to try all-grain, and making a recipe. As the subject says, I want to do a Russian imperial stout and was thinking of something along the lines of this for the recipe:

17 lbs Vienna malt
1 lbs Chocolate Rye malt
1 lbs Roasted Barley
1 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs Black Patent malt
0.5 lbs Dark Crystal malt

1.75 Summit Hops @ 60 mins
2.0 Cascade @ 0

White Labs Dry English Ale yeast

Any suggestion and/or comments welcomed.

0 minute addition will be a waste because you will want to age an imperial stout and any hop aroma from a 0 minute addition will be long gone and won't have added any bitterness

Thanks for the feedback. That came for the original recipe that I looked at and I also thought that it was a bit odd. But I am wondering if the use of the Vienna malt which I believe will add more of a malty flavor, than say a Pale Ale, should be balanced out with a second hop infusion maybe at 30

I like a mix of pale ale or MO and Munich for the base in my imperial stouts, personally.

I would agree with ditching the flameout addition, and I would lower or even drop the crystal addition. What size batch, and what are you figuring for OG? If you're nice and high (90+), you'll be left with plenty of body and sweetness without a crystal addition. Also, if you're aiming that high on you OG, I would mash low--150 - 151° or you may finish high and be cloying. You could always add some dark candy sugar or molasses if you want a little more complexity, too.

I agree about the 0' addition. I would move that to 20' or so. I also agree with the mix of Pale Malt and Munich (or vienna if you like). I do my RIS with all US 2-row base, but to each their own. You will have plenty of maltiness due to the huge grain bill. I don't think you need the crystal malt, but it's not going to hurt anything at 2.4% of the grain bill.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is yeast. With this big of a beer you want to make absolutely sure you pitch enough yeast. I would go with two of the 11g packs since you're using dry. I usually pitch on top of a smaller beer's yeast cake for my RIS, but 2 packs of dry should get you a good fermentation. When it starts to ferment, it's going to heat up quite a bit so be prepared for that so it doesn't get too hot.

Cheers and good luck, that mash is going to be a beast.

Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to keep the Vienna malt but maybe not all of the base.

9 lbs Pale Ale Malt - UK
8 lbs Vienna Malt
1 lbs Chocolate Rye malt
1 lbs Roasted Barley
1 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs Black Patent malt
0.5 lbs Dark Crystal malt

As far as OG is concerned I was looking at at least 96+. The yeast is actually liquid, just goes by the name "Dry English Ale", and I was figuring making a 2L starter for the batch. Would it be better to drop the Dark Crystal, adding molasses instead? both?

Are you doing your starter on a stir plate or no? If so, 2L is pretty good. If you're just shaking the flask by hand or something, 3L is probably safer.

Check out http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

I would drop the crystal because you don't need it, but as I said above it's not going to hurt anything. Similarly, molasses isn't going to bring a whole lot either. I don't personally like molasses, but I don't really like dark crystal a whole lot either.

I'm sorry if that's confusing. My recipes tend to be pretty simple. If I'm drinking a new recipe and think "Hmm, this really needs a little more of something" then I'll try to add something to fill that gap. My fairly simple RIS has plenty of dark roast, chocolate and stone fruit character without adding crystal. You get a lot of flavors out of base malt that you're not used to when you brew a beer this big. Plus aging will bring a lot of those characteristics too.

Just for comparison, my standard RIS is

5 Gallon Batch

75% US 2-row 15#
10% Quick oats 2#
5% Black Patent 1#
5% Chocolate 1#
5% Roast Barley 1#

I do a 120 minute boil

50 IBU Warrior at 75'
25 IBU Columbus at 20'

OG=1.100
FG=1.020

I use WLP001 California Ale

That doesn't look too bad as a starting point. I'd likely up the hops if you're going to age it extensively. My RIS ("Firesale Stout") is brewed when I harvest hops so I use up everything left from last years harvest in one big batch.
The 2013 version came in at 100+ IBU and after a year of aging was phenomenal. At 2 years it's almost better than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Like SnakeRidge suggested, I go use a long boil on my RIS.

What's the 90 or 120 minute boil for? I plan to make a RIS soon and have looked at a couple of promising recipes on here.

phyllobeddo said:

What's the 90 or 120 minute boil for? I plan to make a RIS soon and have looked at a couple of promising recipes on here.

Click to expand...

For me, the extra boil time means I can sparge with a larger volume since I'm going to boil off an extra ~1.25 gallons. This gives me better efficiency.

phyllobeddo said:

What's the 90 or 120 minute boil for? I plan to make a RIS soon and have looked at a couple of promising recipes on here.

Click to expand...

I use a long boil simply because on such a big beer my efficiency is crap so I like to get every drop of pre-boil wort I can and more boiloff gets me to target O.G. I also accept the notion that it darkens the flavor (although some people rightly argue that boiling isn't hot enough to caramelize the sugars any further).

Yes, I have a stirrer plate, and as far as I can tell from the various starter calculators, a 2 L starter should be fine. Not being a big fan of hoppy beers, I'm hesitant to up the IBU too high. I know it will mellow as it ages but ....

Just as a follow-up, based on comments from here and other places, I ended up with the following recipe:

11 lbs Maris Otter
4 lbs Vienna Malt
1 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Flaked Oats
1 lb Chocolate Rye Malt
1 lb Carafa II
0.5 lb Black Patent
0.5 lb Crystal 80

2 oz Pligrim @ 60
1 oz Willamette @ 20

Started with a 1.5 liter starter, cold crashed it, and decanted. Followed by a 2.0 liter starter which I also cold crashed and decanted.

Pre-boil specific gravity was 1.084, with a volume of 7.5 gallons

Fermentation started within 6 hrs, blew the airlock at 9 hrs Cleaned up the mess, and installed a blow off tube which I should have done in the first place. Live and learn, I guess.

Hope the recipe works out, and has the right structure for an Imperial Stout.

Good luck! I've got a closet with 'off white' walls from my first RIS explosion.